My friend who works on the Hill just forwarded me this Dear Colleague
letter which is now circulating in the House of Representatives.
I am sending it to the list as an FYI on the Iraqi Culture saga, and,
to alert anyone who would like to contact their Representative to urge
them to cosponsor (or not) this bill.
Kristen
-----Original Message-----
From: Morgan, Sarah
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 3:56 PM
To: Dear Colleague
Subject: Dear Colleague; Iraq; H.R. 2009 -- "The Iraq Cultural
Heritage
Protection Act"
THE IRAQ CULTURAL HERITAGE PROTECTION ACT
H.R. 2009
WHY WE NEED THIS BILL NOW..........
Aren't there import restrictions against Iraq already in place?
At this moment, efforts are underway to lift the sanctions against
Iraq.
While that is generally a good thing, once it happens, there will be
nothing
to prevent illegally-procured cultural material from coming in with
legitimate Iraqi trade goods.
But it's already illegal to import stolen material.
While it is illegal to import stolen goods, you have to know what
material
has been stolen in the first place. Take the Baghdad Museum.
Thousands,
perhaps tens of thousands of pieces were taken, and although most of
these
were inventoried, the Museum's records were completely trashed.
Computer
disks were destroyed, and photos and paper records ransacked and tossed
into
massive piles. It will take months for the records to be put back in
order,
and more time after that to compare the inventory with the records to
find
out what's missing. Even then, many of the pieces could be broken
down,
disguised, or have their inventory numbers removed.
Can't we take care of it with existing law?
Under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA), a
nation can request that it and the U.S. enter into a bilateral
agreement
under which the U.S. will impose import restrictions in order to
prevent
cultural property stolen or illegally exported from entering the U.S.
However, this process takes time - the State Department has to publish
a
Federal Register notice, then a special committee has to meet, and then
a
recommendation report has to be drafted, and a bilateral agreement
negotiated before import restrictions can be imposed. In the past,
this
process has taken at least a year. But the real problem is that THERE
IS NO
GOVERNMENT IN IRAQ TO REQUEST THE RESTRICTIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
But the President can impose emergency import restrictions under the
CPIA.
It is true that under the CPIA, the President can impose a set of
emergency
import restrictions in the event of a crisis situation where pillaging
is
rampant, but the process described above still has to be completed.
The
only difference between the regular process and the "emergency" process
is
that the U.S. can impose import restrictions without a bilateral
agreement
being finalized.
Just how big is this problem?
It wasn't just the Baghdad Museum that was looted. Museums in cities
across
Iraq were pillaged, including in Mosul and Basra. Archaeological sites
such
as the ruins of Babylon and many lesser-known places have also been
targeted. Objects from these sites are even more difficult to trace,
because they have never been recorded. And it is still going on - just
a
few days ago armed looters held up the staff of the site at Nineveh and
made
off with 3000 year old bas relief sculptures.
So what would H.R. 2009 do?
First, it would prohibit the importation of any Iraqi antiquity or
cultural
object that left Iraq after
August 2, 1990, the date that sanctions were imposed. If documentation
can
be shown that it was shipped out of Iraq prior to that date, then there
is
no problem. This provision of the bill has the effect of keeping the
current sanctions in place, but only for Iraqi antiquities and
cultural
materials.
It would amend the CPIA to grant the President REAL emergency powers,
and
put import restrictions in place without the elaborate procedure
currently
required. It would also allow the President to impose import
restrictions
for nations that are not party to the Convention on Cultural Property.
This
would help stem the flow of looted artifacts from such nations as
Afghanistan, where looting is endemic, and there is little hope that
its
government will join the Convention anytime soon.
If you have questions or need further information about H.R.
2009,"The
Iraq Cultural Heritage Protection Act," or to have your name added as
a
cosponsor, please contact Christine Rogala with Congressman English at
x5-5406 or Sarah Morgan with Congressman Leach at x5-6576.
Sincerely,
/s Phil English
Member of Congress
/s James A. Leach
Member of Congress
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
http://www.arlisna.org//membership.html
Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]
