ADDIS ABABA– A joint webinar meeting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the African Union (AU), and Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) held on Thursday stressed the implementation of international laws for effective protection of Africa’s cultural property.
The meeting was held under the theme “Impact of Armed Conflicts on Cultural Property: Ensuring protection of our shared heritage under International Law. The session went along with the AU’s dedication of 2021 as the year of “Arts, Culture and Heritage: Levelers for Building Africa We Want”. Chairing the meeting, AU Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian and Social Affairs Amira Elfadil said that the endorsement of Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols by African countries would bring efficient preservation artifacts in the continent. Noting that protection of cultural property is one the main goals of AU’s Agenda 2063, the commissioner indicated that the Executive Council directed the development of the AU Model Law on the Protection of Cultural Property and Heritage (Model Law).
The law aims to effectively protect cultural property and heritage in times of war and armed conflict. As to her, the objectives of the Model Law are to institute, regulate and strengthen the protection of cultural property and heritage, including those that are yet to be discovered. The law also aims to devise ways and means for the full protection and preservation of cultural property and heritage in Africa.
“Article 39 of the Model Law puts an obligation on AU Member States, during war and armed conflict to take all measures to protect cultural property and heritage as a matter of priority.” ICRC President Peter Maurer said on his part that the committee considers cultural property and heritages are properties of all human kind and it has given a special place for partnership with AU and its Member States to the protection of and preservation of artifacts.
Applauding AU Member States that have been endorsed international and continental cultural protection laws and conventions into domestic legislations, Maurer called on others to follow the former’s suit. By the same token, IPSS Director Yonas Adaye (PhD) noted that the intensified armed conflicts and the growing presence of militant and terrorist groups including Al-Shabab and Boko Haram in Africa put cultural properties in several countries in solemn danger.
“In recent years, there has been significant destruction of cultural property during armed conflicts,” the director stated, adding that the damage is no longer just collateral; cultural property is deliberately targeted. UNESCO Director of Culture and Emergencies, Lazare Eloundou pointed that the protection of cultural property is one of the key pillars of the organization’s partnership with AU and its Member States and it has put a legal framework to that end.
UNESCO has also provided trainings for members of African armed forces in the protection of cultural property and heritage and refrain from exposing such to risk of destruction or damage and from acts of hostility directed towards such property. The threat posed by armed conflict to cultural property could be mitigated through better implementation of international laws applicable to such situations and African countries should manifest meaningful involvement in the domestication of those laws, the panelists remarked.
BY BILAL DERSO
The Ethiopian Herald May 8/2021
