UNSPECIAL No 618– Mai -May 2003

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Problems of ownership for 
african cultural heritage

Seble Demeke, UNOG

It all happened during a Conference-Exhibition at the World Council of Churches (WCC), organized under the umbrella of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Geneva, on 5 April 2003. The Conference was on Ethiopian religious art and literature, discussed by international scholars from Ethiopia, Germany and Switzerland. The main thrust of the Conference was to raise international awareness among Ethiopians living abroad and foreign communities about the problem of the fast-dwindling Ethiopian cultural heritage. The awareness campaign also included what approaches should be taken to have recognition of the right of ownership of Ethiopian cultural property which are to be found outside of the country.

The Conference was educational and an eye-opener to most of us. I have been aware that there is a world-wide problem on the subject of unlawful transfer of cultural objects, and that the poor countries are seeing their cultural heritage diminish from day to day. The level of the seriousness of the problem was made clear to me by this Conference. Since then my curiosity for knowing more about the issue has increased and I decided to check it out on the Internet to see which other countries in Africa are in a situation similar to Ethiopia. The availability of such information was in abundance, since the different Internet search engines are full of this topic. I can’t help but thank Mr. Bill Gates for developing the Microsoft Software programmes. Otherwise, we would have been still typing on our manual/electric typewriters and I would have never been able to get all the information on the unlawful transfer of cultural property from the poor to the rich countries. No wonder the whole world is scrambling to obtain the latest information technology. I can assure you that it is worth the struggle and sometimes the battle.

Many countries are hard hit by the problem of illicit transfer of their cultural heritages. Most of these countries have an ancient history and are in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In some African countries, “all the archaeological sites are systematically looted… Whole sections of our history have been wiped out and can never be reconstituted”. “Kléna Sanogo from the Institute of Human Sciences in Bamako (Mali) says that the phenomenon of looting of cultural material from Mali has grown progressively into a vast commercial enterprise which today has reached proportions which no-one would hesitate to call cultural genocide” (http://www.afrol.com).

The excavated remains of the Mijikenda tribe are more likely to be found in European museums than in the Kenyan Coast. Terra- cotta statues of Mali, the bronze Ife Head of Nigeria, similar cultural objects of Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo (DR), Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Uganda have become a thriving business to unscrupulous local middlemen who have helped the transfer of their cultural heritage to other art capitals world-wide.

Ethiopia, a country of millenarian cultural and religious history, grapples with the problem of her fast-disappearing cultural objects. These include ancient coins, inscriptions, steles, crosses, manuscripts, paintings and church objects. Of all these, manuscripts seem to be the choice of objects to be carried out of the country by scholars, travellers and collectors. This is because they combine historical, literary and artistic values.

Before the eighteenth century, Ethiopian Emperors sent sacred books to Ethiopian monasteries in Jerusalem and Egypt and also pilgrims took them with them. However, their number is not significant. The manuscripts that were carried out after the eighteenth century numbered in the thousands, some of them illuminated, original, unique and therefore irreplaceable. The latter is particularly true, since genuine manuscript writing and illustrating has ceased to exist now for all practical purposes. It would only be correct to cite as an example, an article written by “Frank O’Donnell” in the newspaper “The Scotsman”, dated 6 December 2001, that “A sacred Ethiopian artefact has been discovered in a church cupboard in Edinburgh – 130 years after it was seized by British soldiers in a bloody siege. The wooden tablet, or Tabot, is the most holy part of an Ethiopian church and represents the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites used to carry the Ten Commandments as they travelled to the Promised Land. It was taken during the Siege of Magdala in 1868 but was only discovered in St. John’s Episcopal Church, in Edinburgh, earlier this year…The church now plans to hand the artefact back to the Ethiopians during a ceremony in the capital next month.

The Tabot – which is so sacred it is forbidden to photograph it – is a 17cm square block carved with a geometric African inscription, dedicating it to the Ethiopian saint Gebremenfes Qidus as well as to Jesus and the Virgin Mary” (http://news.scotsman.com). In this case, at least the congregation has acknowledged the ownership and was willing to return the Tabot, which is priceless and represents a religious cultural identity to millions of Ethiopians.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that among 12 items exhibited at the UNESCO WORLD CULTURAL HERITAGE forum in Tashkent (Russian Federation), four were Ethiopian manuscripts, written between 1490 and 1513 and having many illuminated images. Billions of dollars worth of cultural treasures are taken out of the country illegally and are traded around the world every year. In the case of Ethiopian cultural objects, particularly manuscripts, they often change hands and are difficult to trace. One can go on and on and write a book on the subject.

Now what should be the solution to this problem?

There are no ready-made solutions. The issue touches upon the interests of many countries positively and negatively, as well as those individuals who are in the profession of collecting antiquities and other valuable art works. However, steps need to be taken to correct the wrongs done so far to some parties in the deal. To do this would only be ethical and morally justified. As far as the United Nations system is concerned, the organization that has the front line mandate is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which “is responsible for the international legal protection of Cultural heritage. It manages the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague Convention), 1954 and, its Protocols, The Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 1970, the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention), 1972, and the eleven recommendations of UNESCO for the protection of cultural heritage”. The organization is also in charge of the “Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation”. The latter Committee was created thirty years ago and has recommended an international Code of Ethics for dealers in cultural property:
(http://www.unesco.org).

Another United Nations system organization which has recently given importance to cultural heritages and traditional knowledge and gained world-wide appreciation in particular from developing countries, for giving the issue the importance that it deserves, is the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The recently added programme of WIPO dealing with the protection of cultural property rights is the “Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore”. According to the information from the WIPO web site (http://www.wipo.int), while the policy issues concerning Traditional Knowledge (TK) are broad and diverse the Intellectual Property (IP) issues are broken down into two key themes: 1. “Defensive protection of TK, or measures that other parties do not successfully obtain IP rights over pre-existing TK”, and
2. “Positive Protection of TK, such as the use of existing legal mechanisms (contract, access restrictions and IP)”.

 

Therefore, the world community does not lack international legal instruments for protecting cultural objects. The problem is that if the world bodies, such as UNESCO and WIPO do not have the means to enforce approved and agreed international instruments, what good is it to have them on paper just for reference purposes for people like me who write articles? As mentioned by a very high official of the United Nations within the context of a UN Special interview on the effectiveness of the United Nations system, he stated that “I think that there is a more mature conscience that postponements, a practice not only used but also abused, must be replaced by timely decisions. The responsibility is for all, Member States and Secretariats alike.” The challenge for organizations such as UNESCO and WIPO is now, how best to make these legal instruments binding by the different parties. One possible approach, among many others, might be to do an inventory of cultural heritage objects to be found outside of their original countries, determine their legal status, how they came into the possession of those who are presently using them and/or keeping them, and a final step would be to prepare a database, based on the findings of the surveys and make this information available to Member States suggesting to them actions to be taken to put these matters in order.

In the suggestion to be made to Member States, it would be useful to take into account that the most threatening danger against the survival of cultural heritages from the poor countries is the lack of the means to properly care for what remains in the country. International cooperation in providing the financial, legal and technical means to safeguard cultural heritages is of paramount importance. In addition, I believe that, wherever African and other continents Cultural Heritage objects are available and being used for exhibitions and raising funds by State(s) or individual collectors, an agreed procedure should be established whereby legally, a certain percentage of the income from the benefits go to the owners of the property on a continuous basis for care and maintenance as well as to strengthen the national infrastructures, such as the Ministries of Cultures, National Museums, Universities and Libraries which in most countries are responsible for cultural objects. However, for those cultural heritage objects, which are priceless and are integral to the sheer identity of the nation, like the Tabot in Ethiopia, they should be returned to their original owners.

I am fully aware that the Africans, and cultures on other continents cannot change what has happened to their cultural heritage in the past, but they should get together under the auspices of UNESCO and WIPO, to see how through legal and other means they could better protect and preserve their cultural heritage in the future.

To conclude, I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to my husband, who among his gratifying and distinguished career was a staff member of UNESCO and the World Bank, and hence has a thorough knowledge of the subject, for helping me to prepare this article. I express my thanks to him most of all for providing me with copies of the pictures of Ethiopian Cultural Heritages and their histories. As you will see from the explanations provided, all of them are currently outside of the country and were exhibited to the public during the Conference in Geneva.

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