Iraq has often been called the cradle of civilisation. Even the most Eurocentric of historians have had little hesitation in tracing the cultural genealogy of Europe back to Iraq (Mesopotamia) through the debt classical Greece owed to it in learning and art. India too has its history entwined in various ways with that of Iraq – a country which gave India its first ever known name, ‘Meluhha’, some 4,500 years ago.

Not only does Iraq contain the world’s earliest cities, but has vast collections of books on clay tablets in cuneiform characters, some going back of 2000 BC, including the world’s earliest inscribed codes of law. It has preserved incredibly fine works of arts in metal, stone, brick and terracotta dating back to 2000 BC and much beyond. These have been diligently recovered from hundreds of sites in the last two centuries by archaeologists from all over the world, and by Iraqi archaeologists themselves.

Many of the most valuable of these finds were put in the National Museum of Antiquities, Baghdad, which became a repository not only of very ancient artefacts, but also of the works from the dazzling periods of Islam, notably that of the great Abbasids (9th and 10th centuries) and the Ottoman Empire. The Museum was deservedly reckoned as one of the seven richest centres of historical artefacts in the world.

But no longer: the "Coalition Forces" led by the US, have wilfully ensured its destruction. The policy of encouraging looting of civil and public property with a view to secure an element of support from hooligans and criminals has been a marked element in the final stages of the US-British campaign to subjugate Iraq once it became clear that no section of Iraq’s population was prepared to greet the invaders as "liberators".

Even western correspondents have reported that private houses and public buildings, warehouses, libraries and hospitals have been looted bare and burnt down in Basra and then Baghdad and other Iraqi cities in full view of the occupying forces and with their full connivance. Even the UN agencies have described the situation as "anarchy" and a plain violation of the Geneva Convention by the occupying forces.

The ransacking of the National Museum by armed looters began on March 10 soon after the Iraqi forces had been driven out of the area of Baghdad where the Museum is located. Despite the presence of US tanks in the vicinity, the looting continued for two days unchecked till, it is reported, little that is valuable was left. Such museum officials, attendants and archaeologists as tried to prevent the looting were threatened with being denounced to US authorities.

The US forces cannot plead that they were caught by surprise. Even before the invasion began, the American Association of Museum Art Directors, the American Council for Cultural Policy and the Archaeological Institute of America issued statements calling on the US to protect cultural sites in Iraq during the impending war. McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago told Washington Post that he and other concerned specialists had repeatedly requested the Pentagon to prevent harm to the National Museum and other collections; but the pleas of the scholars fell on deaf ears.

The US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to the news of the National Museum’s destruction, put his philosophy pithily in one sentence: "Bad things happen in life, and people do loot." Ominously, a powerful dealers’ lobby in the USA is already demanding that the much-trumpeted US law against sale of stolen cultural artefacts in US be waived with regard to Iraq, so as to enable the dealers to make profits out of the artefacts looted from the National Museum and other Museums and libraries in Iraq.

The value of the loss cannot be fully estimated, even in terms of money. We are told the pieces lost include some of the great works of world art: a solid Sumerian gold harp, a sculptured woman’s head from Uruk, both over 4000 years old; ancient jewellery of similar dates; cuneiform tablets containing invaluable records of the past; friezes, tapestry, works of Islamic art.

An Iraqi archaeologist, Raid Abdul Ridhar Muhammad, grieving over this organised destruction of Iraq’s rich heritage, told The New York Times, "This is not a liberation, this is a humiliation (for the Iraqi people)". Perhaps, this is what the attempt has been throughout: to destroy the Iraqi people’s sense of national dignity and force them into utter subjection.

What has happened to the National Museum in Baghdad is, however, not only a crime against the people of Iraq; it is a crime against the whole of humanity, since the great heritage of Iraq is also a precious part of the world’s heritage. It is significant that the US and Britain have technically protected themselves, the US by not signing, and UK by not ratifying the Hague Convention of 1954 which required protection of cultural and religious sites during hostilities. Obviously these two powers think they have a right to target and destroy whatever they wish of the cultural heritage of other countries.

SAHMAT calls upon all people, especially, historians, archaeologists, artists, literary persons, and lovers of cultural heritage, to join in the worldwide protest against this heinous act. It is time that UNESCO and cultural organisations of any worth throughout the world should also speak up. If there are no courts yet to punish the real perpetrators of this crime, let us all so act that the criminals will remain ever bound to the pillory in the eyes of the civilised world, despite all the state-of-art weaponry that they might possess.

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