Why are many countries in Africa vulnerable to looting, and how can they defend themselves?

In Mali, antiquities dealers employ ‘[w]hole villages and encampments of immigrant workers’ to strip-mine archaeological sites (Shyllon, 2011: 139). In 2002, 56,000 looted Egyptian antiquities were seized in a single operation – unsurprisingly, in London (Shyllon, 2011: 136). Of the 35 places on the List of World Heritage in Danger, 15 are in Africa (though only 3 of those are cultural heritage sites).

African nations are some of the richest in archaeological resources, some of the most vulnerable to looting from archaeological sites and theft from museums, and some of the least able to prevent smuggling and illicit export. Here, I want to review why.

My most important sources were three Africanist experts – conservator Patrick Darling (PD), lawyer Folarin Shyllon (FS) and archaeologist Téréba Togola (TT). I’ve combined their ideas with some of the conclusions from my own (as-yet-unpublished) work on the politics and ethics of archaeologists’ responses to subsistence digging (SH).

Problems

(Then) Mali’s National Director of Arts and Culture, Téréba Togola, listed some of the key social and economic problems that drive the looting, or support the illicit trading, in Africa.

1. Economic insecurity:
   • lack of alternative resources, where it leads to exploitation of archaeological resources, e.g. Mali (SH, here);
   • existence of alternative resources, where it leads to conflict over those resources, e.g. Nigeria (SH, here);
   • widespread, chronic, deep poverty (ALL);
   • general precarity of existence (SH, here);
2. Health insecurity:
   • exposure to disease (TT);
   • lack of access to healthcare (SH);
3. Natural disasters and other humanitarian crises:
   • droughts (TT);
   • famines (TT);
   • conflict (SH);
4. Lack of education (FS/SH/TT);
5. Corruption, and lack of political will or law enforcement, which allow the illicit business to flourish (RA/FS).

Threats to cultural heritage

Some activities can expose sites to looting:

1. Development,
   • which reveals sites, and thus exposes them to looting (SH, here);
   • for which sites may be looted, to prevent their excavation/preservation delaying/blocking development (SH, here); particularly,
   • Mining and mineral extraction, the licenses for which are used as covers for illicit excavation of antiquities (PD);
2. Tourism, which provides a mass market for looted antiquities (ALL); and

Legal failures of the profession and the state

Nigeria’s Olabisi Onabanjo University law professor, Folarin Shyllon, considered ways for African states to regain previous losses of cultural property:

1. Litigation in foreign courts is impractical, because it is difficult to prove the national origins and illicit excavation of archaeological material; and it can also be difficult to prove the institutional origins and illicit acquisition of poorly-documented archaeological collections.
2. The 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property is useful; but it requires ratification, and there can be technical difficulties.
3. The 1978 UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation would be useful, but African states are pessimistic and exhausted.
4. Bilateral agreements(and multilateral agreements) are useful, if African institutions and states make the effort to initiate them.
   • For instance, African museum professionals approached European and American colleagues within the International Council of Museums (ICOM): they agreed a Red List Africa database of endangered cultural property, which ‘[is] protected by national legislation, banned from export, and may under no circumstances be put on sale’.
5. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) via mediation/negotiation (agreement through a non-commenting third party) and conciliation (agreement through an advisory third party) can be useful; but they are voluntary, private and confidential.
6. And (ADR) arbitration (decision by an expert third party) is effective, but it can be prohibitively expensive, and antiquities market countries may be unwilling to fund antiquities source countries’ emptying of the market countries’ museums.

Parts of the solution: the duties of the profession, the state and/or the international community

Prof. Shyllon, Dr. Togola and I proposed ways for countries to prevent or minimise any future loss of cultural property.

1. aid, to remove the immediate need to loot, which could be provided at cultural heritage sites as well as institutional centres (SH);
2. development, to remove the long-term causes of looting (SH);
   • sustainable heritage initiatives (e.g. cultural tourism and heritage arts and crafts), if they pay a living wage and provide good working conditions (SH);
     • license trade in insignificant cultural property, if it generates a significant income for the licensing state (SH/FS);
     • ban unlicensed export of cultural property (FS);
3. state ownership of archaeological resources (SH/FS);
4. implementation and standardisation/harmonisation of laws (FS/TT);
5. creation of sites and monuments records (SMRs) (TT);
6. registration and digitisation of collections (FS);
7. education: cultural awareness programmes in local communities (SH/TT); and
8. internationally-coordinated law enforcement (through police, customs and immigration) (SH/FS/TT).

Sources

Atwood, R. 2011: “The Nok of Nigeria”. Archaeology, Volume 64, Number 4. Available at: http://www.archaeology.org/1107/features/nok_nigeria_africa_terracotta.html

Darling, P J. 2000: “The Rape of Nok and Kwatakwashi: the Crisis in Nigerian Antiquities”. Culture Without Context, Number 6. Available at: http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/projects/iarc/culturewithoutcontext/issue6/darling.htm

Hardy, S A. 2004: “Is there a human right to loot?” London: Institute of Archaeology, University College London – unpublished MA dissertation.

Shyllon, F. 2000: “The Recovery of Cultural Objects by African States through the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions and the Role of Arbitration”. Uniform Law Review (Revue de Droit Uniforme), N.S. 5, 219-241. Available at: http://portal.unesco.org/en/files/48671/13173107021V-2-0219__-__Prof._Shyllon.pdf/V-2-0219%2B%2B-%2B%2BProf.%2BShyllon.pdf and http://www.unidroit.org/English/publications/review/articles/2000-2-shyllon-e.pdf

Shyllon, F. 2011: “Looting and illicit traffic in antiquities in Africa”. In Manacorda, S and Chappell, D, (Eds.). Crime in the art and antiquities world: Illegal trafficking in cultural property, 135-142. London: Springer.

Togola, T. 2002: “The rape of Mali’s only resource”. In Brodie, N and Tubb, K W, (Eds.). Illicit antiquities: The theft of culture and the extinction of archaeology, 250-256. London: Routledge.

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). 2012: “List of World Heritage in Danger”. World Heritage Centre. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/danger