The hand-over of sovereignty from coalition forces to Iraq on 30 June under President Ghazi al-Yawer and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is not expected to have much direct impact on archaeological sites and museums. In advance of this date, on 4 May, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer handed over full powers to the Ministry of Culture. Mufid al-Jazaeri remains as minister, as do his senior staff, including Baghdad museum director Donny George. A much more important political date will be next January, when power is due to be handed over to a transitional government, following elections.
Zainab Bahrani, an Iraqi who taught at New York’s Columbia University, has been appointed to advise Baghdad’s Ministry of Culture. She is the senior consultant to minister Mufid al-Jazaeri and coalition advisor Ambassador Mario Bondioli Osio. Dr Bahrani recently arrived in Iraq, taking over from John Russell, who last month returned to Boston’s Massachusetts College of Art after a year in Baghdad. She was born in Baghdad, but left as a child, and now holds joint Iraqi-US citizenship.
Dr Bahrani was initially a vociferous critic of American military intervention. In May last year she wrote that “US troops not only neglected to protect historical sites and cultural property; they abused such sites themselves... Blame must be placed with the Bush Administration for a catastrophic destruction unparalleled in modern history.”
It later became clear that the looting was much less serious, and Dr Bahrani has since been focussing her efforts on tackling illicit digging at archaeological sites.
At Babylon, 80 kilometres south of Baghdad, there have been recent reports of damage caused by contractors working for Polish troops who occupy Camp Alpha, a coalition military base. On 11 June a statement was issued by Bremer and US military chief, Lt General Ricardo Sanchez, saying that contractors had been ordered to end all activities there which might cause archaeological damage. The statement also called for “the relocation of all Coalition troops in the immediate area of Babylon”. At around the same time four men were arrested for selling antiquities illegally dug at Babylon.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Full power to the Ministry of Culture'