New York Senator Gillibrand and Cultural Policy

.
Readers may remember that on March 21st the Cultural Policy Research Institute (a thinly disguised reformation of the American Council for Cultural Policy ACCP) organized under the patronage of New York senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand a "seminar" in Washington attacking the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. About two months ago I wrote to the Senator asking for clarification of her views on the international trade in illegally exported dugup archaeological artefacts.

I noted at the time that in the list of topics in the Senator's contact form to choose from, there was no mention of culture or cultural property theft, suggesting this was not a matter about which Senator Gillibrand was expecting to get correspondence from citizens. Although I did not receive an answer to my letter, I note that the Senator has since that time engaged in activities suggesting she is taking an interest in promoting culture and the arts after all. On March 23rd at the Brooklyn Museum there was a workshop sponsored by the Office of Senator Gillibrand "Promoting the Arts, Cultural Institutions and Historic Sites: An Economic Development and Grants Writing Workshop". On April 27th a related programme was offered at the Albright-Knox Gallery Auditorium, Buffalo, New York there was a session on “Promoting the Arts, Cultural Institutions and Historic Sites: A Strategy for Economic Growth and Job Creation". On 17th May, a similar event ("Promoting the Arts, Cultural Institutions and Historic Sites: A Strategy for Economic Growth and Job Creation") was held at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (Daniel Aloi, 'Panelists promote culture, tourism benefits to regional economy development', May 26, 2011).

Based on the promotional material to these events I imagine that has Senator Gillybrand done me the courtesy of replying, the Senator's office would have sent a reply to my letter that looked something like this:

Dear Mr Barford,
Thank you for your interest in the work of this office. Senator Gillibrand considers culture is very important, and was pleased to be involved in the organization of a discussion in Washington of the Cultural Property Research Institute on the efficiency of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act.

The Senator of course supports the State Department’s initiatives on cultural protection and is certain that Secretary Clinton and the staff for which she is responsible fulfil their duty with integrity and the best interests of America's international standing as their highest priority.

Senator Gillibrand is definitely a champion for the arts and takes great interest in what is going to happen in this regard in the next legislative session, it is important that we work with lawmakers to pursue aggressively and creatively the promise of partnerships between industry and the world of culture. She embraces the view that there are economic reason for creating efficient policies concerning culture and the arts in our country. Culture is a mighty tool for economic development which is a No. 1 priority for the senator.

To this end, the Senator’s office willingly assists arts organizations as well as small businesses, with letters of support and other services.

I hope this answers your questions. Thank you for your expression of interest in the work of this Office, /.../ bla bla

well, of course its pretty obvious that its the use of historic sites and what is in them for promoting economic growth and job creation in the United States that is at the basis of the cultural policy represented by the Gillybrand workshops. Promoting the preservation of foreign sites as a resource for economic development in the wider world seems not to be her concern. But helping US "small businesses" is of importance to her - like the US coin trade (V-Coins today 151 Dug-up Ancient Coin Dealers advertising 110,412 Items with a total value of $24,348,909). That is probably why she went along with their lobbyists' proposal to organize a meeting in Washington examining the concept of restriction of imports of dugup antiquities into the US market to those with documentation of legal export.

Here is the Senator being interviewed at the Turkish Cultural Centre's Annual Friendship Dinner, March 24, 2011:



Here she again links cultural heritage with economy: "...economic development, economic opportunity, cultural exchange, the cultures of both countries can enhance everything that we have to offer here in America". Well, cultural exchange is not very fruitful when one nation's citizens are busy making money from the sale of cultural property plundered in the other and illegally exported. Is she really of the opinion that the Turkish cultural heritage is only of value when it is being used to "enhance everything that we have to offer here in America"?

It is a great shame that the Senator refused to clarify her involvement and explain why she would allow her name to become associated with the criticism from the antiquity dealers' lobby of the efforts of the United States to curb the trade in illicit antiquities.

My Letter to Senator Gillibrand

.
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand prides herself on transparent dealings with lobby groups, that's nice. So I am posting here my letter to her about her apparent patronage of the recent CPRI anti-CCPIA conference here, and I am hoping she will allow me to post here too any answer she may give. Maybe some readers would like to add their voice to mine, especially those from New-York-Based SAFE. Let us see how she justifies her apparent support for those in and around the US antiquities trade who we would be forgiven for believing are hell-bent on undermining what semblance of international cultural heritage protection the US has to offer, rather than strengthening it.

Dear Senator Gillibrand,
you have been named in connection with the organization of a conference in Washington under the title: „The Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA): Is it working?”.

Given the tone and content of that meeting (summarized here http://www.cprinst.org/Home/issues), may I ask therefore whether you yourself actively support the International Cultural Property Protection program of the US government (http://exchanges.state.gov/heritage/culprop.html)?

Would you like to see a strengthening or weakening of the ability of the US to set a moral lead by helping stamp out the international trade in illicitly acquired cultural property and related criminal activity?

As you are no doubt aware, the CCPIA serves to regulate the import into the United States of certain designated groups of cultural property which is threatened by illegal activity from specific states. This is done by temporarily restricting items newly coming onto the US market from those states to those which have been legally exported. In this manner, responsible collectors purchasing items on that market can be assured that they are not running the risk of purchasing illicitly acquired material, with all that this may entail. I am sure you will have the same difficulty as me in seeing why any discriminating, responsible and ethical US collector would object to that.

There is however a group of US dealers in and collectors of antiquities and coins – together with their lawyers - who are actively challenging the US Government’s application of these measures. The motives of this group for wanting to challenge measures intended to keep illicitly-obtained material off the US markets can only be guessed. I can only hope that you were unaware that there were people associated with members of this milieu among the organizers of the conference you are named in connection with.

Senator Gillibrand, do you yourself, or those in your immediate environment, collect antiquities, or have any other connection to the global antiquities market and their other advocacy groups?

In the interests of transparency, may I post a copy of your office’s reply here: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-letter-to-senator-gillibrand.html?

Thank you for giving your time to reading this
Paul Barford

Thank you

I've just posted a brief note on this on the SAFE blog. Perhaps someone there might invite her and other politicians to in some way show some support for SAFE and its aims?

I note that in the list of topics in the Senator's contact form to choose from, there was no mention of culture or cultural property theft, suggesting this was not a matter about which Senator Gillbrand was expecting to get correspondence from citizens.

*PS because Americans can only imagine that the rest of the world's postal service works like theirs and nobody at all would want to ask a US Senator anything from outside the country, you can't send anything from outside without giving a Zip Code. It blocks you if you put a real postcode of another type. I therefore appended a random Washington DC one to my address. I do not expect she'll be writing back anyway, the letter is longer than it should be.

Its not just Heritage Conservation Sen. Gillibrand Opposes

.
US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand recently sided with the detractors of the department of State's Cultural Property Preservation programme and refused to answer any correspondence on the matter. Now it seems she's wanting to slaughter wildlife in a nature reserve.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday proposed making it easier to round up geese from a federal refuge near Kennedy Airport and kill them [...] Gillibrand's bill would empower the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove Canada geese from the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge during June and July when they are molting and can't fly.[...] the idea of a goose roundup at a wildlife refuge that is part of the National Park Service has its detractors. "It's the only bird refuge that we have in New York City," said Edita Birnkrant, New York director of Friends of Animals. "If they can't be protected in a wildlife refuge, then where can they be protected?"

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/26/senator-seeks-to-allow-geese-near-airports-to-be-killed

Vignette: Collaboration with antiquity dealers lobbying groups is not good for a politician's image.  

Does the panel Think....?

.
In the discussion of the 2010 Kirsten Gillibrand Anti-Convention-on-Cultural-Property-Implementation-Act Seminar held the other day about whether the Act is "working" or not, there is a lot of talk about something the panellists called the “concerted international response requirement”. This might lead some readers to believe that this is a requirement of the Act.

The wording of course nowhere appears in it, a United States law cannot of course dictate what other sovereign nations should or should not do on their own territory. What the CCPIA says is that the President may decide that if putting import controls on illegally exported items from source countries, "if applied in concert with similar restrictions implemented, or to be implemented within a reasonable period of time, by those nations (whether or not State Parties) individually having a significant import trade in such material, would be of substantial benefit" in deterring the illicit trade in the artefacts concerned (duh), he may do that. He may do that because to do so "is consistent with the general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes".

Note the Act nowhere says that if the United States, arguably currently the world's greatest and greediest importer of all types of dugup cultural property, would be the only nation applying "similar restrictions", these restrictions cannot be agreed upon.

In any case other nations do apply similar restrictions, Nobody in the UK can legally buy illegally obtained artefacts from other countries, like Japan and a whole host of other countries. Their legislation implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention has a blanket ban on such tainted artefacts - not a selective one (agreed individually by the CPAC) as in the USA. It is the USA which is lagging behind the rest of the civilised world here, not the other way around. The USA is not implementing the Convention at all, it is flouting its accession to it. Shame on you all.

Note that the Cultural Policy Research Institute was discussing how the US with its outdated and ineffective 1983 act should be sliding further out of her obligations to protect the world's cultural heritage under the Convention. There seems not to have been a single word spoken about how US cultural policy can help stop the looting and illicit exports, which of course is pretty typical of the milieu. It is a shame the antiquity dealers' friend Mrs Gillibrand could not see her way to facilitating a seminar on that topic in the Russell Senate Office Building .

Photo: Kirsten (left) and Hilary enjoying a good laugh, perhaps about the American Cultural Policy Research Institute's amateurish attempts to mislead the voters.

April Fool from CPRI

.
It seems to me that the Santa Fe-based "Cultural Property Research Institute" (an antiquity dealers' advocacy group masquerading as an inefficient "research institute") has got its dates wrong. A text they have released (State Department in Contravention of the Law?) can only be seen as an April Fool joke accidentally published two days early. Still, I suppose that's better than all those promised pieces of "research" which are months overdue.

Among the gems of deadpan humour contained in this obviously satirical text, the reader will spot the following:

- "has disregarded the criteria established by the law that created it", the enquiring reader will ask what might they be, and in what way do they benefit the world's cultural heritage?

- "the Act was intended not just to save objects, but to save context and heritage". Where does it say that? Where? It actually says nothing of the kind in the CCPIA (which in general it has to be admitted is a badly-written text, but that is no excuse for the CPRI making things up).

- "limitations placed by the Act on the ability of the US Government to enter into agreements with other countries to impose import restrictions", eh? This is in an act intended to IMPLEMENT the 1970 UNESCO Convention on what? Oh yes, "on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property", so why did the US government issue an "implementing" act limiting its own ability to actually "implement" the actual measures of the Convention? Why would the US government fail to enter into an agreement with another country who requests it to actually implement the measures implicit in becoming a state party to the Convention? That's just plain daft, but then all of this US pretence to be implementing the Convention is plain double daft. Let the US just end the farce and withdraw from the Convention they have for nearly three decades obviously had no intention of fully honouring. Let the existing Wild West ethos of much of the US antiquity market show itself for what it is.

- "a provision requiring U.S. restrictions to be part of a "concerted international response" had been violated" eh? So where actually is this mythical "provision"? Where? How can you "violate" a provision that is not there?

- "in a manner that discriminated against Americans and that moved the trade abroad". Like keeping Chinese artefacts from being illegally exported FROM China? Isn't that what the 1970 Convention "on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property" supposed to do? What did the Americans think it was supposed to do when they became a state party? And how funny, an American law which affects Americans in America and not foreigners living outside America.

"Seminar summary at http://www.cprinst.org/Home/issues. Full transcript available soon". Can they manage it by April 1st?

The comedy is continued by that master of black humour, D.C. lawyer Peter Tompa, who asks "A related question is whether the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is listening or whether Assistant Secretary Anne Stock and her staff remain tone deaf as ever". Listen to what? The inventive rantings of the lunatic fringe of the US no-questions-asked market in dugup antiquities? That is a real joke.

What on earth is New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand thinking of aligning herself with these people with their all-too-transparent antisocial aims? Maybe readers in the States might like to write to her office and ask her http://gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/.

Vignette: Hilary and lookalike Kirsten (left) show their appreciation of the 2011 CPIA April Fool joke at the expense of the skeletal US International Cultural Property Protection program, such as it is.

Chinese Collectors of Chinoiserie? How Terrible?

.
In the Kirsten Gillibrand Seminar on the CCPIA organized by the CPRI the "problem" of China was raised. As we know due to a MOU between the USA and China, the import of certain types of dugup antiquities from China is restricted to those that can be documented as having been legally exported from there. But what is this? Shock horror:

As a result, the market in such materials has just been shifted elsewhere. China is a ridiculous case. We have closed our markets to ancient Chinese art when the biggest market for such material is in China itself. State has failed to administer the statute fairly. >[...] A[rthur] H[oughton] also asks how effective the CPIA can be if 90% of the archaeological material sold is done so in a source country like China.

In a country "like" China? Somehow I think our transatlantic friends have lost sight of what the "C" in CCPIA stands for. To remind them it is called the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property. So the fact that cultural property, dugup or otherwise (and 90% of it or not) is staying in China unless legally exported is what the Convention is aiming to achieve, isn't it? Why does that indicate that "State has failed to administer the statute fairly"? It certainly is fair to the Chinese people and Chinese collectors if it true that the antiquities are not now leaking out of the country in an uncontrolled and illegal manner to the world's largest no-questions-asked antiquities market in the USA and this is due to US dealers responsibly adhering to import restrictions which support that.

Vignette: Does the CPRI want to see Chinese artefacts kept away from Chinese collectors?

The Dialectic of Preservationism

The ACCG Committee on Un-American Activities (ACUAA)  has delivered its verdict on "Anti-American archaeo-blogger David Gill" for criticizing a senior Republican Congressman who has lent a favourable ear to the ACCG's whingeing in return for an award (marked by a tinny ACCG wall plaque for his office or den).

Congressman Culberson [...] cares about State Department transparency and accountability.  But so do Democratic legislators like the Senators Schumer and Gillibrand [...] concerns about how the State Department and Customs impose import restrictions on cultural goods is something both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans can agree upon. 

Fortunately, outside Washington and its destructive partisanship, the need to protect the world's precious archaeological record from the grabbing depredations of the US  antiquities trade and self-centred dealers and collectors is also something that in the US many liberal Democrats and even a few conservative Republicans can agree upon. 

Vignette: Nicholas Burns cannot accept ACCG award (photo: after ACCG)

CPRI Shows its Hand

.
The grandly-named Cultural Policy Research Institute (CPRI) in the US has shown its hand. Far from being the "research institute" it poses as, it has made a Freedom of Information demand, much like the numismatic trade associations have done over the US' Cyprus and China bilateral cultural agreements (Peter Tompa: "CPRI Files FOIA Request on Purported Egyptian Done Deal"). That is not really what bona fide research institutes do is it? That's the sort of thing an antiquity dealers' advocacy group would do. This is just another indicator that this "institute" is not at all what it purports to be. It looks like its an attempt to revive the defunct American Council for Cultural Policy from pre-Iraq yesteryear.

It seems to me that this "research Institute" is placing rather too much weight on to the precise wording of a statement made in English on a blog by Egyptian Zahi Hawass.

Dr. Hawass’ description of their discussion strongly suggests that the statutory requirements of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA) have been completely ignored and the decision-making role of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the President (CPAC) has been superseded.

But that is just Zahi Hawass isn't it? How much can this wording be trusted? This is just one reading of that short piece of gossip. Has the CPRI thought to contact anyone from the Capitol Archaeological Institute of George Washington University, the Archaeological Institute of America, the American School of Oriental Research at Boston University, or the National Geographic Society before submitting an FOI request to the State Department? As a "research institute" it would seem normal to contact colleagues in other bone fide research institutes, wouldn't it? Is that not actually the whole essence of being a research institute, keeping up with what other research institutes are doing in a given field?

Suppose what Hawass (or his blog ghost-writer) meant to say was that the "International Coalition to Support Protection of Egyptian Antiquities" would help draft a REQUEST for a bilateral agreement - much the same way as CPRI patron Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's "heritage workshops" coach interested organizations in how to fill out grant applications? How would that make the CPRI's kneejerk response look?

Peter Tompa alarms that the Coalition ("private group"):

has apparently guaranteed that the U.S government would sign an agreement with the Government of Egypt limiting access by all Americans to art from a founding civilization of the ancient world.

well, I do not think there was a guarantee, it's not "art" but portable antiquities and any eventual agreement would only limit them in response to the reports of ongoing looting to the extent of allowing import of only those legally exported.

UPDATE 14/6/11
This is so ridiculous. Tompa reveals that the reason for the CPRIA submitting an FOI request was that

As noted in my blog, the AIA initially had something about an agreement being negotiated by these groups on its website. Then, it took it down.

What that statement said was:

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, said, "The Coalition will be drafting a formal agreement between the US and Egyptian governments, and, as soon as it is signed, all of these important projects will be implemented."

If however one turns to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs webpage, there is a fairly full account of what was discussed and what agreement had to be drafted and why:

The Framework Agreement reflects partnership between the government sector (the Egyptian Foreign Ministry) and the Private Sector (the American Coalition) which would commit the American side to provide financial resources.[...] Ambassador Iman El Farr, Deputy Assistant Minister for Cultural Protocols and Agreements highlighted the cultural importance of perfect preparation reaching the final wording of the agreement to be signed so as to start implementing what agreed upon and facilitate the process of providing the necessary financial resources.

No mention is made there of any kind of US import restrictions. This seems therefore to be confirmed to be wishful thinking on behalf of Zahi Hawass (or his ghost blog-writer) who put it on his blog, and thus now forces the US taxpayer to support yet another two FOI requests from the antiquity dealing lobby. You have to laugh. As I said, a proper research institute would check out the facts at source before engaging in such an action - its as simple as telephoning the people concerned in the US, or doing a simple Google search to find the Egyptian MFA webpage.

Vignette: CPR on the ACCP

Senator Schumer accepted ACCG award, but attempts to halt coin sales

.
On January 30, 2007, the dealers' lobby group the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild awarded Senator "Do What Torturing You have To Do" Chuck Schumer (Democrats -New York) its Friend of Numismatics Award. Senator Schumer was involved in the questioning of the bilateral cultural property agreement with China on the grounds that coineys suspected there "may have been irregularities in how the State Department processed a Peoples Republic of China (sic) request involving a wide variety of cultural artifacts dating from Neolithic times to AD 1911".

Senator Schumer and Jeff Hamond of his staff hosted a meeting where the concerns of New Yorkers, including collectors and the small businesses of the numismatic trade, were raised directly with a high ranking State Department official.

Schumer and now Gillibrand (Democrats -New York). In receiving this award, Senator Schumer joined Senator Kit Bond of Missouri and Congressmen Green, Petri and Ryan from Wisconsin and others in accepting this token of appreciation from the ancient coin collecting community for their help and support for the no-questions-asked market in dugup antiquities.

Of course supporting US dealers selling dugups no-questions-asked is not a problem for Senator Schumer, he'll lend his name to that, no problems there about American people stealing the archaeological heritage from the brown-skinned guys abroad. He has no problems therefore with US collectors putting money into the pockets of culture criminals and organized criminal groups involved in antiquity smuggling to the US. But modern commemorative coins, now THERE is a problem worthy of his attention, there's something to fight for. Gotta stop collectors putting money into the pockets of small US businesses producing commemorative coins and medals. Obvious.