[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 1061]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TIMBUKTU ANTIQUITIES

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, there was a lot of attention recently on 
the French military's operation to repel Islamic extremists and Tuareg 
nationalist rebels who had terrorized the local population of northern 
Mali, including in the ancient city of Timbuktu. That operation was 
widely welcomed by local Malian citizens and the international 
community. Many of the rebels are believed to be hiding out among the 
local population until the French soldiers leave, so whether they are 
ultimately vanquished remains to be seen. It will depend in large 
measure on the longer term capability of a multinational force of 
African troops supported by the United States and others.
  Besides terrorizing, torturing, mutilating, and slaughtering innocent 
people, the rebels destroyed ancient tombs, shrines, and manuscripts 
dating to a period many centuries ago when Timbuktu was a crossroads 
for commerce and a center of intellectual pursuits in northern Africa. 
I mention this not only to inform those who may be unaware of Mali's 
ongoing cultural importance, but also to call attention to the fact 
that Irina Bokova, Director General of the United Nations Educational, 
Scientific, and Cultural Organization, commonly known as UNESCO, has 
already pledged to reconstruct the damaged mausoleums. As she was 
quoted in the New York Times on February 4, 2013, ``This is the record 
of the golden ages of the Malian empire. If you let this disappear, it 
would be a crime against humanity.''
  There are also little known heroes in this otherwise humanitarian and 
cultural disaster. Malian residents, particularly Ali Iman Ben 
Essayouti, who knew the importance of priceless manuscripts preserved 
in a library funded by international donors, including the Library of 
Congress and Department of State, managed to carefully move some of 
them to another location where the rebels did not find them. As a 
result, although the rebels burned the library, only a small portion of 
the manuscripts were destroyed.
  The other point of this is that, as many Senators are aware, the 
United States, once the largest contributor to UNESCO, including under 
President George W. Bush, was forced to sever its support last year due 
to a 1990s law that prohibits U.S. funding to any United Nations-
affiliated agency in which the Palestinian Liberation Organization, 
PLO, obtains the same standing as a member state. After UNESCO's 
members voted, against the advice of Ms. Bokova, to grant the PLO that 
standing, the law was triggered and U.S. funding abruptly ended.
  This is illogical and self-defeating. First, although the PLO was a 
terrorist organization in the 1990s, it is no longer. Second, by 
cutting off our contribution to UNESCO we not only empower its other 
members, including Russia, Iran, and Syria, we also make it impossible 
to assist the organization in the kind of cultural preservation 
activities it is now undertaking in Mali, which are clearly in the 
national interest of the United States. There are many other examples, 
including World Heritage Sites like the Great Barrier Reef, which 
UNESCO designates and protects today without the support of the United 
States. Finally, if U.S. funding is not restored before the end of this 
fiscal year, we will lose our vote in the organization. Ironically, 
despite PLO membership in UNESCO, Israel has paid its dues through 
2014. Presumably, Israeli officials recognize, as we should, that their 
interests are far better served by participating in a U.N. agency, not 
by watching from the sidelines.
  Mr. President, regardless of what one may think about Palestinian 
President Abbas' effort to obtain U.N. membership for the PLO, and I am 
among those who regard it as an unhelpful distraction, cutting off U.S. 
funding to UNESCO and thereby weakening our influence and empowering 
our adversaries makes no sense. It is time we recognize that a law that 
might have seemed sensible to some people years ago has had unintended 
consequences that run directly counter to our interests, and should be 
amended or repealed.

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