The Uncertain Fate of the Timbuktu Manuscripts

Following French-led troops recent retaking of Timbuktu, there remains uncertainty about the fate of the ancient Timbuktu manuscripts (previous coverage here).  Initially, Luke Harding at the Guardian had a piece "Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts" that stated:

Islamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town's mayor, in an incident he described as a "devastating blow" to world heritage.

Hallé Ousmani Cissé told the Guardian that al-Qaida-allied fighters on Saturday torched two buildings that held the manuscripts, some of which dated back to the 13th century.

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French troops and the Malian army reached the gates of Timbuktu on Saturday and secured the town's airport. But they appear to have got there too late to rescue the leather-bound manuscripts that were a unique record of sub-Saharan Africa's rich medieval history. 

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"It's true. They have burned the manuscripts," Cissé said in a phone interview from Mali's capital, Bamako. 

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He added: "This is terrible news. The manuscripts were a part not only of Mali's heritage but the world's heritage. By destroying them they threaten the world. We have to kill all of the rebels in the north."

Vivienne Walt at Time, however, has an important follow-up piece called "Timbuktu Locals Saved Some of City's Ancient Manuscripts from Islamists."  Walt cites the Guardian's distressing report that the manuscripts were "torched," but then states "That is not so, according to those who've worked for months to keep the documents safe."  According to Walt, based on interviews with Time:

preservationists said that in a large-scale rescue operation early last year, shortly before the militants seized control of Timbuktu, thousands of manuscripts were hauled out of the Ahmed Baba Institute to a safe house elsewhere. Realizing that the documents might be prime targets for pillaging or vindictive attacks from Islamic extremists, staff left behind just a small portion of them, perhaps out of haste, but also to conceal the fact that the center had been deliberately emptied. “The documents which had been there are safe, they were not burned,” said Mahmoud Zouber, Mali’s presidential aide on Islamic affairs, a title he retains despite the overthrow of the former President, his boss, in a military coup a year ago; preserving Timbuktu’s manuscripts was a key project of his office. By phone from Bamako on Monday night, Zouber told TIME, “They were put in a very safe place. I can guarantee you. The manuscripts are in total security.”

Walt adds that a second "preservationist" who "did not want to be named confirmed that the center's collection had been hidden out of reach from the militants" and noted "Neither of those interviewed wanted the location of the manuscripts named in print, for fear that remnants of the al-Qaeda occupiers might return to destroy them."

Time attempted to reconcile the reports by contacting Timbuktu's Mayor Cissé, the primary source on the Guardian piece, who, according to Time "tempered the remarks he had made to journalists earlier in the day, conceding in an interview that, indeed, residents had worked to rescue the center's manuscripts before al-Qaeda occupied the city last March. Still, he said that while many manuscripts had been saved, 'they did not move all the manuscripts.'"

The possible removal of many of the manuscripts for safekeeping and the remaining uncertainty about their fate harkens back to an August 2012 piece by Mohammed Elrazzaz on Ahram online that described the long history of efforts to protect the manuscripts from earlier threats and that had concluded:

History might be repeating itself as you read these lines: the manuscripts might be safely hidden somewhere outside Timbuktu. One day when and if things calm down, they might surface again, and the story of the Kati Family will again be celebrated. Until that day comes, the fate of Timbuktu’s Andalusian manuscripts remains to be a question mark. 

Controversy between Algeria and France over Archives

Christian Lowe at Reuters has a fascinating piece (thanks rainbyte) called "Algeria, France tussle over archives 50 years after split" discussing an ongoing debate between France and Algeria over artifacts, books, maps, a bronze cannon, and archives removed to France between 1830 and 1962. It begins: "When French soldiers and administrators left Algeria after more than a century of colonial rule, they did not go empty-handed."

The debate has some of the classic characteristics of archival disputes:

The failure to provide for the disposition of archives in a treaty

Lowe states "When negotiators were hammering out the terms of Algeria's independence in the French spa resort of Evian 50 years ago, they did not include in their treaty any articles on archives or historical artifacts."

This has been followed by largely unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a solution.  Lowe cites Herve Lemoin, director of the French national archives, stating that "an agreement had been reached in 1966 to return Algeria's historical archives, notably Ottoman-era documents, and technical documents from the 1830-1962 period, but Algiers had since claimed more." On the other side, according to Lowe, Abdelmadjid Chikhi, director of Algeria's national archives, stated that "his counterparts in France had offered a compromise: Algeria would be given access to copies of the disputed items if it abandons its claim to them. He refused."

Contrasting views on legal ownership of the archives

"We're not going to give up our right. We're not going to give up our property," Lowe quotes Chikhi stating, "Quite simply because it's something that belongs to us. What's mine is mine. I'm not going to sign away our national heritage." In contrast, Lemoin is quoted as asserting that the archives "are considered under French law sovereign archives that are not transferable."  The French legal position, therefore, appears comparable to what France asserted in the case of the royal archives known as Uigwe seized in Korea in 1866 - namely, that the archives have become inalienable property of the French government.

The unique value of archives extending beyond the historical and cultural

The contested archives also illustrate how archives are often distinct from other forms of cultural property that have purely cultural or historical value. Lowe notes: "The row has practical implications for Algeria because some of the documents held in French institutions contain technical data; maps of underground sewers, gas pipes and electricity lines."

Despite the continuing controversy and the lack of a final resolution, Lowe's piece notes that "the Algerian and French national archives have a decent working relationship" and that they "signed a cooperation agreement in 2009 and let each other's researchers study, and sometimes copy, some documents."

Turkish Armed Forces To Return Seized Documents to Turkish Government

I wanted to briefly highlight an interesting piece in Today's Zaman from last week entitled "General Staff to return documents seized in coup times" which involves the return of seized documents from one part of the Turkish government to another.  The article reports that the Turkish Armed Forces are "aiming" to return documents seized "from the Office of the President, the Prime Ministry and Parliament during the May 27, 1960 and Sept. 12, 1980 military interventions" to "their rightful owners." The piece notes that

In addition to key information about the events that occurred during the two coups, the archives to be returned include documents on the Dersim massacre of 1938 and the 1915 killings of Armenians under the Ottoman administration. There are thousands of official documents, orders and images among the archives, which were seized from various institutions.

The article states that the documents are expected to be delivered "by Sept. 12, 2012" and that "[h]istorians and researchers will be able to access these documents for research once they have been returned."

Why are they doing this now?  The article notes that the Turkish Parliament is "preparing to establish a new commission to investigate Turkey's past military takeovers at the request of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan" and that the return of the documents "is also part of a wider project by the military to consolidate its archives." Given the reference to some of the documents including information relevant to the "1915 killings of Armenians under the Ottoman administration," however, I also wonder whether the timing could also be related to the recent controversy between Turkey and France over a proposed French law criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide.  In late February, the French Constitutional Council struck down the draft law, but, as the N.Y. Times reported,

controversy over the bill is likely to persist, however.  President Nicolas Sarkozy, who backed the legislation, vowed to submit a new bill with revised language.  He has in the past indicated that he would push to see that denial of an Armenian genocide is made a crime even if the council ruled against the draft law.

Finally, an aspect of the article that might raise a red flag for archivists is the repeated references to the armed forces "reorganizing" and "re-categorizing" the documents prior to returning them, which may present concerns about the preservation of context.

Reenactment of Returned Korean Royal Archives

Following up briefly on a earlier post about France's return (as a loan) of Korean royal archives (Uigwe) that were seized by French forces in 1866, the Korean Times has a piece on a reenactment at the National Museum of Korea of one of the Joseon-era royal weddings depicted in the returned Uigwe.

The Times article has a number of pictures of the elaborate ceremony by Shim Hyun-chul and the following description:

For a court wedding, the Joseon Kingdom employed several thousands of people over several months to organize the procedure of six aspects of the wedding ceremony. The procedure comprises "napchae," "napjing," "gogi," "chaekbi," "chinyeong," and "dongrae." For instance "napchae" indicates sending a messenger with a formal proposal letter to the future queen, while the "chaekbi" step is the crowing of the future queen and "dongrae" means the consummation of the royal marriage.

Return of Korean Royal Archives Seized by French Forces in 1866

Apologies for the self-promotion, but I have new piece entitled "'Inalienable' Archives: Korean Royal Archives as French Property under International Law" that was just published in the International Journal of Cultural Property.  The official link to the article from the publisher is here. I have, however, also posted the full-text here.

The piece is a case note discussing the colorful history of these archives and analyzing a 2009 decision of a French administrative tribunal that rejected an attempt by a Korean cultural organization to compel the return of the Korean royal archives from France. The archives are known as Uigwe (see earlier discussion here) and they were captured by French naval forces in an 1866 invasion. As bonus coverage, I have uploaded the full-text of the French decision here (thanks to Stephane Cottin) and an English translation here (thanks to Nicole Efros).  The case is a rare occurrence of judicial treatment of the issue of ownership of archives seized during military operations.

An unfortunate update on the story is that Park Byeong-seon, the Korean bibliographer and historian who discovered the Korean Uigwe in the collections of the Bibliotheque nationale de France in 1975 (they had been mis-categorized as Chinese manuscripts), passed away late last year.  She lived, however, to see the return of the Uigwe to South Korea last June pursuant to a renewable loan agreement between France and South Korea. At the celebration of their return she challenged Korea with the "enormous" task of making sure "that the royal books never go back to France and remain here forever."