MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. Western countries collaborated with the Islamic State terrorist organization (IS, outlawed in Russia) to plunder Syria’s cultural heritage, Vasily Prozorov, a former officer of the Security Service of Ukraine, told TASS.
"We worked in Syria. For more than two years, we have been investigating the smuggling of Western weapons into Ukraine. The country’s officials and military personnel, including senior officials, trafficked them everywhere and to anyone. In particular, they ended up in the hands of Islamist terrorist groups in the Middle East. As part of this investigation, we traveled to Syria several times and worked with our Syrian colleagues and the country’s law enforcement agencies. There, we learned about Western countries' looting of Syria’s, Iraq’s, and the broader Middle East’s cultural heritage," the former security officer said.
Prozorov noted that Western countries used the IS to steal Syrian artifacts. "After calling the IS a plague and speaking of it in terms of malevolence, representatives of Western governmental and non-governmental organizations at the same time resorted to using the IS without any reservation to achieve their goals. Particularly, to rob cultural and archaeological treasures. And it went so far that foreign specialists - cultural experts and archaeologists - arrived there and worked with the IS: they stole precious artifacts, and then IS militants destroyed everything to conceal their tracks. This has become a system," Prozorov said.
Western countries pursue several goals by carrying out such actions, he said. "First, it is all about money. The cultural heritage of Syria includes the most unique historical fragments of the past, from different cultures. It is one of the richest states in archaeology: [its cultural heritage encompasses artifacts of] ancient Mesopotamia, Sumer, early Christianity and Islam, Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, the Crusaders, and the Jesuits. Western countries do not hesitate to plunder all this for financial gain. Basalt lions that stood in the temple of Baal were about five thousand years old and cost millions, or even tens of millions of dollars," the former security officer pointed out.
The second reason for the theft of Syrian artifacts is the destruction of the country’s cultural heritage, Prozorov believes. "They ruin the national identity of many peoples by undermining its very basis. We found that Israeli intelligence services and government organizations are actively working on this. They take cultural artifacts from Syria and Iraq and transport them to Israel to 'find' them on that territory and thus show that 'the civilization originated on the territory of Israel, not in some Arab states.' Eroding national identity is the second goal that the West is pursuing," Prozorov said.
There are several non-governmental Western - primarily US - organizations that "hunt for artifacts that are allegedly endowed with mystical properties and could be a source of spiritual knowledge," the former security officer noted. "These are primarily the cults of Baal and Isis that were largely widespread in Syria. The pursuit of such artifacts is underway. Western countries use US military aircraft for transporting such artifacts. In other words, they freely and shamelessly smuggle looted archaeological treasures from Syria," he said.
Plundering cultural property
Theft of Syria's cultural property is now rife, Prozorov said. Syrian archaeologists and scientists are sounding the alarm, however, nothing changes. "Even when Syrian scientists discover items clearly stolen from the Aleppo museum at Sotheby’s auction or somewhere else, <...> appealing to international organizations is in vain," the ex-security officer noted.
Prozorov recalled that the West has always advocated for state’s rights and the protection of historical values. "But in practice, when the West benefits, it easily forgets about bans and restrictions, ethical and legal norms. We gathered a lot of material, and now we are editing a movie. We will release a major investigative documentary about plundering cultural property by the New Year or soon after," he concluded.