Deliberate Warfare: Destruction of Cultural Property During Armed Conflict in Bosnia & Armenia.
Ilyas, Mariya
2018
- Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Abstract: Despite many efforts by the international community to protect cultural property during warfare, the loss of and damage to cultural property remained a ubiquitous feature of armed conflict throughout the 20th Century, and now, the 21st Century. This thesis explores ... read morewhy cultural property is destroyed during warfare or conflict. What are perpetrators trying to achieve when they target cultural property such as historical buildings, works of art, archaeological sites, libraries, museums, and places of worship? Are perpetrators successful in achieving their goals? What are the consequences of destroying cultural property? I hypothesize that the destruction of cultural property is a deliberate tactic to not only expunge or dislocate a population so as to discredit their claim to territory, but it is also an attempt to eradicate a culture and erase an identity. Using Bosnia and Armenia as case studies, the research concludes that while perpetrators are successful with the physical removal of a population (in the form of killing or dislocating them), they fail to eradicate a culture and erase an identity from a territory. There are two reasons for this: (1) culture and identity are intangibles, whereas cultural property and people are not and (2) culture and identity are passed down through generations in permanent and nonpermanent ways.read less
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- w3763j773
- Component ID:
- tufts:sd.0000889
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