Excavation in the Name of Archaeology and Science
The West, namely, Britain, France, Italy and Germany, had since robbed
the Assyrians of their land and treasures. They dug up, unearthed and
plundered ancient cities and graves of the Assyrian forefathers and
smuggled their treasures and monuments to the West under the pretext of
archaeology and scientific research. The Europeans were more interested
in excavating the ruins of Ninweh and exhuming the remains of Assyrian
royalties than helping build the shattered lives of the surviving
Assyrians. They were more interested in the Assyrian ancient history
than the stark reality of the Assyrians dire plight.
The fate of the Assyrian monuments, relics and artefacts are destroyed
by Dar Al-Silm states of Islam, or end up in European museums and with
art dealers. Historical structures have also been systematically
destroyed, with the same attitude as that of the Talaban to the Buddhist
relics of China, found in the Bamian region of the Afghan mountains.
In April 1920 at the San Remo Conference, the French bartered the Mosul
Province with the British for 25 per cent share in oil revenue. The
Mosul Province then under the French political sphere of influence had
earlier been demarcated for the Assyrians. The region exchanged hands
and fell under the zone of the British political sphere of influence. In
1925, the League of Nations gave the Assyrian homeland of Hakkari, Van
of upper Mosul, to Turkey. The British, encouraged by the success of its
diplomatic manoeuvres, sought relinquishment of the Mosul district from
Turkey against ten percent oil revenue for 25 years. The latter acceded
to the terms. The British, instead of declaring Mosul a home for the
Assyrians, annexed it to Iraq (Polk, 1991: 276). The venal Agreement was
not only a breach of trust but also a total betrayal of a loyal people,
who had fought by the side of the Allies, and had their fate in their
hands (Perley, pp 9-10).
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