The Fund and the Ahmed Baba Institute gave a place where South African experts trained local Malians in the restoration and preservation of their manuscripts. In 2009, the north-western African head of state, Amadou Toumani Toure, hosted the opening of a new state-of-the-art facility built with aid from the southernmost neighbours to house and preserve Timbuktu literary riches - the Ahmed Baba Institute. As Africans were among the first to develop writing and maths the Timbuktu manuscripts are a rich source of Africa’s cultural heritage. In 2001, Thabo Mbeki visited Timbuktu and as a result spearheaded the founding of a multi-million Rand trust fund for the purpose of preserving Timbuktu’s historically unique, important ancient manuscripts. But there has been no government support (from South Africa or elsewhere) for the initiative since 2009 and now the SA Timbuktu trust fund is going to close. It is reported that ANC former chief whip Mathole Motshekga is saying that the African Union has to take responsibility for preserving the Timbuktu manuscripts. Now, at the end of 2014, South Africa is formally withdrawing its financial support by closing its Timbuktu trust fund and thus clearly putting those rare manuscripts back at risk. I was thankful then to eventually find they had been secured and saved by the heroic efforts of the local people and the (partially South African funded) Ahmed Baba Institute. Cultural artefacts are exposed to crises and need to be protected," Bandarin said.In January 2013 I reported on the war driven disaster in Mali that was putting at huge risk rare manuscripts in the Timbuktu region. Staff at a museum in Bamako now storing some of the Malian manuscripts for safekeeping will attend the 18 February meeting and receive training in keeping the texts safe. He said Mali’s ancient artefacts also needed protection from international trafficking gangs, who run a trade worth some $6-8 billion a year and have taken advantage of recent chaos in countries like Libya to loot items. “We have the basis of a plan of action and we will expand on this at a round table on the 18th," she said.īandarin said 11 mausoleums and tombs had been destroyed during the rebel occupation of northern Mali, but UNESCO planned to rebuild them using photographs and local experts. “We will send a mission of experts to assess the damage once security conditions allow so we can make an estimate of what we need," said Bokova, who visited Timbuktu, a UNESCO world heritage site, with French President Francois Hollande last week. The damage to Mali’s tangible heritage wrought by the rebels is likely to be around $4-5 million, but the cost of rebuilding mausoleums and digitising tens of thousands of manuscripts was harder to estimate, she told a news conference. The Paris-based agency will chair the 18 February meeting, send experts to Mali to assess the damage and try to raise funding to scan and preserve surviving texts, its director-general Irina Bokova said on Friday. Equipment installed at a library in Timbuktu to start digitising them was smashed by the rebels, and computers holding data were burned, as they fled the ancient city last month ahead of its liberation by French forces, said UNESCO’s assistant director-general for culture, Francesco Bandarin.
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