US investigates deals with Egypt's former antiquities
chief
By Brian Whitaker
"The US Department of Justice is investigating whether National Geographic broke the law by paying up to $200,000 a year to Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former antiquities chief, according to the newly-launched American website, Vocativ.
The Justice Department, in line with its usual practice,
is
neither confirming nor denying an investigation and National Geographic insists it has not broken the law, but let's take a look at some of the background.
Zahi Hawass is a controversial figure. In 2002, after several
years as chief inspector and director of the Pyramids Plateau site in Giza, he
became secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and in 2011,
during the final days of the Mubarak regime, was appointed as Egypt's first
Antiquities Minister.
Hawass brought a showbiz approach to Egyptology which
irritated some of the more academically-minded archaeologists. The worldwide
publicity he generated undoubtedly helped to promote tourism in Egypt, though it
also became a means for Hawass to promote himself. He even launched a "Zahi
Hawass" menswear
brand (for "the man who values self-discovery, historicism and
adventure").
He relished performing for the TV cameras and, with his
characteristic broad-brimmed hat, was dubbed by the media as Egypt's own Indiana Jones.
Perhaps more accurately, Egyptian blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy
describes him as
the Mubarak of archaeology: "He is a dictator ... who cares as much about
Egyptian antiquities as Mubarak cared about human rights."
Since being ousted from his post in 2011 he has been pursued
by a number of legal claims in Egypt. Last June, an article in the Smithsonian
magazine explained
the situation thus:
At one level the Zahi Hawass story sounds like an
all-too-familiar case of blurred lines between official and personal business –
as illustrated by the Hawass menswear affair. While Hawass was
in New York for the travelling King Tut exhibition the museum was specially opened up one night to provide the background for a photo-shoot of his new clothing brand.
In 2011, Hawass was sentenced to a year in jail (though not
actually imprisoned) during a legal wrangle over a bookshop at the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo. Hawass explained
on his blog that this was the result of "a complete misunderstanding". According
to another
version of the story, Hawass was disgruntled that a profitable bookshop
concession outside the museum entrance, renewable every three years, had been
repeatedly won by a man called Farid Atiya.
In another case, in 2012, an Egyptian court ruled
that an agreement signed by Hawass to send 179 artefacts for exhibitions in the
US (in exchange for $1.25 million) had violated Egypt's Antiquities Protection
Act. This was illegal because the exhibitors concerned (which included National
Geographic) were regarded as private institutions rather than museums and the
agreement had not been signed by President Mubarak as required by the law.
Hawass's relationship with National Geographic, where he had
the title "Explorer-in-Residence",
has been frequently criticised by Alan
Mairson, a former staff writer and editor for National Geographic who now runs
the Society Matters blog which aims to provide "commentary and
critique of the National Geographic Society’s broken business model".
Starting in 2001, Hawass signed a series of contracts with
National Geographic, rising from an initial $80,000 a year to $200,000 a year
over the following decade, according to the Vocativ article. By the standards of
Egyptian salaries – even those of senior officials – these were enormous sums.
However, Hawass says there was nothing illegal about this and he obtained
Egyptian government approval. The article continues:
The question for the US Justice Department, though, is whether
National Geographic's payments infringed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by
“securing any improper advantage”.
The article quotes Jessica Tillipman of the George Washington
University law school as saying that it can be legal to pay a foreign bureaucrat
as long as there’s no effort to sway his official duties but it is "potentially
problematic" that National Geographic also did business with the government
agency that Hawass ran.
|
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Digging up the past
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment