by Vijayalakshmi TEELOCK (Former Chairperson, AGTF)

The statements made by Philippe de La Hausse De La Louviere, Executive Committee member of ICOMOS Mauritius, in the ?Column? of l?express of 17th June are highly objectionable in many respects and I hope the World Heritage Committee (WHC ) not hear of it for it will indeed have a poor image of ICOMOS Mauritius.

● Concerning the World Heritage Committee, the member states

1. ?...World Heritage Committee which is composed of government representatives most of whom are not heritage specialists and who are directed by their government?

2. He comments further on how the WHC works: ?When this Committee makes the final decision on whether to approve a site for world heritage status, it takes into consideration many other factors especially its representativeness in the global context.?

Both statements are highly objectionable as the member questions the basic purpose of the WHC and implies that the WHC proffers World Heritage Status to sites based on their political equations and not entirely on their Outstanding Universal Value.

3. He also states ?Thus, States with no or few inscribed sites or those types of sites which are underrepresented might be particularly favoured.?

Nowhere in the constitution or in practice does the WHC ?favour? any site for inscription. If this has ever happened in the history of WHC, it is a serious issue which the WHC should look into. It is indeed a grave accusation to make against the WHC.

It is through the World Heritage Centre that any problems concerning sites are dealt with and it is this Centre that is supposed to facilitate state parties with the nomination of theirfor WHS.

● Concerning ICOMOS and WHC

1. The Member of the Executive Council of ICOMOS Mauritius attempts to portray ICOMOS as an institution devoid of influences, as a technical body and contrasts it to the WHC. This view is simply erroneous. ICOMOS is not made up of ?only heritage professionals? and the World Heritage Committee is not made up of only government officials. Having attended the WHC in July 2006, I had the opportunity to observe at first hand that each delegation was composed of a variety of technical and non-technical persons to help guide final decision-making.

2. He concedes that ICOMOS are short of funds. It is perhaps this that makes ICOMOS unable to muster the most appropriate and most qualified persons to evaluate nominated sites. In the case of the Aapravasi Ghat, our local dynamic AGTF team was guided, advised and monitored from the beginning by an ICOMOS team having proved their worth on other World Heritage sites. It is interesting that the work of this ICOMOS team was criticised by another ICOMOS team! Where is the ?technical?,?objective? reporting in this?

3. The statement that ICOMOS is an international organisation and immune to political pressures implies that the WHC is influenced by politicians is also a highly objectionable statement and I will now consider the Aapravasi Ghat case to serve as an example.

● Aapravasi Ghat, ICOMOS and WHC

1. The ICOMOS Executive Council member states that ICOMOS carries its work objectively. But true objectivity can only be arrived at (if at all) when all facts are available. In the case of the Aapravasi Ghat, it is clear that in their final evaluation ICOMOS was provided with either erroneous and/or insufficient information. Let us look at the ICOMOS final evaluation:

1.a ICOMOS stated that there had been ?no technical reports? emanating from the AGTF. This was totally false because ICOMOS and local teams had regularly produced quarterly and six-monthly reports on archaeology, conservation, etc and would have gladly sent them on to ICOMOS had it requested them. Unfortunately ICOMOS-Mauritius ignored the presence of reports and documentation available with AGTF and misinformed the committee drafting the recommendations.

1.b ICOMOS stated that there had been ?insufficient research? on indenture when on the contrary, sufficient research was undertaken on the site and indentured labour system by a team of qualified professionals to support the dossier. It is also very surprising that ICOMOS missed the 13-page bibliography at the end of the dossier. Moreover ICOMOS did not request any additional information, which according to the nomination process and procedure, it could and should have done, in the January of that year.

1.c. From what ?technical? viewpoint did ICOMOS recommend that the name of Aapravasi Ghat be changed, when descendants of indentured labourers had chosen not to use the term ?Coolie Ghat? to label the site?

ICOMOS did not conduct an ?objective or comprehensive appraisal? of Aapravasi Ghat in its final evaluation. I believe, as do many others, that:

1. In case of Aapravasi Ghat, the final ICOMOS evaluation and recommendation was influenced by the views of a small group of Mauritians who did not think that a site dear to Mauritians of Indian origin deserved international status. It was also heavily dependent on reports by ICOMOS Mauritius.

2. It was entirely right for ICOMOS recommendation to be reversed as the Aapravasi Ghat was not given a fair and objective appraisal in the final evaluation. The reason why the WHC rejected the ICOMOS recommendation to defer was that the real facts about the site were presented by the Mauritian delegation in front of the 23 other Committee members and their delegations. These facts were considered sufficient for WHC to make the right decision. The Aapravasi Ghat fully deserved to be on the World Heritage List just as le Morne Brabant deserves to be.

3. The issue of removal of one criteria and keeping the other is viewed as a favour by the ICOMOS Mauritius representative and is simply wrong. The guidelines clearly suggest that nomination can happen on any of one criteria out of the ten listed. Criteria VI (six) was fully applicable to Aapravasi Ghat.

If Government and especially the Prime Minister gave full support to the nomination, it is to their credit for having recognised that something had gone wrong with the ICOMOS evaluation and that the World Heritage Committee needed to be provided with the correct information. Action taken was fast, it was decisive and effective.

Rather than attempt to whitewash ICOMOS and reduce Aapravasi Ghat?s inscription to political reasons, it would be more productive for the local ICOMOS branch in Mauritius , to undertake a critical and objective self ? examination and assessment of its role and continued relevance in Mauritius. ICOMOS International has undertaken an analysis of what went wrong. This will help to justify its continued status as an advisory body for UNESCO.