#operation pandora

[doolallymagpie]

POV you're one of the freaks they shot up with an experimental bioweapon and sent on Operation PANDORA

(pardon me, it's a goofy thought I came up with at work yesterday)

[oupacademic]

What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: 75 people have recently been arrested by the European police for their involvement with looted artwork from war-stricken countries, museums, and other sites. It has been reported that about 3,500 stolen archaeological artifacts and other artworks were recovered by police. As authorities open more investigations related to the looting of antiquities, we want to know:

How does someone become a looter and what do they earn?

Organized criminal gangs are the principal force in looting, since they are normally equipped with the technology and systems to both identify the location of precious works and to remove them clandestinely without attracting notice. The “tombaroli” (tomb robbers) in Mediterranean countries are poorly compensated, but they remand their finds to middle­men who can launder the objects both literally and with re­spect to falsified documentation of their origins.

How are source countries working to counteract looting?

The preparation of source countries to safeguard archaeologi­cal sites varies widely, even within national borders. In Italy, the policing efforts of the national police force known as the Carabinieri are most evident in Rome and points north. The relative lack of organization in Southern Italy and Sicily re­flects a larger challenge of organization in the Mezzogiorno, and explains why looting is more prevalent in the South. But no nation in the world has set up a cultural heritage policing structure as sophisticated as the Carabinieri. Other nations offer less organized protection but may threaten harsher pen­alties, up to the death penalty, as is the case in various develop­ing nations, including Iraq, and very recently in China.

Mexico’s state archaeological authority, INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia), was taken to task in 2009 and 2012 audits by the Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) for failing to meet even the most fundamental respon­sibilities to protect archaeological sites. Few other report cards of this type have been made public, but the situation in many source nations would receive no better assessment.

[Page 111-112, Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to Know by Maxwell L. Anderson]

Image: Goldfund von Eberswalde by Andreas Praefcke. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

[fuckyeahanarchistbanners]

A solidarity rally in Berlin where anarchists, antifascists and their allies demonstrated solidarity with anarchists facing state repression as a result of Operation Pandora.

[fuckyeahanarchistbanners]

San Francisco: Solidarity Action At Spanish Consulate

[fuckyeahanarchistbanners]

Banner from Irish protest in solidarity with the Spanish anarchists arrested under Operation Pandora.

[fuckyeahanarchistbanners]

https://conflictmn.blackblogs.org/solidarity-rally-report-back/

11/15/2015

Minneapolis

A small unruly crowd gathered in front of the Minneapolis Police Department with a banner that read “Shoulder To Shoulder Against Repression / Solidaridad con lxs Anarquistxs.” Flyers were distributed to people and cars passing by that explained the situation in Spain. We then briefly marched through one of the centers of capital before dispersing without arrests. Many expressed support for the demonstration. This was a small act of solidarity where this form of resistance is quite rare. To all of our comrades facing repression—you are not alone!

[fuckyeahanarchistbanners]

Shoulder to Shoulder Against Repression! Solidaridad con lxs Anarquistxs (Minneapolis, MN solidarity rally with arrested anarchists in Spain 11/14)