Lebanon's Baalbeck International Festival calls for protection of cultural heritage amid Israeli strikes

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00:00Well, taking place every summer since 1955, it's one of the oldest and most

00:04prestigious cultural events in the Middle East. The Baalbek International

00:08Festival has issued an open letter calling for the protection of the city

00:12and its archaeological heritage. Its president, Nela Dufresne, is here with us

00:17in studio this evening. Nela, thank you so much for coming in to us.

00:21Thank you, Francesca, to be there.

00:24You're very welcome, we're very glad to have you. We heard from people in that report,

00:28Lebanese people fleeing Baalbek. Describe the situation, you left the

00:33country two weeks ago, describe the situation for people who are still there.

00:37Yes, I have to talk about this place that is Baalbek, which is

00:44devastated, especially these two, three last days. I talked to an NGO who is

00:50working on the ground before coming to the studios and really they say that

00:57more than 60, 70 percent of the population have left the town because

01:04the alerts, they're asking to go. They give them maybe sometimes half an

01:11hour or one hour to leave their houses. But what is happening is that these

01:16people are often not finding places where to go because the places

01:21around are full, they are sleeping in their cars, they are sleeping on the

01:27streets and sometimes they come back because they prefer to stay in their

01:31houses, even if it's very dangerous. So it's a situation that

01:38absolutely is terrible and we wrote an open letter to talk to the

01:44international institution to ask to stop, especially to stop these bombings on

01:51the city of Baalbek and especially on the World Heritage Acropolis, the place

01:57where you have very old antiquities. The Acropolis of Baalbek is, all the

02:08places, it's testimony of 11,000 years of culture, of history. And we have

02:15Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Arab vestiges, so it's very important to

02:23protect them. And last week there is a bomb that fell on one of the historical

02:32monuments, so it's called the renowned Gouraud Barrac, which is on the

02:37wall that protects the Acropolis. And you know, it's not only that this wall was

02:44broken, but you have all the dark smokes, all the shakes of the bombs. I know

02:52because I live at Hazmiyeh, which is a hill above Beirut, Dahyeh, where we had

02:56strong bombings. The bombings can be very far, but the whole building moves, so

03:03imagine when the bombs get close to this Acropolis, what will happen to it. We

03:09just remember the horrible things that we saw in Palmyra, for example, when the

03:17site was, a part of the site was destroyed, when we see in Afghanistan

03:25with the Buddhas. So we are really afraid, and we wrote this open letter to the

03:30institution. I think that UNESCO can do a lot. I think that the foreign

03:35embassies can do a lot, the foreign countries, they can do a lot. I think if

03:39we call this call is to tell them not only write or speak, but go to action. And

03:46I know that our ambassador at UNESCO, the Lebanese ambassador called Dr.

03:53Mustafa Adib is working a lot to try to convince UNESCO to do something. And

04:00there is a meeting, a special meeting that is organized for the 18th of

04:04November, to take bigger protection measures for the site and the World

04:13Heritage Place of Baalbek. And I think this is very important. What we, in our

04:20open letter, our brand was, Baalbek is the city of the sun, and we don't want it

04:28to be the city of the dark. And I hope that this message will reach all the

04:35institutions and the persons who love all the patrimonial wealth to protect

04:44it. And this is our main action now, during these few days. And we hope that

04:51it will reach the maximum of person and really have a call to action.

04:55And how exactly can it be protected? And why do you think Israeli bombs are

05:00falling so close to that area?

05:02I don't think Israel did it on purpose. This is my opinion. Maybe some people

05:07would tell you the opposite. But a war is a war. And sometimes you don't have,

05:15you don't, don't care about the some limits. And if somebody comes and tell

05:20you, there are some limits that you cannot, you have to, to, of course, we

05:26would prefer a ceasefire, we would prefer to stop the war. What I was saying, two

05:32minutes ago to one of your colleagues, is that, for example, this year, we

05:36couldn't do a festival in Baalbek. Our festival is 75. Next year, it will, next

05:41year, it will be 75 years old. So imagine it's also part of the, of the heritage

05:48of the culture, cultural heritage. You have the visible and the invisible

05:56cultural, how do you say, patrimonial wealth. So it's important to protect

06:01both of them. And our festival is part of it. But what we had to do this year, we

06:07couldn't go, we couldn't organize a festival in Baalbek, because for security

06:12reasons, we went to Beirut, we did one symbolic events inside a theater, which

06:21is a theater that belongs to artists from Baalbek called the Karakalla family.

06:26It's a dance troupe, very famous in Lebanon. And this is where we did a

06:30double concert with a group of Palestinian musicians, of old players

06:36called Trio Zobran, and Sharbe Rohana, who is a Lebanese, old player also. So

06:43it was a message to say that music should be stronger than the weapons. And

06:48I think it's important.

06:50And have people working with the festival, people that you know, been

06:53impacted directly by this conflict, by what's happening?

06:57Some of them, yes. Some of them are, I know that, let's say the person in

07:03charge of the archaeologist of the place was in Baalbek during the whole period. I

07:10know that she left only one day ago. We have some people that are guards of the

07:16Acropolis. I talked to them, they sent their family to some other places, safer

07:22places. And when I asked one of them, why you stay? You're not afraid? He said,

07:27No, I want to, I want to sleep in my bed. I cannot accept the idea of living and

07:33being in, and living in bad condition. I prefer to, I'm not, I don't know, I prefer

07:40that. I talked to one of our great poets, called the Arabic poet, Lebanese poet

07:46called Talar Haidar. He lives in a town close to Baalbek, was bombed also, two

07:52days ago. He told me, I talked to him this afternoon. He told me, you know, nine

07:57people died in my town, but I will stay because I prefer to stay at my home and

08:03not leave it. And I'm not afraid.

08:06Very difficult choice for people to make.

08:09This is what the stories that we listen in our country, this is why this letter,

08:15open letter is very important to tell the people to, to try to stop the disaster

08:23that is going on, especially on the World Heritage sites, Acropolis and all, all

08:31what is around it.

08:33Naila, we'll have to leave it there for now. We do really appreciate you coming

08:36into studio to speak with us this evening. That is Naila Defrage, President of the

08:40Baalbek International Festival in Lebanon. Thank you so much.

08:44Well, as US officials.

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