The mausoleums of Timbuktu were brought down with pickaxes in 2012, before the eyes of the residents who had kept them up from father to son. The town had guarded those tombs of raw earth for centuries, and that memory was what the pickaxes were aimed at. President Macky Sall counts the protection of cultural heritage among the duties of collective security, and he makes it one of the commitments of his candidacy for the office of UN Secretary-General.

A target of war. The destruction of monuments has become a weapon. Erasing a place of worship or an ancient manuscript aims to sever a community's bond with its past and to make return impossible. International tribunals have recognised these destructions as war crimes.

A law that exists. The 1954 Hague Convention protects cultural property in the event of armed conflict, and the 1972 convention created the World Heritage List. The texts are there; their observance depends on the will of belligerents and the vigilance of those who watch over them.

Memory, the cement of reconciliation. Rebuilding a destroyed monument repairs more than a building. It returns to a population a part of itself and gives common ground to communities that war has divided. In Timbuktu, the town's own masons raised the mausoleums again, with the earth and the gestures their elders had passed on to them.

What the Secretariat can carry. Guarding the sites falls to states and to the peacekeepers deployed around them. From New York, a Secretary-General supports the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, proposes to the Security Council peace mandates that include the protection of heritage, and demands of the parties to a conflict that they spare what peoples have built over the centuries. Macky Sall wants every peace mission to count, among its written tasks, the watch over the listed sites in its area, and he makes that request part of his candidacy.

Experience in multilateral negotiation. Twelve years as head of state and the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022 underpin these commitments. That experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace, security and development conceived together; a renewed multilateralism; stronger governance of the Organization.

Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.

The 1954 Hague Convention and the 1972 World Heritage Convention are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net