[CPProt.net] Ethiopia wants heroes' skulls returned

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Van: shlomo at eastafricaforum.net [mailto:shlomo at eastafricaforum.net] 
Verzonden: zondag 17 april 2005 21:10
Aan: shlomo at eastafricaforum.net
Onderwerp: Ethiopia wants heroes' skulls returned


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=87&art_id=qw1113742621126B2
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Ethiopia wants heroes' skulls returned
 
By Tsegaye Tadesse

Axum - Ethiopian veterans demanded on Sunday that Rome return heads severed
from their fallen heroes by fascist Italian invaders in the 1930s, saying
the expected return of an obelisk this week was not enough.

Ethiopian and Italian officials in the northern Ethiopian city of Axum say
the first part of the obelisk, plundered nearly 70 years ago, is due to be
flown back to the city in a giant cargo plane on Tuesday after repeated
delays.

"We welcome the belated return of the Axum obelisk, but the present Italian
government must return the skull of Hailu Kebede and of others which Italian
fascist forces brutally severed from their dead bodies and displayed in
Italian military museums in Rome," Workineh Tegegne, vice president of the
Ethiopian Patriotic Association of guerrillas, said.

"The return of the obelisk is a historic occasion because it heralds the
final defeat of fascism and its relegation to the dustbin of history," he
said.

Italy promised in 1947 to return the 200-tonne granite column, a symbol of
the dawn of Ethiopian civilisation, but arguments and logistical problems
delayed it until November, when the two countries finally agreed to fly it
home. Italy's Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the obelisk - which
is believed to be 1 700 years old - to be seized from Axum, 850km north of
the capital Addis Ababa, and erected in Rome as a symbol of Italy's victory
over Ethiopia in the years leading up to World War 2.

Celebrations are planned for the return of the obelisk to Axum, where
bridges have been strengthened and roads widened to accommodate the huge
pieces of stone that make up the column.

Italy has agreed to cover the transport cost of the obelisk by cargo plane.
Landlocked Ethiopia had to build a special runway to accommodate the Russian
Antonov 124 jet, one of only two types of aircraft that can carry its
sections.

The column, a funerary monument, is considered to be among the finest from
Axum, the centre of pre-Christian Ethiopia's civilisation and the city of
the Queen of Sheba, who ruled 1 000 years before the birth of Christ.

Legend has it that God bestowed his favour on the city after the Queen of
Sheba's son Menelik I stole the Ark of the Covenant from his father King
Solomon in Jerusalem and brought it to Axum where many Ethiopians believe it
still remains to this day.