[CPProt.net] FW: Inter Press Service Cambodia

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

From: Dougald O'Reilly [mailto:director at heritagewatch.org] 
Sent: 06 October 2005 02:56
To: msn-list at te.verweg.com
Subject: Inter Press Service Cambodia


CULTURE-CAMBODIA:
Villagers Guard Their Own Antiquities 

Frances Suselo 


PHNOM CHISOR, Sep 30 (IPS) - Reet, 14, grew up among the hilltop ruins of
this district, about an hour's drive from the capital Phnom Penh and learned
how to count by going up and down its 412 steps. 

It is also right here at the local school that he learned about the looting
of antiquities from the 11th century temple, also called Phnom Chisor, at
the top of the hill. 

But, he tells visitors, ''There is no looting here''. The community around
the ruins runs a programme to educate villagers about the Phnom Chisor
temple, made in Baphuon and Khleang architectural style and from laterite
and sandstone. 

Jutting out to the sky from the 100-metre hill, Phnom Chisor was built by
Suryavarman I, the king of the Khmer Empire, for the god Brahma in 1010. The
Angkorian temple is more or less intact, unlike many other ruins, such as
Koh Ker, capital of the Khmer kingdom in the 10th century, and even parts of
Angkor Wat in Siem Reap province. 

Looting is often done by poor villagers who sell the artefacts for small
amounts, these then find their way to local or international markets,
activists say. 

International auction houses do not make enough efforts to ensure items are
not obtained illegally, argues Dougald O'Reilly, founder and director of
Heritage Watch, a Phnom Penh-based non-government organisation. 

An ancient looted bead would probably bring a local a mere one US dollar,
then could be sold for a hundred times the amount in a Bangkok market -- and
much more outside Asia, says Terressa Davis, project coordinator of Heritage
Watch. 

Meantime, Reet says that Cambodian law forbids the looting of the country's
antiquities. What would he do if someone offers him a lot of money for
something from the ruins? His eyes blazed as he answered, ''I won't do it
because it's illegal. Besides, I know it's a bad thing to do''. 

''Officers from the Ministry of Culture have made it very clear that looting
is prohibited. People are more informed now, so they will not be tempted to
loot,'' said a monk at a modern Buddhist temple beside the ruins. ''We all
have the duty to protect our own cultural heritage''. 

The total value of cultural assets, both counterfeit and original, smuggled
each year is around 22 million dollars, O'Reilly quotes Masayuki Nagashima,
the author of 'Lost Heritage: the Reality of Artefact Smuggling in Southeast
Asia', as saying. 

Worldwide, trafficking in stolen works of art and national treasures is
valued at up to eight billion dollars a year, according to the Art Theft
Programme of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, which calls the trade
''a major category of international crime''. 

Interpol says that the annual dollar value of art and cultural property
theft is exceeded only by trafficking in illicit narcotics, money laundering
and arms trafficking. 

The looting of artefacts also means the loss of crucial information about
the past: social and political structures of society, pre-historic health,
ancient technologies, records of border trade as well as art and
architecture. 

Many other Asian countries experience differing degrees of looting. But the
popularity of Khmer artefacts, porous borders and lack of resources add to
the problems in Cambodia. 

Activists admit it is hard to curb the demand in the trade in stolen
antiquities. 

So, groups like Heritage Watch focus on education campaigns to prevent
looting or encourage communities to protect their heritage by training
villagers to develop new skills, such as managing small businesses and
producing crafts to sell to tourists. 

But Davis says 80 percent of the catalogues of international auction houses
have no provenance -- information on items' origins -- and this does not
help efforts to protect Cambodia's heritage. 

''They can simply say that a vase is done in Ming style, but they won't say
where exactly they got it from,'' said Davis. ''The absence of provenance
could mean either they really don't know where the item came from, or the
information could be incriminating''. 

''People assume that because they are big companies, they follow the law,
when in fact they are operating under a very thin veil of decency,'' she
added. 

But Wannida Saetieo, country manager of Sotheby, Thailand, said the company
is a ''proper public company'' that has always followed the law. 

''At Sotheby's, we always try our best to ensure that all items are genuine
and not acquired through illegal means,'' she said in an interview. Before
an item can be sold through Sotheby's, the owner must show documents
certifying ownership, she added, but conceded the company ''cannot guarantee
100 percent that an item is not stolen''. 

''If we know that there is only one item and that the item is in a museum
somewhere and if someone comes with an item that looks alike, then we know
it's a fake,'' she stated. 

But ''it's the responsibility of the buyer to also do their own background
check on any item,'' she added, flipping over a Sotheby magazine to its back
pages to show the company's disclaimer. 

Wannida also stressed that Thailand forbids the bringing of Buddha statues
out of the country. ''There is a big demand for them, but we don't sell them
because it's illegal,'' she explained. 

Wannida said that provenance on Sotheby's catalogues can be absent because
wealthy owners guard their privacy and prefer not to see their names printed
for the whole world to see. ''These people are very, very private,'' she
stated. 

National and international laws and conventions exist to make theft and
trafficking harder, but they are not always adequate. 

In 1996, Cambodia's National Assembly adopted the law on the Protection of
Cultural Heritage, which covers ''movable and immovable objects and cultural
property from vandalism, illicit transfer of ownership, excavations, illicit
export and import''. 

In the same year, Cambodia claimed all cultural properties for the state,
making the selling of Khmer antiquities illegal. 

But to recover a stolen artefact, the government has to prove theft by
producing a picture of the item in its original site before it was stolen.
Most pictures of Khmer antiquities in their original sites were taken in the
1930s by the French, so this loophole has added to the difficulty in
prosecution. 

Stolen Khmer artefacts are usually smuggled out either by sea to Singapore,
or by land to Poipet, a Cambodian town on border with Thailand, said
O'Reilly. 

Smugglers take advantage of the fact that Singapore and Thailand are not
signatories to the 1970 UNESCO convention that prohibits the import of
stolen cultural property and requires countries to monitor the antiquities
trade within their own borders. 

Cambodia is also a signatory to the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or
Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, which declares that ''a possessor of a
stolen cultural object must return it regardless of personal involvement or
knowledge of the original theft''. 

This allowed the Cambodian government to negotiate with Thailand in 2001 and
2002 for the restitution of 43 Cambodian cultural artefacts, which had
transited through Singapore. A 9th century stone head of Shiva and a 12th
century stone head of a demon were also returned by the Honolulu Academy of
Arts in 2002. 

For now, small teams of local experts from Heritage Watch continue
documenting Cambodia's ruins, so there is visual evidence in case some
artefacts go missing and turn up somewhere halfway around the world. These
teams also use illustrated comic books in Khmer to explain why villagers
should protect their temples and ruins. 

Heng Chan Thol, a former student of the Archaeology Department of the Royal
University of Fine Arts in Cambodia, agrees: ''Poverty alleviation and
education should be the main efforts to get rid of this phenomenon''. 

For instance, ''the Apsara Authority, in charge of protection and
preservation of Cambodian cultural heritage has tried bringing local people
to work as guards for local historical sites. As a result, the looting in
Siem Riep (Angkor Wat) has almost completely disappeared,'' he said. 

''One day, they will be held accountable,'' Davis said of traffickers in
stolen antiquities. ''Art collectors, looters and smugglers will face the
same discrimination as those who profit from ivory and fur today''.
(END/2005)


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