A Change of Guard

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Thursday 3 July 2014

Systematic plundering of Cambodia's cultural heritage

New research on Cambodia has shown that since 1970, Cambodia's rich cultural heritage was repeatedly plundered by military and organized crime.
Thirty-five years of looting took its toll, with untold thousands of statues and other artefacts shipped across the border to Thailand, then disappeared into museums and private collections around the world.
Occasionally, there is good news - over the past year, five life-sized statues have been returned to Cambodia.
Correspondent: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Kong Vireak, director of the National Museum of Cambodia; Tess Davis, lawyer and archaeologist; Heng Sophady, deputy director of the cultural heritage department at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts
CARMICHAEL: Here at the National Museum of Cambodia, experts are restoring five life-sized statues to go on display later this year. Three of the 1,000-year-old statues came back from the United States just a few weeks ago; the other two were returned last year.
Museum director Kong Vireak.
KONG VIREAK: Now we will visit the stone conservation workshop where the five statues are now under restoration.
CARMICHAEL: And how big is the team working on that?
KONG VIREAK: In the National Museum of Cambodia, now we have three conservation workshops - we have stone conservation workshop, we have metal conservation workshop, and ceramic conservation workshop. For the stone conservation workshop we have five staff … (sound under) and with the help from École française d'Extrême-Orient, who set up that stone conservation workshop in 1996. So the five staff there are now very skilled. They work not only in Cambodia - sometimes they travel to Laos, to Vietnam, to help in restore the stone statues in those countries.

CARMICHAEL: For 1,000 years, these five statues stood undisturbed in their 10th century temple in north-western Cambodia, a time when the country was the region's dominant political and military power.
But in the early 1970s, as the civil war raged between the U.S.-backed government in Phnom Penh and Pol Pot's communist Khmer Rouge movement, the nine statues in this group were hacked from their pedestals and spirited across the border to Thailand.
KONG VIREAK: This is among the three statues returned last month - this is the Balarama.
CARMICHAEL: Those years marked the start of decades of the rampant theft of Cambodian antiquities. No one knows how many items have been looted since then. American lawyer and archaeologist Tess Davis says the number is certainly in the thousands, and likely far higher.
Davis is one of a group of scholars and researchers who conducted a University of Glasgow study that tracked the plundering of Cambodia's temples between 1970 and 2005.
The study is unique. By speaking to looters, middlemen and others, the researchers revealed the links in the chain between the looted sites and the Bangkok-based dealer who laundered the pieces and sold them on to private collectors and museums around the world.
Davis says the study undid the assumption that the looting was the small-scale work of local villagers. Instead, they found it was well planned, and often involved the armed forces and organized crime.
DAVIS: The organized looting and trafficking of Cambodian antiquities was tied very closely to the Cambodian civil war and to organized crime in the country. It began with the war, but it long outlived it, and was actually a very complicated operation, a very organized operation, that brought antiquities directly from looted sites here in the country to the very top collectors, museums and auction houses in the world.
CARMICHAEL: Heng Sophady is the deputy director-general of the cultural heritage department at the Ministry of Culture. It's his job to protect the country's 4,000 archaeological and historical sites - a near-impossible task.
SOPHADY: To protect the cultural heritage is not the duty of one ministry, it's not the duty of one nation, it's not the duty of one group - but it's the duty for all people, for everybody.
CARMICHAEL: He says the long-term solution involves educating Cambodia's children about the value of their heritage. Meantime, officials are documenting all of the objects and archaeological sites that remain.
SOPHADY: For example, most of the objects that were stolen, we did not have record, we don't have inventory. So those objects disappear from the country without records - so now therefore we start to inventory of the objects in museums and outside museums, and we also conducted the archaeological survey to inventory all the sites.
CARMICHAEL: Much of the looting at Cambodia's historic sites has stopped, partly due to better security and partly because there's little left to steal. But new sites will be discovered in the coming years, and they will be at risk.
Although many people regard antiquities theft and smuggling as a largely victimless, white-collar crime - as portrayed by Hollywood - the University of Glasgow's study shows that is not the case.
Instead, such plunder is often well organized and conducted violently, as seen most recently in Syria, Iraq and Mali, where some armed groups are thought to use the proceeds to finance their operations. Tess Davis says that should be a red flag.
DAVIS: The money that collectors in New York are spending on antiquities from around the world is going into the pockets of some very bad people - and I think the art world needs to step up and recognize their role in what's happening in these countries. The international law enforcement community and especially the art market itself need to work together to make sure that Cambodia's tragedy isn't repeated again and again and again - because right now it is being repeated.
CARMICHAEL: Ultimately, ending the looting will require stopping demand, and that, says Davis, means that courts here and abroad must prosecute those involved.

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