I’ve posted bits about the destruction of our heritage before (here, here and here) and I daresay I will be inveighing about it until the day I die. This article from The Phnom Penh Post is just more of the same, but more depressing than usual for it’s been going on for so long.
The illicit trade in Khmer antiquities has led to the creation of the Red List by an international arts organization as a tool to help customs officials, police officers, art dealers and collectors recognize artifacts unlawfully smuggled out of Cambodia.
[...]
It offers sufficient identifying features that "if a customs officer opens a package and sees something similar, they can contact local officials to authenticate it," said Jennifer Thevenot, the ICOM officer in charge of the project.
"It's difficult to say if the looting situation in Cambodia has gotten better. It's still dramatic," said Thevenot. "I can say this from wandering through Paris auction houses."
She noted that "cultural tourism is a main source of income for Cambodia, so robbing artifacts is robbing the country of income."
[...]
“Even eBay and other internet trading sites were beginning to monitor the sale of antiquities using the lists”, she said.
[...]
A major legal issue for Cambodia, she explained, was that Thailand and Singapore, both popular transit points for the illegal trade in Khmer antiquities, were not signatories of the 1970 UN resolution on the trafficking of cultural heritage which obligated countries to monitor the traffic of antiquities across their borders.
"This could be an opportunity to hold a press conference in Thailand where we could make a pitch for them to become a signatory," said Thevenot.
[...]
"Looting of Angkor-era relics has been going on for so long that there isn't much left to take, so now the looting of prehistoric items is a bigger issue," said Dougald O'Reilly, head of Heritage Watch.
So, these dishonourable people who believe that they have a right to steal from us all have now finished stealing everything they can from Angkor and will start to steal anything else that they can from this poor country. They are robbing the poor, and us, to satisfy their own private greed – and the governments of Thailand and Singapore couldn’t care less, or so it seems!
It isn’t just that these artefacts end up in private collections where we will never be able to see them, it’s also about the damage done when they are stolen. They are ripped out of context using the crudest of methods – sometimes explosives are used – which often ends up with a whole archaeological site being destroyed and vast amounts of knowledge about our past thereby being rendered impossible to decipher. There is also an economic impact, as Ms. Thevenot (ICOM) pointed out, which is equally as important, for we must not forget that our tourist pounds and dollars are vital to developing countries such as Cambodia – but please remember to be good and polite guests.
You can find Heritage Watch here.
You can find maps of Angkor Wat here, including, if you scroll down, an interactive one.
You can find a Photo Gallery of Angkor Wat here.
You can find The Phnom Penh Post here.
