Cultural and historical artifacts looted and stolen from Africa have made great deal of museum collections in destination countries, often without recognition to the origins. Most Ethiopian artifacts were looted during the Meqdala campaign. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church reveals that over 80,000 treasures had been looted by the British troops during the war.
Additional plunder was made during Italian five-year occupation, not to mention theft by individuals that greatly increased the volume. Furthermore, many treasures also have been sold abroad through illicit traffickers, illegal traders and as form of gift as data obtained from Authority for Research and Conservation for Cultural Heritage (ARCCH) indicate.
The Authority along with other stakeholders has now been attempting to reinstate the looted heritages. Authority’s Director General Yonas Desta indicated that vellums that were collected from various illicit traffickers had been delivered to National Archiving and Library Agency last December. More efforts will be made through diplomatic means, even those plundered before the coming to effect of UNESCO’s 1970 Convention. The convention states preventive measures, restitution provisions and international cooperation framework.
The government of Ethiopia has been working in par with the convention. However, the Convention has no clear cut legal guarantee for looted heritages before the stated year, making diplomatic means an only relable option.
It was in the same vein that Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed held fruitful discussions with France president Emanuel Macron on ways and means of restituting Ethiopian heritages; accordingly, the latter agreed to restitute 3,000 of them. Authority’s Communication and Public Relations Director, Fanta Beyene, told The Ethiopian Herald that preventive works have received increased attention nowadays.
Keen cooperation with pertinent government bodies including customs officials, craft designers andpolice officers will do the tricks, he added. “We’re due to train officials on ways of countering heritage illicit trafficking. Plus, we’ll assign our officials at the stated offices.” In addition to looting during wartime, and the five-year occupation, the volume of artifacts robbed by individual traffickers is also far too large, according to Abera Anjulo, Cultural Heritage Inspection and Standardization Expert with the Authority.
“Ethiopian vellums on display in most museums in France may prove this claim true.” Conservation and preservation approach is the main alternative to protect the national heritages while the international law is biased to restitute treasures after looted by traffickers, stressed Kalleab Belachew, Tourism Development Expert. Restitution tasks are hard to come by. It requires lots of diplomatic efforts particularly when it comes to those looted before the international law come in to force, according to him. “While pressing ahead to get looted heritages back to their origin, the prevention of further illicit heritage trafficking ought to be high on the list of priorities.”
The inventory of artifacts becomes the most important preventive approach in this regard, he added. “Inventory list helps us to know the material the artifact is made of; where it was found, the descriptors type, among others. Hence, the protection measures become meaningful.” Abera seemed to buy Kalleab’s proposals. “Last year, we confiscated over 200 heritages from illicit traffickers; unfortunately we failed to locate the origins of the heritages for they are not entirely registered.”
Cultural Heritage Management Inventory System (CHMS) that aimed at preventing illicit heritage traffics and making profiles of heritages accessible to visitors soon will be launched, as to Abera. Kalleab also recommended the intensification of the inventory and registration system to include the entire national heritages for it has a paramount significance to control illicit trafficking.
Herald January 4/2019
BY YESUF ENDRIS
