Thursday, May 17, 2007

Angkor Wat relics for sale on eBay

PM - Thursday, 17 May , 2007
Reporter: Timothy McDonald
Australian Broadcasting Corporation


This is a transcript from PM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio.

MARK COLVIN: Angkor Wat is a huge and ancient city of palaces and temples that rise out of the Cambodian forests and whose history gives it a prised position on the world heritage-list.

Now, a vendor on the Internet auction site eBay says you can have your very own piece of it.

Invaders and treasure hunters have looted Angkor Wat extensively since the Khmer kings abandoned it hundreds of years ago.

Although it's been illegal to remove relics from Cambodia for the last decade, heritage workers say those laws are very difficult to enforce.

Timothy McDonald reports.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: For just under $6,000 you can have your own relief sculpture or statue to sit on the mantelpiece or next to the water feature in the back yard.

There's just one problem, it's quite possibly illegal to buy or sell the goods.

So eBay immediately started an investigation when PM informed the company about the seller.

eBay spokesman Daniel Feiler says it may be rare example of an unwanted item slipping past the site's monitors.

DANIEL FEILER: While we do have systems and tools in place, as well as over 2,000 trust and safety personnel who monitor the site and look out for things that might infringe our policies, or just shouldn't be on our site, there is the occasional thing that might slip through the cracks.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The seller is based in Thailand but says his products are housed in Singapore and he insists the statues are the real thing.

There is a market in fakes and it's possible that these items aren't what the seller says they are.

Similar items that are sold legally through auction houses often sell for more than double the price.

If the sale is fraudulent, Mr Feiler says the seller's likely to be caught.

DANIEL FEILER: On a site like eBay that has close cooperation with law enforcement agencies all around the world, or certainly in all the 35 markets in which it operates, then you're running a high risk of getting caught.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Heritage workers say they're worried that if the items are genuine, they may have been stolen.

Heritage Watch is a non-government organisation that's working to preserve Cambodia's rich cultural heritage.

The Director Dr Dougald O'Reilly says people have been plundering the site for hundreds of years.

DOUGALD O'REILLY: Looting in Cambodia has a very long history. It goes back to the time of wars with Thailand when booty was taken back to Thailand and materials actually found in Burma today, dating back to several hundred years ago.

So it's not a new problem. It was current under the French Colonial regime there, it continues today.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: New laws came into effect in 1994 which made it illegal to remove historic relics from Cambodia, but the looting continued.

One of the worst examples was in 1999, when the Cambodian Military spent weeks using circular saws to remove sandstone blocks, which then made their way to Thailand.

They've since been returned.

Dr O'Reilly says the situation has gotten significantly better in recent years, but the illegal trade still persists.

DOUGALD O'REILLY: There are people who are dealing in antiquities that are stolen recently from Cambodia and other countries around the world and it is illegal frankly to deal with these and to take them into possession.

So you need to be very careful because these things can be repossessed and you can lose significant amounts of money if you're dealing with an unscrupulous dealer.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: While it's illegal to sell any relic removed from Cambodia after 1994, the rule has proven difficult to enforce.

Often it's the Cambodian Government that's had to prove that any questionable relic was removed after the law came into effect.

And that often requires photographic or documentary evidence.

Dr O'Reilly says that's slowed the number of items returned to Cambodia to a trickle.

MARK COLVIN: Timothy McDonald.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We, Cambodians, are very ashamed to have an uneducated prime minister like ah Hun Sen

Reporters have rights to ask any question to high-rank officials, either prime minister, in the world.

If ah Hun Sen (Kbal youn khloun Sat') told RFA reporters are insolent, so ah Hun Sen is very ILL-BRED and uneducated barbarian person