Antiquities Dispute Pits Cambodia Against Establishment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjAGbVRU52w

Cambodian officials say they are considering asking US museums for the return of their stolen objects.

The Cambodian government has filed suit in a US court to have a statue that was looted from this site seized from the giant auction house Sotheby’s.

Brian Calvert, VOA Khmer

21 July 2012

LOS ANGELES - Two empty pedestals at Koh Ker temple, in Siem Reap province, mark a battleground that has big implications for Western museums. They are the feet of two looted statues that ended up in America.

The Cambodian government has filed suit in a US court to have a statue that was looted from this site seized from the giant auction house Sotheby’s. And now Cambodian officials say they are considering asking US museums for the return of their stolen objects.

Jason Felch, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and an author on a book about the antiquities trade, says the case is drawing battle lines.

“On the one side, you have museums and private collectors, who argue passionately that these objects are really best off in these big museums where a lot of people can access them, where scholars can study them,” he says. “On the other hand, you have source countries, countries that have been the subject of lots of looting, who have lost a lot of their cultural heritage. And they’re saying, ‘Look, your beautiful museum is the result of our plunder, and we want some of those objects back.’”

The question is whether these antiquities were looted from the country before there were laws that might require their return. Both museums and Sotheby’s argue it is unknown when the statues were looted.