Experts from Argentina, Ecuador, Spain and Uruguay and representatives of Interpol and UNESCO discussed experiences in combating illicit trafficking of cultural property on 26 and 27 September 2018 in Montevideo.
This was the first National Seminar on Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property in Uruguay where the country's Vice Minister of Education and Culture, Edith Moraes, said she hopes that the meeting will allow the Experts “activate their creativity” on a global problem.
"May this personal enrichment activate creativity, initiative, ideas so that, from this synergy, collective actions arise (…) and we continue building from the encounter and the the region's commitment to the preservation and care of cultural assets", Moraes said.
For his part, the director of International Cooperation and Projects of the ministry, Nicolás Pons, told the press that although the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) placed Uruguay among the last countries to establish, in line with the 1970 Convention on the Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property, a committee to combat this crime, the nation has made efforts in this regard.
Specific cases
The National Committee for the Prevention and Fight against Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property in the southern country has thus begun to intervene in specific cases.
«Last year, the judicial intervention that we promoted from the committee to avoid the alienation of a group of cultural assets, especially archaeological, that came from countries such as Syria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Peru and Ecuador and (…) they had entered the country illegally," Pons exemplified.
«These goods belong to everyone and therefore (we want) to combat their trafficking., to prevent this from becoming a money laundering mechanism or becoming a consolidated practice and to cooperate internationally against this spurious manifestation (…) that harms the identity of the people," he stressed.
On the other hand, UNESCO Culture Programme specialist Frédéric Vacheron indicated during his presentation that the problem is "complex" and that at a global level, all aspects relating to the traffic and circulation of goods, such as ethics and security, are being considered.
«The issue of illicit trafficking is not only a legal or expert issue, It is a social, anthropological, philosophical, ethical and also a painful issue. "There are many countries that have lost their heritage or have recovered heritage that remained in their territory for years and if it is taken away from them it is another pain," said Vacheron.
The expert also highlighted the historical nature of the issue.
«The history of humanity is a history of plundering of cultural property, so the concept of loot is a way of showing that the victors won the war but also that they eradicated the memory of the other," he concluded.
Source: Reuters
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