The enemy within

WHERE MONEY TALKS

The announcement of next month's sale in London of treasures that belonged to Robert Clive reminded me of Hun Sen, Cambodia's Prime Minister, saying that the West has stolen his country's culture. But the sale's real significance lies in what it reveals of Asian complicity in ransacking Asia.

Clive's arrogant justification of his plunder rings down the annals of history. We all know of how he boasted that Mir Jaffer, whose treachery was rewarded by being made puppet Nawab of Bengal, threw open the palace vaults of Murshidabad and forced so much gold and jewels on him that Clive confessed at his impeachment in London in 1773, "By God, at this moment do I stand astonished at my own moderation!"

The enfeebled Manchu emperors were similarly guilty of the despoilment of China's heritage after 1890 when they allowed European and Japanese archaeologists full freedom to dig up the old Silk Road and pillage historical treasures under the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts. The British archaeologist, Sir Aurel Stein, transferred nine tons of artifacts, including the world's oldest printed book, to Europe.

Some 1.67 million items of China's treasure are reportedly scattered in 200 museums in 47 countries. In 1860 Lord Elgin looted and burnt down the Forbidden City, exceeding the vandalism that identifies his father, the 7th earl, with the Parthenon sculptures now known as the Elgin Marbles.

The predatory collectors and museums who have taken over from predatory proconsuls employ Asians to do their dirty work. Last year the Chinese authorities executed four people for raiding ancient tombs for buried treasures.

An Indian trader accused of smuggling antiquities on a massive scale reportedly confessed that his Western clients tour temples and palaces and point to what they want ripped out and shipped to them. Iraqis acting under foreign orders looted priceless Babylonian and Sumerian relics from the Baghdad museum last year under the American army's very nose.

Locals regularly rob excavation sites and museums in Afghanistan, Nepal and Cambodia to cater to loaded American, Japanese and European collectors.

Interpol says the clandestine trade in stolen treasure ranks after drugs, money laundering and arms trafficking. True, antique American firearms and British furniture are also stolen, but any visit to art galleries and auction houses in the West (or Hongkong which is a major clearing point for dubiously acquired Chinese artifacts) will confirm that ancient Asia is in vogue in international artistic and cultural circles.

After all, it is easier to rob Angkor Wat than Notre Dame. Moreover, there are still many neglected piles like Angkor Wat not only in Cambodia's jungles but also in the remote interior of countries like India and China.

Most thefts go unnoticed. Indian police reckon that only 2 per cent of losses are reported. Thus, the 300,000 lost antiquities that are registered annually represent a tiny fraction of the total. The collusion that makes theft possible in the first place ensures that it remains secret.

The Art Loss Registry, set up in 1991 by leading auction houses, art trade associations, insurance companies and the International Foundation for Art Research with offices in London, New York, Cologne and St Petersburg, could have afforded protection. But a 1997 episode exposed its limitations.

The Registry said nothing though it knew that a Claude Monet painting that had been gifted to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art had been stolen during World War II. Later, it explained that the Registry sees itself in the passive role of being only a repository for reported losses. It is for victims to stake their claim.

Nor does the Met's assumption that everything presented to it is "presented honorably" offer any comfort. The British Museum's general claim is that it "has the resources to preserve them better than the country from which they were taken."

It has regularly rejected demands for the return of the 51 Parthenon sculptures, made by the Greek government, now supported by a group of athletes under the banner of British Committee for the Restitution of the Marbles.

The Chinese, too, want back 23,000 of their national relics in the British Museum.Understandably, they were annoyed last July when Tony Blair shrugged off their request. "Sorry about that," he quipped during a visit to Beijing. "It's something that happened in history."

India does not ask back for the Koh-i-Noor or Tipu Sultan's gadi, probably because an early wrangle over the India Office library revealed Pakistani tenacity in staking counter-claims, and Britain's exploitation of subcontinental disputes. But India does take some steps now to recover stolen art objects that are shipped out.

However, the case for a punitive international regimen is weakened if the citizens of victim nations continue to ransack and export their own past. True, some institutional checks have been introduced but Britain and the United States have not endorsed the 1953 Hague convention that obliges belligerent powers to protect cultural objects in war zones.

Nor are they helpful to efforts by the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization to tackle the problem. The only stolen art objects that are tracked down with determination by Western governments and agencies are things that the Nazis looted during World War II, mostly from rich European Jews.

No one is similarly interested in recovering medieval Indian bronzes or Khmer carvings because no other race demonstrates the grit with which Jews, backed by the Israeli state, guard their past.

In this as in much else, Asians are their own worst enemy.