Cultural Summit Seeks to Stem Theft of National Treasures

In a move to reduce pillaging and illicit export of Central America’s archeological treasures, President Clinton’s U.S. Cultural Property Advisory Committee met Wednesday with ministers of culture from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and Costa Rica at the Getty Conservation Institute in Brentwood.

It was a landmark assembly of cultural advisors and policy makers--and the first international meeting to be held at the institute’s gleaming new facility--but it was only an initial step toward dealing more effectively with an age-old problem, participants said.

“We all agree that a monstrous kind of criminal activity has put the cultural patrimony of these nations in severe jeopardy,” Martin E. Sullivan, committee chairman and director of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, said at a news conference after the closed-door session.

But the problem is an enormously complex one that has no simple solution, he said. The point of the meeting was to provide participants with an opportunity to exchange ideas about methods that have been effective and to urge their adoption by other countries. Conference participants also reviewed draft guidelines for expanding current restrictions and submitting requests to the United States for cultural property protection.

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee--consisting of 11 presidential appointees who represent the interests of museums, archeologists, dealers and the public--was established by the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act of 1983. The act enables the United States to participate in a treaty adopted by UNESCO in 1970, designed to further international cooperation in protecting cultural artifacts.

The 1983 law allows the United States to impose import restrictions on archeological and ethnological materials considered essential to the preservation of the home nations’ cultural heritage. Any of the 85 nations that ratified the 1970 UNESCO convention can ask the United States to establish import controls on their cultural patrimony. The committee reviews the requests and submits recommendations to the president.

Since 1989, the United States has imposed emergency import restrictions on specific categories of cultural property from three countries represented at the Getty meeting: antique Aymara textiles from Coroma, Bolivia; Mayan artifacts from the Peten region of Guatemala and pre-Hispanic material from the Cara Sucia archeological region of El Salvador. In the case of El Salvador, the restrictions were expanded by a bilateral agreement in 1995 that includes all pre-Hispanic archeological objects.

El Salvador was also cited as an example of what can be done to stem the tide of illegal exportation by raising public awareness of the problem at home. Speaking on behalf of El Salvador, Roberto Galicia said the country had established 112 “houses of culture” in various cities. “It’s a very simple concept,” Galicia said. “A country that loses its memories destroys its past.”

Indeed, most preventive measures discussed at the meeting have more to do with public education than law enforcement.

“We all agree looting must stop, but there is no magic bullet to stop it,” said Eugene Thaw, an art dealer who serves on the president’s committee. “We don’t feel that cutting off collecting is the way to do it. That would just force a black market. Whether it’s art or liquor, prohibition doesn’t work. We have to find a better method, through education and cultural awareness, to make looting and illicit trade unfashionable.”

Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, Honduras’ minister of culture and art, said it is necessary to change the behavior of tourists as well as looters. “It is difficult for customs officials to stop this traffic,” he said. “We need to raise the conscience and awareness of visitors so they reject offers made to them at our monuments and on our streets.”

In hosting the meeting, the Getty Conservation Institute served as a catalyst to bring the two groups together, said Miguel Angel Corzo, who directs the institute and serves on the presidential committee.

“It’s not just a matter of stopping illicit traffic,” he said of the agenda. “We want to make sure archeological information is not destroyed.”

Similar meetings with other countries will be held in the future. “We started with Central America because they have a group that is already working together,” he said.