Italy to keep obelisk stolen from Ethiopia
2001-07-24 13:25
Milan - Italy has no plans to return a 3 000-year-
old obelisk stolen from Ethiopia more than 60 years ago on the
orders of dictator Benito Mussolini, a senior Italian official said on Monday.
"As far as I am concerned, the obelisk should remain here,"
Culture Ministry Under-Secretary Vittorio Sgarbi told Reuters.
He said the obelisk, taken from the holy city of Axum when
Ethiopia was under Italian occupation in 1937, had become
naturalised since it had remained in Italy for more than 50
years and risked damage if it were split into pieces for
shipment.
"The most important thing is the integrity of this work of art,"
Sgarbi said. "To move the obelisk means to break it up and do it
harm."
Sgarbi's comments are likely to antagonise Ethiopia, which
has repeatedly voiced anger over Italy's failure to return the
monument despite occasional suggestions that it will.
Ethiopians feel very strongly that the monument should be
returned to them.
"Ethiopia's stand is firm - the return of the obelisk should not
be delayed any further," the Foreign Ministry's head of
European and American affairs, Girum Abaye, said in a
statement on Sunday.
The Italian government had repeatedly promised to return the
24-metre (75-foot) granite monument, which weighs 160
tonnes.
The obelisk now stands in front of the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation building in central Rome, within
walking distance of the Colosseum.
Italy signed a first agreement with the United Nations in 1947
and a second with the Ethiopian government in 1997 for the
return of all looted historical and other property including the
Axum obelisk.