Italy told to return Ethiopian loot
2001-06-16 19:38
Addis Ababa - Two university professors have written an open letter to new
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to demand the long-delayed
return of the Axum Obelisk, which was looted by the army of Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937.
"We feel the time has come, under your Excellency's leadership, to
redeem Italy's reputation by honouring treaty obligations without
further delay," Richard Pankhurst of Britain and Ethiopian Endreas
Eshete wrote in the letter, a copy of which was sent to AFP late on
Friday.
The 160-tonne funerary monument was to have been returned by the
Italian government within 18 months of Italy signing the September
1947 peace treaty with the United Nations that officially ended
World War II.
The return of the 24-metre granite stela - one of six
erected at Axum when Ethiopia embraced Christianity under the
Emperor Ezana in the fourth century - was also agreed in a
bilateral accord signed in 1997.
The obelisk has stood in Rome's Piazza di Porta Capena, outside the
headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, for more
than 60 years.
Pankuhurst and Eshete, members of Ethiopia's National Coordinating
Committee for the Return of the Axum Obelisk, added: "We cannot
believe that the Italian people want to retain an obelisk which was
erected in Rome to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Mussolini's
seizure of power and which in Rome symbolises the fascist regime in
both Italy and Ethiopia."
Ethiopia was occupied by fascist Italy from 1936 until 1941.
Addis Ababa has also been waiting for six decades for Italy to
return a significant portion of its pre-war national archives and
the country's first aeroplane, the Tsehai, named after the daughter
of the country's last monarch, Emperor Haile Selassie.- Sapa-AFP
- SAPA