[CPProt.net] Ethopia vents anger as obelisk stays in Italy

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Ethopia vents anger as obelisk stays in Italy
By Peter Popham in Rome
13 April 2005


It took Benito Mussolini only two years to cart Ethiopia's most revered
ancient monument from the ancient city of Axum to a busy traffic junction in
central Rome. It has taken his democratic successors 58 years and counting
to do what they promised and give it back. And it is still stuck in Rome.

This week the return of the Obelisk of Axum to Ethiopia, pledged by Silvio
Berlusconi in the first flush of his election victory four years ago, was
postponed yet again. It was supposed to take place yesterday. Foreign
journalists gathered at the site of the ancient city. Anticipation was high.

Then came the news that for "technical reasons" the return had been
postponed yet again.

One angry Ethiopian told the Daily Monitor in Addis Ababa: "This is a
decision that would make no one happy. We have waited all these years to
have our identity back. But now they are coming up with every small reason
not to do so. That is a shame."

The 24-metre high monolith, weighing 180 tons, is the finest of more than
100 obeslisks which stood in the ancient city of Axum, birthplace of the
Queen of Sheba. Ancient Rome was littered with monoliths removed from Egypt
and other corners of the world and that now punctuate many of the city's
piazzas. Mussolini wanted one of his own. For the best part of six decades
it stood outside the building that is now the headquarters of the United
Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation in central Rome.

In November 2003, engineers successfully dismantled the stone monster, and
it was stored in three pieces in a warehouse near Fiumicino Airport. The
latest delay was reportedly caused by the fact that the airport at Axum,
whose runway has already been lengthened to accommodate the giant Antonov
plane that will carry the obelisk, cannot store enough fuel to send the
plane home.

The disappointment came as the United Nations warned that hunger and
malnutrition among three million people in the east and north-east of
Ethiopia were likely to worsen in the coming months, due to a funding
shortfall of US$33m (£18m). Ten thousand children are at risk in the Somali
region alone, where five are reported to be dying every day. 

http://news.independent.co.uk/