Spirited Away — page 2

No country has lost so much so quickly as Cambodia, whose jungles hid cities built by the mysterious Angkor empire between the 9th and 14th centuries.

Peace has proved far more destructive to the turbulent nation's antiquities than war. When the relic-rich northwest was under Khmer Rouge control through the mid-'90s, Western dealers couldn't reach many of the prime sites for fear of land mines or crossfire. It was only with the full cessation of civil war a few years ago that foreigners could once again freely visit the relic sites around the legendary Angkor Wat temple complex. Since then, thousands of ancient Khmer relics have flooded the art market.

Most of the antiquities travel overland from Cambodia to Thailand, where ritzy Bangkok galleries openly display looted relics. "Of course they are all real," says a saleswoman in one of the galleries, gesturing toward two 1.5-meter-high statues of the Hindu god Vishnu in the window priced at $17,500 each. "I'll give you a certificate that says so." She has more in the back—even though other Bangkok shopkeepers say such items are getting harder to come by. A ban on the import of Khmer stone antiquities by several industrialized nations, including Japan and the U.S., coupled with regular Thai police raids on antique shops have curtailed the trade. But the saleswoman remains undaunted. "You can have these for a bargain," she says.

	BAGHDAD was just a few weeks of destruction—OUR heritage is experiencing a major blow every week, every month, every year. —HE SHUZHONG, head of Cultural Heritage Watch

A diminutive, bowlegged archaeologist named Michel Tranet stands alone in trying to combat the opportunists who are plundering Cambodia's treasures. He is officially designated as Undersecretary of State at Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts—but it's a comically grand title for a man whose entire staff consists of himself. Tranet, of mixed Khmer-French parentage, returned from exile in 1993 with the sole mission of protecting Cambodia's heritage. "Our history is so important to us that we have Angkor Wat on our flag," says Tranet. "So why are we as a people, as a government, as a country, allowing our heritage to slip through our fingers?"

On days when Tranet doesn't have much to do—and that's often, he admits, as he's hobbled by a lack of funding—he heads across town to the customs house in Phnom Penh in the hope of stanching the flow of antiques out of the country. Earlier this year, Tranet stopped a Frenchman from bribing a customs official to let him leave with an 18th century buddha stolen from a pagoda in Posat province. The 1.63-m wooden statue now stands in a backroom workshop at Cambodia's National Museum in Phnom Penh. If it were returned to the remote pagoda, Tranet fears that thieves would target it again. To Tranet, there are threats on every side—including foreign diplomats who use their immunity to sneak antiquities out of Cambodia without inspection. He suspects one Western diplomat has been smuggling objects overseas this way for more than a decade, while Cambodia's government has looked the other way, fearful of losing the generous foreign aid provided by the diplomat's homeland.

For all his energy and passion, there's a sense of futility about Tranet's efforts. "Without a staff," he says, "I can only stop one person at a time. To do our job seriously, we need a big staff that checks every exit port every day." In the meantime, the industrial-scale looting continues unabated. In 1999, entire slabs of bas-relief from Banteay Chhmar, a magnificent temple in western Cambodia, were loaded onto trucks and driven to Thailand. Roads were bulldozed through the jungle to carry out the sandstone chunks, leading Thai police who later intercepted the load to charge the Cambodian military with complicity. This March, looters trekked upriver to Kbal Spean, a distant jungle enclave where elaborately carved bas-reliefs from the 11th century decorate the riverbed and surrounding rocks. It was nighttime, and they found the site unguarded due to lack of funds. Using an electric saw, the raiders gouged out the face of Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi. Apparently, they were not experts: Lakshmi's face cleaved into several pieces, one of which was found beside the desecrated site the next day. Still, Tranet estimates that the Vishnu face alone could sell for up to $50,000 in Bangkok—and several times that in the West.

No one has been arrested and the local police just shake their heads when asked if an investigation is ongoing. Few will even discuss the incident, because in Cambodia, corruption and bribery are endemic and retribution can be severe for those who interfere in profitable criminal enterprises. "These are things we don't talk about," says Khieu Kort, a guard whose hammock hangs near the looted site. "It's too dangerous." Tranet is less circumspect. He blames the country's "chaotic political system," which encourages Cambodians to pillage, protected by local authorities that sometimes receive a piece of the action. "Last year, [Cambodian Prime Minister] Hun Sen accused the West of stealing our culture," says Tranet, eyes blinking in agitation. "It's easy to blame the Westerners, but we're the ones who are handing over our culture to them. We have nobody to blame but ourselves."

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