WHAT IF THE STONES COULD SPEAK

WHAT IF THE STONES COULD SPEAK Directed and produced: Ouch Makara Executive Producer: Youk Chhang Advisor: Dr. Markus Zimmer The tourists typically begin their pilgrimage by visiting the spectacular Hindu complex known as Angkor Watt as the sun first appears in the wee hours of the morning and the golden light illuminates the ancient façade. From there, they move on to Prasat Angkor Thom, a city of Buddhist temples and shrines including the astounding Prasat Bayon. Time permitting, they travel to the miniature Prasat Banteay Srei, constructed in the Tenth Century in honor of the Hundu God Shiva and popularly referred to as the jewel of Khmer art. The only somber dimension of this otherwise spiritually uplifting tourist experience of visiting these and other ancient temples throughout Cambodia are the violent scars of rampant and violent vandalism, theft and mutilation that disfigure nearly all of these monuments of ancient Khmer commitment to art, culture and religion. Throughout the temple region, tourists, anthropologists, archeologists and others are astounded as the classically rendered statuary of gods and other mythical figures of ancient Khmer, Hindu and Buddhist religious and cultural history appear without heads, hands and feet or are missing in their entirety. The evidence of the wanton plunder of Cambodia’s ancient legacy is everywhere, beginning at the primeval entry gate into the Angkor complex and extending to the small temples hidden in the dense jungles of the most rural and uninhabited regions of northern Cambodia. When many of the stone-carved figures have had their heads simply chopped off in violent criminal fashion, some of the more remote temples with sealed doorways were simply blown open with modern-day explosives by thieves anxious to plunder the beautiful statuary they hoped was to be found inside the inner holy sanctums of these houses of worship. The greed and the avarice that stimulated such profound destruction, theft and desecration of the great artistic and cultural legacy of this small and impoverished country knew no bounds, taking advantage of its inability to adequately police these precious enclaves of ancient treasure. The greed and the avarice that drive such thefts cut across all classes of human beings, from the uneducated local co-conspirators who plunder the temple sites to regional ringleaders who, in turn, are linked to transnational criminal enterprises that transport and market these stolen treasures to high-brow dealers in western capitals such as New York, London and Paris – and, more recently, those who cater to the nouveau riche in the Middle East, Russia and China. They often end up in the personal collections of the wealthy who either pass them on to their children or donate them to the collections of some of the world’s most prestigious museum. Although the Cambodian Government lacks the resources and the will to police the dark side of the international market in cultural and artistic artifacts, there have been instances in which wealthy but honest collectors and museum curators, upon being made aware of the criminal origins of their acquisitions, seek to return them to their owners of record, the people of Cambodia.