Venezuela Demands Germany to Return Sacred Stone

CARACAS - Venezuelan cultural authorities asked Germany to speed up the procedures to return the Kueka Abuela Stone, a sacred rock for the Pemon ethnical group, which is the possession of the Tiergarten Municipal Park in Berlin.

The demand was made in a ruling by the Cultural Heritage Institute to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, which was published in the Official Gazette.

The jasper stone is considered a Venezuelan Asset of Cultural Interest and was extracted illegally from the Canaima National Park in 1998 by virtue of an alleged donation made by the then president of the National Parks Institute, Hector Hernandez.

According to documents, Hernandez authorized Austrian-German citizen Wolfgang Kraker von Shwarzenfeld to take the stone to Germany.

The Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) reported that the German Foreign Ministry expressed its willingness to return the stone if Venezuela pays for transportation costs and possible actions by a third party.

However, the Convention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) establishes that the expenses to return illegally-transferred cultural assets must be paid by the state that holds the piece.

Both Venezuela and Germany approved and ratified the Convention.