Archaeologists, unarmed heritage guardians

JAKARTA (JP): Thousands of centuries-old Chinese ceramics have been salvaged from Indonesia's waters, while hundreds of historical sculptures and reliefs are stolen every day from temples and archaeological sites throughout the country.

Temples, ancient settlements and old and historical buildings have been bulldozed to make way for various development projects.

For decades, the Indonesian government has been turning a blind eye to this illicit business of widespread pillaging of the country's cultural heritage.

Local archaeologists, who are supposed to safeguard these precious heritages, remain silent when facing the more powerful of those responsible.

Respected professor of archaeology at the University of Indonesia Mundardjito said: "We feel like armless soldiers who have to protect the national treasures."

Mundardjito and his colleagues despair in the face of the growing and more complex thefts and damage caused to important archaeological sites and findings.

"The current policy of national development has created a lot of conflicting problems which largely affect important archaeological sites protected by the law," said the professor.

In Indonesia, preservation and conservation activities of archaeological sites and artifacts has been ongoing since l901 when the Dutch colonial government established a special commission to protect all cultural heritages in its colony.

These activities were continued after Indonesia's independence. "However, the massive plundering, looting and theft of antiquities and artifacts is flourishing much more now," Mundardjito complained.

He said Indonesian archaeologists still had a weak bargaining position against institutions and individuals that violated the law on cultural properties.

"We have to establish powerful professional associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which advocate the importance of preserving and protecting our heritage," he conceded.

The current Association of the Indonesian Archaeologists must be empowered to strongly raise various archaeological issues and be more involved in the decision-making process.

Environmental concern, for example, is relatively new in Indonesia, but campaigns and advocacy aggressively carried out by NGOs and leading environmentalists have been successful in increasing the awareness of the government, businessmen and society on the need to save and protect the environment.

"In local archaeological, we need people like Emil Salim who consistently and strongly promotes and pushes environment issues," he said.

He recalled that when the government planned to build a hydroelectric power plant in Muara Takus in South Sumatra, believed to be a significant archaeological site of the ancient Sriwijaya kingdom (7th century and 8th century), Emil Salim as head of the Environmental Center for Development and Control demanded the government stop building the power plant as it would destroy important archaeological sites and create environmental problems.

"I represented Pak Emil at that time, and the government immediately halted the project. If I represented the Directorate General for Culture or archaeologists, people in the government and the projects would not listen," he remembered.

This, he said, illustrated how powerless the archaeologists were and also the Directorate General for Culture, an institution in charge of safeguarding all protected cultural heritages.

He mentioned several problems which must be solved first in order to save the country's cultural and historical legacies.

One of the urgent steps needed is to increase the number of proficient and dedicated archaeologists and continually improve their knowledge to adjust to the ongoing development progress.

Human Resources

"We have always complained we don't have adequate human resources to take care of cultural property and this is true," said the professor.

In Indonesia, there are only four universities -- the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, the University of Gajah Mada in Yogyakarta, the University of Hasanuddin in Makassar and the University of Udayana in Bali, which have schools of archaeology.

"Each university yields only between 10 and 20 graduates annually," he said.

Some of these graduates will become dirt archaeologists (field experts), researchers and armchair archaeologists (bureaucrats).

The professor said Indonesia's archaeological sites stretch from Aceh in the west to Irian Jaya, comparable to the distance from San Francisco to New York.

"Many important sites are located in faraway islands or at inner forested areas which are very difficult to reach and to control by archaeologists," he maintained.

It is important to strengthen the close cooperation between archaeologists and provincial and regional governments.

"Most of the notorious archaeological thefts occurred in remote places and were carelessly handled by regional officials," he said.

Unfortunately, the majority of local government officials have little or no knowledge of cultural property law.

"We have to equip these officials with the necessary know-how about archaeology and arts and cultures so that they will be able to tackle cultural crimes," he noted.

Those buglars took advantages of local officials' ignorance and incapability in dealing with cultural thefts, which are usually linked to powerful international connections.

He strongly denounced this and previous governments for decades of inactions.

"It requires the government's political will to deal with this cultural issue," he said.

So far, it has showed no serious intention to foster cultural development, let alone archaelogy, which is often considered as an archaic science.

Compared to other countries like Egypt, Italy, Greece and even Thailand, the Indonesian government leaders paid little attention to the preservation of cultural heritages.

In Egypt, for instance, President Hosni Mubarak directly involved and halted a road construction affected the Necropolis arcahelogical sites in Giza where historical pyramids and the remains of ancient kingdoms are included in Unesco's list of World Heritages.

The Italian government is now launching a war against cultural looters who smuggle heritages from Roman empires abroad.

"I suggested that we establish a ministry of culture separate from the present Ministry of National Education," the professor said.

The education field is so wide, therefore, the current ministry faces difficulty in handling cultural issues. Indonesia can learn from Greece. It has a powerful directorate of museums and archaeology, directly under the prime minister.

"It is also important to have a minister who really understands and cares about cultural heritage," he said.

The present Minister of National Education Yahya Muhaimin seems reluctant and slow in taking action.

The New Order government contributed to the destruction of numerous archaeological findings and cultural legacies.

"This is so pathetic, ironic and foolish. They only think about temporary temptation to gain money," he added.

For Mundardjito, to rip archaeology from the earth and the water is an attack not just on us but on the future of children and civilization. (raw)