RI seeks to regain artifacts from Dutch

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian embassy in the Netherlands is currently trying to retrieve artifacts which are considered national heritage from Dutch museums, Antara reported yesterday.

The news agency quoted Indonesia's ambassador to The Hague, Soedarmanto Kadarisman, as saying that initiatives to retrieve particular artifacts should be initiated by Indonesia's provincial governments.

"The first move is for the provincial administration to write to the embassy," Soedarmanto said in Padang, West Sumatra, where he was accompanying Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands during a visit there.

The embassy would follow up such requests through diplomatic channels, he added.

Soedarmanto said he had found that museums in the Netherlands possess artifacts from Indonesia, and that some of are of a kind that can no longer be found in Indonesia.

He added, however, that determining the legal status of such artifacts would require extensive studies in Indonesia. He said it was necessary to determine whether a given artifact had been legally purchased or had been appropriated during the Dutch colonial era. (emb)