July 03, 2003
So, theft is OK as long as it's a museum doing the stealing?
Here’s the entire AP article from the SP Times:
Museum may get seized Brazilian tribal artifacts
By Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 3, 2003
GAINESVILLE - Hundreds of smuggled Brazilian tribal artifacts may soon become part of the collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History now that the government is finished with them as evidence in a criminal case.
The collection includes several hundred native headdresses, ornaments and other items seized in last year's raid on an illegal artifacts business.
Gainesville resident Milan Hrabovsky, 39, was arrested last year after federal agents determined that he was selling artifacts containing feathers, teeth and other body parts taken from endangered and threatened animals.
The items included jaguar teeth and feathers from scarlet macaws and harpy eagles. The headdresses and ornaments were made by tribes in the Brazilian Amazon.
Trade in those items is banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a 168-nation treaty drafted 30 years ago to stop poachers and trophy takers from plundering endangered animals.
Hrabovsky's business, known as Rainforest Crafts or Tribal Arts, sold the items through the Internet and at art shows and conventions, prosecutors said.
Hrabovsky was convicted of violating the treaty and was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison on June 20.
Robert "Hutch" Hutchinson, museum director of development, said the items would be a significant addition, particularly since ethical and legal issues now keep anthropologists from taking such artifacts out of the jungle.
From this we learn that stealing is bad, unless you’re a rich white male of European descent, in which case it’s ok to steal cultural artifacts as long as you plan to put them on display in your museum. Did anyone even consider returning these items to the culture from whence they were stolen? How is it ethical to keep something if you know it was obtained illegally? Using this logic, it must be ok to buy and drive a stolen car. In fact, said stolen car could become a significant addition to your collection, particularly since ethical and legal issues now keep car thieves from taking such vehicles out of the hood.
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