Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.

Dismiss

Servs And Art in Croatia

2 views

Skip to first unread message

Barry Marjanovich

unread,

May 29, 2001, 10:06:40 PM5/29/01

Interpol opens conference in Croatia to curb art theft

BRIJUNI, Croatia, May 29 (AFP) -

About a hundred police officers from about 20 countries began an Interpol
conference here Tuesday on fighting art theft in central and eastern Europe.

Participants will learn to better inventory stolen and looted art and
improve cooperation between the region's police forces, said Jean-Pierre
Jouanny, an official with France-based Interpol and organizer of the
conference.

"No country is spared from the looting of cultural objects," Jouanny said.

Croatian Interior Minister Josip Vrbic, present for the conference opening,
said more than 1,500 criminal acts concerning 3,000 art objects were
committed in Croatia between 1991 and 2000.

"In Croatia, like in other countries... portable and historic art objects
are exposed to theft and smuggling to be sold on legal and illegal markets
of more developed countries," the minister said.

Croatian Culture Minister Bianka Percinic-Kavur denounced "a worldwide form
of organized and profitable criminality only slightly less developed than
drug or weapons smuggling, which are often related."

The Brijuni conference is the third of its kind, after 1995 in Prague and
Budapest in 1998.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
Current President Of Serbia Is An Indicted War Criminal Milan Milutinovic
http://www.interpol.int/Public/Wanted/Notices/Data/1999/12/1999_29612.asp

Kostunica: "I won't hand over Milosevic"
"I am the president"
http://www.dssrewards.net/english/warcrimes/milos.html
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Excerpts:
The Guardian
Special report: Serbia
Martin Woollacott
Friday September 29, 2000

Vojislav Kostunica does not differ much from
Milosevic on Serbia's right to Kosovo; on
the status of the Bosnian Serb entity,
Republika Srpska; or on the desirability of
Montenegro staying with Serbia.

In choosing Kostunica in such large
numbers, it may be said that the Serbians
have voted for a clean Milosevic. They
voted for a man who has never said that
Serbia's objectives in the wars of the last
10 years were wrong; who denies the
authority of the International War Crimes
Tribunal in The Hague; who considers
Nato intervention an outrage: and who
insists that Serbia will not be a vassal
state of the west.

http://www.geocities.com/compuserb_com/serbia.html

Barry Marjanovich

unread,

May 31, 2001, 8:56:10 PM5/31/01

Friday, June 1, 2001

Interpol targets international art thieves

BRIJUNI, Croatia, May 31 (AFP) -

About a hundred police officers from some 20 countries held a three-day
conference this week in northern Croatia focused on ways to fight the
plundering plague hitting the countries of central and eastern Europe.

"What we suffer the most is a lack of inventory," said Jean-Pierre Jouanny,
an Interpol official and organizer of the conference which ended Friday.

A stolen work of art is usually quickly transported to a foreign country,
sold and then kept under wraps for a long time, only to reappear at some
later date as a part of an "inheritance", Jouanny explained.

The trafficking of works of art does not differ from other forms such as
arms, drugs and human beings smuggling, that Interpol fights against,
Jouanny said.

"The same sort of people are involved," he said.

Interpol considers that the best way to fight this kind of trafficking is a
detailed list of stolen objects made available to law enforcement officials
around the worlds.

Interpol has made a CD-ROM with descriptions of more than 14,000 stolen
works of art. Its Internet site presents a few of the most important objects
still unaccounted for, including a Claude Monet painting stolen on September
17 last year from a Warsaw museum.

"This unlawful traffic of cultural property has its origins in art market
demands, opening of borders, improved transportation and political
instability in certain countries," said Willy Derrider, Interpol's interim
executive director.

As for Croatians, they would like to get back works of art they say were
stolen by Serbs during the 1991 conflict which followed the break-up of the
former Yugoslavia.

Negotiations are underway between Zagreb and Belgrade regarding the issue,
according to Jadran Antolovic, an official from the Croatian ministry of
culture.

Croatians are also worried over thefts of their maritime collection, which
holds not only ships from ancient times loaded with amphoras now wanted by
collectors, but also wrecks of modern warships with plenty of objects that
art lovers are ready to pay a high price for.

0 new messages