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{
    "id": 1323760,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1323760/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 88,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Caroli Omondi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "pattern. They are very effective. It is very important that we protect those patterns and other knowledge that humanity has gathered over the years. By ratifying this treaty, Kenya will access global inventories of our cultural items. It will have the import, export and exchange mechanisms that will help us trace where our cultural heritage is. We will enjoy the benefits of a global criminal justice system that will help us to trace and track those who have traded in our cultural items illegally, have information sharing, support educational tours and more importantly, assist in restitution and return mechanisms for our cultural items. I will mention a few of our cultural items. In total, it is estimated that we have 3,500 artefacts of Kenyan origin spread all over the world. We recovered some and returned them between 2011 and 2022. In 2011, we received 39 vigango from the California State University, Fullerton. In 2019, we received another 30 vigango which were repatriated from Denver Museum of Natural History. In 2022, the Illinois State University repatriated 37 vigango and the Indiana State Police Museum at Newfields sent 18 vigango . There are so many cultural artefacts, whose locations we have identified, and Kenya should pursue their return. For instance, we have the Islamic Manuscripts of Witu Kingdom, which were repatriated in 1890; the throne of chairs – Viti vya Enzi kutoka Pwani, which should be returned. There are household items that are at the Pitt Rivers Museum, which left the country in 1895. There is the Pokomo sacred drum known as Ngadji at the British Museum of History, which was taken there in 1900; and most importantly, we have the remains and personal leadership items of Koitalel arap Samoei, which were taken there in 1900. As I mentioned, there are still 18 more vigango at the University of Wyoming Museum. We have the preserved carcasses of the famous ghost and darkness ‘Man Eaters’ lions of the Tsavo, which are at the Field Museum in Chicago. The lions were taken over by Lt. Col John Patterson. He used them as a rug. He used to seat on them and drink whiskey. In 1924, he sold them to the University of Chicago for $5,000. They are still there and we need to return them. We have 80 Kamba ethnographic collections at Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne. There are 550 Kenyan cultural collections at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt. These are some of the examples of the 32,500 cultural artefacts having Kenyan origin and they are spread around the world. It is, therefore, very important that we ratify this particular treaty and call upon the Government to begin the process of ratifying the 1954 Hague Convention so that we recover all these invaluable cultural properties of the Republic of Kenya. With those few remarks, I support."
}