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{
    "id": 1354541,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1354541/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 367,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I rise to support the proposed ratification. I begin by pointing out that this is a 1970 Convention. What makes us go back to the year 1970 is the fact that our Constitution demands that unless we ratify these conventions, then they do not become part and parcel of our laws. It is, therefore, important that we look at all that we ratified since Independence, up to today, and bring all of them to this House so that they are ratified and given the status of law. It is only a parliament that can make laws and, therefore, we have to be alive to the fact that some of those conventions have to be domesticated so that they can apply as laws. It is also important to note that we are trying to protect cultural property, or artefacts, as they are well known. We do not know what has happened since 1970, but as soon as we ratify this Convention, it becomes a criminal offense to transfer, in a manner that is illicit, or import or export, what belongs to a cultural group as cultural property. Questions abound as to what cultural property is, and as Africans, we may not have kept our artefacts so well. Most of them were stolen and are now in museums in Europe, Asia and America. We need to go further than this and get a law that is going to allow us to claim back part of the stolen property. Nobody has a right to keep stolen property because no rights are conferred by stealing. I say stealing because the whites who came over took away our artefacts and other cultural valuables to their museums because they were very good. What they are holding is stolen property and we need to claim them back. Other issues arise as regards injustices that are done to us. The colonialists would kill an African king or chief, cut off the head, ship it to some European country and put it in a museum. It then became an artefact. What happens to such actions and property? Is that not cultural property? To date, we do not know where the bodies of our late chiefs like Koitalel arap Samoei, Waiyaki wa Hinga and Lenana are. Maybe, their heads are lying somewhere in certain museums in England. Whose property is that? Maybe, we go by the case of the South African Government through the late Nelson Mandela. If this House could recall what happened quite early during the colonisation of South Africa, the British found the Khoisan and the Khoikhoi — the bushmen. They used a derogatory term “Hottentots”. They used to have a lady by the name Sarah Baartman who was endowed in various aspects. They took her away as a human animation in Europe. Eventually, she died and they preserved her body or parts of her body to be exhibited in certain museums. Nelson Mandela was able to persuade the British to return those parts and the body of that lady to South Africa, and she was given a decent burial. Was that an artefact or property? What was it? To me, these are the claims we should be making, especially to the Government of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, so that whatever they stole from this country is returned to us with appropriate compensation. I propose the ratification of this Convention. Thank you."
}