Cambodia welcomes the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s plan to return looted antiquities

By MAYSOON KHAN and SOPHENG CHEANG
Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia has welcomed the announcement that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will return more than a dozen pieces of ancient artwork to Cambodia and Thailand. The items were tied to an art dealer and collector accused of running a huge antiquities trafficking network out of Southeast Asia. Cambodia suffered from war and the brutal rule of the communist Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and 1980s, causing disorder that opened the opportunity for its archaeological treasures to be looted. Many museums in the United States and Europe are reckoning with collections that contain objects looted from Asia, Africa and other places during centuries of colonialism or in times of upheaval.