Venezuela Indians: Germany must return sacred rock
Jun 21, 2012, 8:35 PM
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – A group of Venezuelan Indians are demanding that Germany give back a 35-ton boulder that they say is sacred.
More than 100 members of the Pemon group marched to the Germany Embassy in Caracas to insist on the return of the rock. It is currently part of an artwork displayed in a Berlin park.
Melchor Flores said during Thursday’s protest that the so-called “Kueka Stone” should be returned to his community in the grasslands of a region known as the Gran Sabana.
Artist Wolfgang Kraker von Schwarzenfeld brought the sandstone boulder to Germany in 1997 and says it was given as a gift. He says Pemon Indians had helped him select the rock and questions whether it was considered sacred.
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