Lori Trahan applauds return of stolen Cambodian artifacts

LOWELL — U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan’s relentless campaign to hold New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and most prestigious art museums in the world, accountable for its collection of allegedly looted art from Cambodia paid off when the museum voluntarily agreed to the return of 13 Khmer antiquities to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

“After months of pressure on the Met, I’m glad to see the museum finally do the right thing by returning artifacts obtained from Douglas Latchford to the Cambodian people – where they belong,” Trahan said in a statement released Friday afternoon. The congresswoman is the chair of the Congressional Cambodian Caucus.

The reaction in Lowell’s Cambodian-America community was relief, as well as joy. Mayor Sokhary Chau thanked Trahan for her persistence in demanding the Met return the artifacts to his ancestral homeland.

“I’m proud to hear that the stolen artifacts and their spirits are returning to their home,” Chau said by text. “Many of the Cambodian diaspora left their homes due to war and the killing fields. While we have found a new home in America, these artifacts belong in their ancient homeland of Cambodia.”

One of the artifacts includes what Chau called Cambodia’s version of the “Mona Lisa.”

“One of my favorite artifacts is called the Standing Female Deity, which is like an angel,” Chau said in November 2022. “She is so beautiful, and really embodies the spirit, the culture and soul of our history, which was nearly annihilated by the Khmer Rouge.”

Some of the items came from the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia, Chau said, which is the largest religious monument in the world. It was built by Khmer King Suryavarman II, during the Khmer Empire for the Khmer people, and “for their ancestors before us, and also for the future generations,” he said. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Among the artifacts being returned to the Kingdom of Cambodia are statues from the Koh Ker archaeological site, including a 10th century goddess sandstone statue. Other artifacts being returned date from as far back as the 7th century, including an over-life-size head of Buddha, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on Friday.

Lowell is also a city of Cambodian American firsts. Rithy Uong made history in 1999 when he became the first Cambodian American to win a city council seat anywhere in the United States. In 2014, state Rep. Rady Mom became the first Cambodian American elected to the state Legislature. City Councilor Vesna Nuon was the first Asian American elected by his peers to serve in the vice mayor position in 2018. State Rep. Vanna Howard became the first Cambodian American woman elected to the state Legislature in 2020. And Chau became the city and the country’s first Cambodian American mayor in 2022.

That political clout and community engagement was a factor in Trahan’s involvement, Nuon said by phone on Friday.

“She takes the concerns of the Cambodian American community seriously,” he said, and called the news “exciting.”

The statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York noted that the pieces being returned were tied directly to illicit trafficking, and specifically Latchford — a collector and dealer charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2019 for running a vast antiquities trafficking network out of Southeast Asia. Latchford died in 2020 before the DOJ concluded its case, so the indictment was dismissed.

Howard said by text that she was pleased to hear the Met agreed to repatriate artifacts to the people of Cambodia.

“Cambodians can now start healing our souls as these artifacts represent our cultural history after the rest of it was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge,” she said.

Trahan, who has been very vocal on a whole range of issues of concern to the Cambodian diaspora community, framed the returned artifacts as both a cultural and an accountability issue.

“This is an incredible win for Cambodians and the many communities who have been fighting to regain ownership of stolen art for centuries,” Trahan said. “It is my hope that this announcement marks a new chapter of transparency from our museums and renewed a commitment to ensuring the rightful ownership of these irreplaceable national treasures.”