Indigenous groups claim stake in sunken Spanish ship, cargo off Colombia
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[May 10, 2024]
By Emma Pinedo
MADRID (Reuters) - Members of three South American indigenous
communities have asked Spain and UNESCO to declare a Spanish galleon
that sank 300 years ago with a bountiful cargo as "common and shared
heritage" from which they too should benefit.
The San Jose galleon, thought by historians to be carrying one of the
largest known unsalvaged collections of maritime treasures, sank in 1708
near the port of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast.
Its wreckage was located in 2015 with sonar images that identified
bronze cannons, arms, ceramics and other artifacts among its cargo.
Colombia announced in February it would launch an underwater exploration
mission to recover the galleon.
The indigenous Killakas, Carangas and Chichas peoples estimate that
their ancestors - often working in slave-like conditions - extracted the
metals that make up around half of the ship's cargo from mines in what
is now Bolivia, then under Spanish control, which were then transported
north to Cartagena.
Lawyer Jose Maria Lancho, an expert in underwater heritage, filed the
request on behalf of the indigenous communities that they be allowed to
share with Spain and Colombia in any proceeds from the ship's recovery.
"Our native communities consider any act of intervention and unilateral
appropriation of the galleon, without consulting us directly and without
expressly and effectively considering its common and shared character,
to be an act of plunder and neo-colonialism," the indigenous communities
said in letters sent to UNESCO and Spain and seen by Reuters.
TREASURE HUNTERS
Colombia has proposed that Spain renounce its claim on the ship and its
contents in Bogota's favor - a move Lancho and his clients fear could
set a dangerous precedent regarding the beneficiaries of other sunken
ships from the colonial era and their bounties. Colombian law favors
treasure hunters.
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"If Spain, in this case, renounces its sovereign immunity, there
will be no state or treasure-hunting company that does not invoke
this precedent," Lancho told Reuters.
The Colombian government did not reply to a request for comment.
UNESCO, the United Nations' culture agency, confirmed it had
received the indigenous communities' petition.
A UNESCO spokesperson said Colombia - unlike Spain - had not signed
the 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural
Heritage that covers such issues, thus "limiting the scope of our
action in the particular case of San Jose".
The San Jose was part of the fleet of King Philip V that fought the
British during the 1701-14 War of the Spanish Succession. Some 600
people died when a British fleet engaged and sank the galleon in a
gun fight.
Spain considers the San Jose as a state ship whose remains are
classified as an underwater graveyard and cannot be commercially
exploited.
Asked about the case, the Spanish Culture Ministry told Reuters:
"Colombia and Spain currently have excellent relations which should
align their interests closely on this issue."
(Additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota; Editing by
Aislinn Laing and Gareth Jones)
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