EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a good demonstration of the Woyanne regime’s misplaced priorities. The $10 million could have been used to save tens of thousands of children who are dying of starvation. This is a criminal neglect of the most defenseless in our society — the children.
AXUM, Ethiopia (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Ethiopians cheered on Thursday as a 1,700-year-old giant stone obelisk taken to Italy by fascist invaders in the 1930s was restored to its historic site in an ancient northern town.
The national treasure was returned to Ethiopia three years ago by the Italian government and U.N. engineers have helped install it at its original location in Axum, which was once the centre of a powerful trading empire.
“The cooperation to return the obelisk which was looted and taken to Rome by Italy’s fascist government was the right decision,” Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi said as the obelisk was unveiled to roars of approval from the crowd. [Meles and his crime family have looted much more Ethiopian treasures than Italy]
Plundered during Italy’s 1937 invasion, the 24-metre (78-foot), 160-tonne chiselled granite tower had been placed in a Rome square by fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
It was returned in April 2005, but its return to the Axum site was delayed while scientists studied newly discovered subterranean funeral chambers and royal arcades used by several dynasties before the Christian era.
Richard Pankhurst, a British historian who had campaigned for its return, said Thursday’s ceremony was a significant sign of improving relations between Ethiopia and Italy.
The Italian government paid some $10 million in shipping and installation costs.
“Only the return of the obelisk could heal the still festering scars left by the atrocities committed by Mussolini and his fascist hordes,” Pankhurst told Reuters.
He said the Ethiopian authorities should now turn their attention to erecting six other fallen obelisks in Axum.
“While we rejoice at the return of the obelisk from Italy, the challenge now for the government is to re-erect those fallen obelisks,” Pankhurst said.
A thousand years before Christ, Axum was the city of the legendary Queen of Sheba and the heart of Axumite civilisation, one of the greatest in the ancient world. Modern Ethiopians see themselves as the descendants of this Biblical kingdom.
Legend has it that God blessed the city after the queen’s son Menelik I stole the Ark of the Covenant from his father King Solomon in Jerusalem and brought it to Axum, where many Ethiopians believe it remains to this day.