Dodd Says It's "Time To Return" Peruvian Artifacts Held By Yale

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd was in Latin America last week, speaking with leaders in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru about US relations and the global economic crisis.

In an interview published online Sunday on the website Peru.com, Dodd told the Peruvian newspaper “Correo” that he will help Peru in its fight against Yale University over a collection of antiquities taken from the Incan site of Machu Picchu nearly a century ago.  

Peru filed a lawsuit against Yale over the artifacts in 2008.  Now, Peru's tourism leaders say they may launch a media campaign to raise awareness about the dispute.   Speaking from Peru,  Jose Koechlin of the eco-touism company Inkaterra, says Peru's National Chamber of Tourism may use social media to pressure Yale to return the objects.

"Today we can go through Facebook or Twitter or the web or a PR campaign, but we have not decided to do that yet. We still think Yale will reconsider their position and do what’s moral to do. Do what they teach," he said.

Koechlin says many Peruvians don’t understand why Yale won’t return the ancient objects which include ceramics, jewelry and human bones.

"It doesn’t make sense that Yale would stand by something that is so clearly wrong in the true American values, the true democratic values, the true human values. Whats right is right. Whats wrong is wrong. And this is wrong," he said.

But Yale says the antiquities were excavated legally, brought to Connecticut with the permission of the Peruvian government, and under the laws of the day, the university is not obliged to return them.  

Yale has filed a motion to dismiss the case.  July 2011 marks the centennial of the re-discovery of Machu Picchu by explorer Hiram Bingham.

For WNPR, I'm Diane Orson.