> Dress for success

> Killing for honour

> Man marries four women

> Perfume do's and don'ts

> There's money in Mao

> Divorced via SMS

> Cape Town's Baby Expo

> Online sex users married

> US has stream dating

> Thinking about inking?

Today, 20 March 2010

Yesterday, 19 March 2010

› Zille set to swallow ID

› Malema in 'danger' - ANC

› Sky journo fingers guards

› Man (20) held for dog sex

› Israel retaliates swiftly

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki called on Monday for the return of artifacts stolen during the colonial era as he stepped up efforts to boost the country's tourism sector.

Kibaki said tourism, severely battered by violence sparked by the disputed December polls, needed to be revitalised. The chaos killed at least 1500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

"In pursuit of this objective, it is important to keep in mind that there are numerous artifacts that were taken out of the country, especially during the colonial period," Kibaki said while re-opening the refurbished National Museums of Kenya.

"These are crucial aspects of our historical and cultural heritage, and therefore every effort must be made to bring them back," he added.

Kibaki spoke nearly a year after Kenyan officials asked Chicago's Field Museum to return the remains of two famous lions that killed at least 140 Indian workers before being shot by a British railway engineer in 1898.

The "Maneaters of Tsavo" were killed by Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, whose adventures formed the basis of the Oscar-winning 1996 movie "The Ghost and the Darkness" starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.

In 2006, heirs of colonial-era British officer Colonel Richard Henry Meinertzhagen returned a walking stick, authority baton and v-shaped prayer rod belonging to an ethnic Nandi traditional chief that had been in Britain since 1905.

In the same year, Illinois State University and Hampton University returned two wooden memorial statues known as "vigangos" that were stolen from the coastal Mijikenda tribe.

Researchers have tracked down 294 "vigangos" at 19 American museums. The Hampton University Museum alone is reported to be holding 98 of them.

Mijikenda elders say the theft of the statues more than two decades ago from the graves of revered elders was to blame for the community's poor fortunes.

Other African countries, notably Ethiopia, have launched drives to recover artifacts that were taken home by foreign travellers and colonialists.

AFP