New bid to return Elgin Marbles

Activists will launch a new campaign today to return the
Elgin Marbles to Greece, hoping to succeed where decades of unremitting and
often impassioned pressure have failed.

The campaign, run by new pressure group Marbles Reunited and co-ordinated by public relations firm Burson Marsteller, is based on research showing that some three quarters of the public believe the marbles should be handed back. "This is a new campaign. Wednesday is an attempt to move the agenda forward," a spokesman for the firm told Reuters.
The immediate aim is to get the marble frieze, removed from the Parthenon in Athens in 1803 by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin and sold to the British Museum in 1816, returned on loan to Greece in time for the Olympic Games in August. "The terms of the loan are unspecified, but it is around the Olympics," the Burson Marsteller spokesman said, declining to give any further details before the campaign's official launch.
The bid to return the marbles, initially sparked by a passionate appeal from Greek actress-turned culture minister Melina Mercouri in 1982, has gathered support over the years from people as varied as former foreign secretary Robin Cook and actress Vanessa Redgrave.
It has also recently attracted the support of several Olympic athletes. But the Marbles Reunited campaign -- an umbrella group combining older pressure groups -- faces an uphill struggle.
The government has over the years repeatedly refused Greek government requests to hand back the marbles, which represent about half of the surviving original frieze. The other half remained in Athens.
The British Museum also insists they are seen more in an international context in London than they would be in Athens -- where a special museum is being built to house them.
"The British Museum is the best possible place for the Parthenon sculptures to be on display," museum director Neil MacGregor said.
"The Parthenon Marbles have been central to the Museum's collections, and to its purpose, for almost 200 years. Only here can the worldwide significance of the sculptures be fully grasped," he added.
A spokeswoman for the museum told Reuters she did not anticipate a change in the position, regardless of what happens on Wednesday.

Wed 14 January, 2004 02:24
By Jeremy Lovell

From:www.reuters.co.uk