14 September 2023 12:00 am Views - 435
The six objects taken away from Sri Lanka were preserved at the Rijksmuseum collection in the Netherlands
Both the Sri Lankan and the Netherland governments have appointed two advisory committees in connection with the artifacts
This research was concluded in April 2022. The six objects were preserved at the Rijksmuseum collection in the Netherlands. These six artifacts which belong to the Kandyan era will be returned to Sri Lanka from the Netherlands.
With consideration to the tightening of the security at the National Museum this writer spoke to Retired Senior DIG and former Commandante of the STF Nimal Lewke.
“If you refer to the basics and with all the latest technologies breaking into a place like the museum is not going to be that easy. How you plan and who plans that is the one that matters. Because security is not only about guarding a place or a person. This refers to national security. Basics will have to be provided. When you don’t provide basics then that is going to affect the lives of the people. It is a very important subject,” added Lewke.
Further Lewke referred to the knowledge of people who are protecting such places like museums. He laid a concrete foundation to his answer by stating that the people who protect such places should also be sound in intelligence and they also must understand the background of the place and the nature of the situation. All these aspects are connected with their intelligence. Also he stated that the person who protects a place of this nature should identify what kind of threats the place is exposed to when they he or she is involved in protecting it.
“To plan something you have to obtain information about threats. You have to do a threat assessment and according to your findings only can you map out a plan for security,” explained Lewke.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror Department of Museum Director General Sanuja Kasthuriarachchi expressed her views regarding the six artifacts which belongs to Sri Lanka.
“Most probably we will receive these six objects towards the end of this year. There is a plan to hold a special exhibition at Colombo National Museum. The venue is already decided and we are preparing the exhibition cupboards. This exhibition would be a very informative and an attractive one which is related to these six objects. Also we have a special security plan to be carried out to protect the new exhibition gallery. Generally in a museum we have a CCTV camera system. We have a protection system and we have the services of museum security staff. In additional we apply a motion sensors system for these exhibition cupboards. We are able to provide sufficient security to these objects,” Kasthuriarachchi said with confidence referring to the security system at the National Museum.
She stated that both governments have appointed two advisory committees in connection with the artifacts.
“These two advisory committees are working together to hold more discussions in the future. After some provenance research more objects will be returned to Sri Lanka,” Kasthuriarachchi added.