Venezuela Demands Germany Hand Back 35 Ton Rock

Venezuela is demanding that Germany hands back a 35-ton rock regarded as a "grandmother" by a tribe of South American Indians that claims its removal from their native land has precipitated a series of natural disasters.

Artist Wolfgang von Schwarzenfeld poses in front of a polished stone, one of his 'Global Stone Projects' on August 3, 2010 in Berlin. Global Stone is a peace project for which von Schwarzenfeld searches two particularly distinctive stones of around 30 tons on each of the five continents. After sculpturing and polishing the stone, he places one of them close to the Brandenburg gate in the Tiergarten park in Berlin and the other one is left in a special location in the country of its origin.

The massive red boulder takes centre stage in a Berlin sculpture park, and has done since German artist Wolfgang von Schwarzenfeld procured it from the Canaima National Park in Venezuela  in 1997.

But to the indigenous Pemon Indians, apparently, its loss has caused disaster. In local culture the rock is called "Grandmother Kueka", and legend has it that it forms one half of romantic couple, turned to stone for an illicit love affair. The legend also maintains that if the grandmother stone is separated from the grandfather stone then disaster will strike.

Since the stone's removal the area has suffered drought, pestilence and a mudslide in 1999 that killed 20,000.  Along with inflicting suffering the Pemon also claim the stone was removed illegally and with force.

"He [Von Schwarzenfeld] used the armed forces, and at that time we were scared of the military," Melchor Flores, a Pemon activist, told Venezuelan television. "They took advantage of that to walk over our culture and wisdom, because wisdom comes from our ancestors."

The Venezuelan Institute of Cultural Heritage has taken up the Pemon cause. Backing their claims of illegality it has successfully asked the country's foreign ministry to formally petition the German government to return it. But Mr Von Schwarzenfeld contests the Venezuelan claims. He says the Pemon approved the rock's removal and that he has all the necessary paperwork to prove that he had official permission to take it back to Germany.

The artist has the support of Bruno Illias, one of the few Pemon experts in the world. He said that "hardly any" Pemon knew the full story of the stone's origins, and in fact many found the legend "quite embarrassing".