CPAC Meetings on Bolivia, Guatemala and Mali

The State Department has announced CPAC review of the MOU's with Bolivia, Guatemala and Mali. See http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-06-02/html/2011-13693.htm

According to the notice,

During its meeting on Monday, June 27, the Committee will begin its review of a proposal to extend the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Bolivia Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Material from the Pre-Columbian Cultures and Certain Ethnological Material from the Colonial and Republican
Periods of Bolivia [Docket No. DOS-2011-0092]. An open session to receive oral public comment on this proposal to extend will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

On Tuesday, June 28, the Committee will conduct interim reviews of the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Guatemala Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Objects and Materials from the Pre-Columbian Cultures of Guatemala, and of the Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Mali Concerning the Imposition of import Restrictions on Archaeological Material from Mali from the Paleolithic Era (Stone Age) to approximately the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Public comment, oral and written, will be invited at a time in the future should these MOUs be proposed for extension.

This continues the anti-transparency trend at the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The public is no longer welcome to provide testimony on whether a source country is living up to its side of an MOU during an interim review hearing. Instead, comments are only welcome at the very end of the process-- when the train has almost arrived at the station.....

Not that anyone really believes that the State Department holds source countries to their promises to secure such MOU's. If they did, its doubtful many of the MOU's would continue to be extended and even expanded time and time again.