For the past 24 years, artifacts that are part of the national heritage have been given away as gifts to foreign politicians. According to El Caribe, Balaguer was one of the first to violate Law 318-68 he himself had passed regarding the prohibition of the export of historic objects. Balaguer himself gave Andrew Young, at the time US Ambassador before the United Nations, a mahogany chest salvaged from a galleon. Now, Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, director of the Museum of Casas Reales accuses Rosa Maria Vicioso of the Voluntariado del Museo de las Casas Reales of having continued with the practice of donating important pieces that belonged to the Museum. In a press conference yesterday, Marcio Veloz Maggiolo says that the irregularities in the management of the organization for the past 25 years motivated the rift between the Museo de Casas Reales and the non-governmental organization, known as Voluntariado del Museo de las Casas Reales. In the press conference he mentions that the president of the Voluntariado gave two valuable coins that were part of the collection of the Nuestra Señora de Concepción salvaged galleon to Cesar Beltran, at the time director of USIA, the United States Information Agency. Veloz Maggiolo also criticized Vicioso’s request for 10 large earthen jars from the 16th and 17th century galleons, Tolosa, Guadalupe and Concepción to be given away as gifts to visiting Central American presidents that came for the November 1997 summit. And the gifts of 17th century Dutch pipes, of historical value for being of the oldest used for tobacco consumption by Europeans to visiting statesman here for a Caribbean summit. The government recently suspended by Decree 1307-00 the incorporation of the Voluntariado del Museo de las Casas de Reales following a request of the Ministry of Culture that seeks to place all cultural organizations under its mandate. Vicioso said she answer by written statement.
