Sunday, March 11, 2012

News Update Philippines gets back church bells taken as US war booty

MANILA (AFP) - The Philippines said on Saturday that it had taken back a pair of church bells believed to be seized by United States troops as war booty during the American colonisation of the archipelago in the 19th century.

An inscription on a wooden link that held the bells together indicated that they were taken from a church in Meycauayan, north of Manila, after the town was pounded by US artillery on March 29, 1899.

An archivist found the bells at a California convent last year and they were later handed over to Manila, foreign department spokesman Raul Hernandez said.

They are among religious objects believed to have been taken away by US soldiers as the American military government consolidated control of its colony after it was ceded by Spain at the end of the Spanish-American War.