"In central Berlin, right behind the Brandenburg Gate, lies a red sandstone boulder. It weighs 35 metric tons (77,000 pounds), looks like a stranded whale and comes out of Venezuela's Canaima National Park. It was brought to Berlin over a decade ago by 78-year-old German artist Wolfgang Kraker von Schwarzenfeld.

It is a pretty and harmless looking stone. No one would guess that this boulder has damaged German-Venezuelan relations. Indeed, Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's eccentric president, is demanding that the stone be brought back to its native land -- soon, before winter starts.

The stone, they say, is a sacred object to the Pemon, an indigenous people living in Venezuela's Canaima National Park. "Schwarzenfeld kidnapped it," says Héctor Torres, director of Venezuela's Cultural Patrimony Institute (IPC). Venezuela's foreign minister invited Pemon representatives, culture officials and sympathizers to an event to show their backing of the effort to repatriate the stone. In late July, President Chávez had a message delivered to Georg Dick, Germany's ambassador to Venezuela, in which he demanded: "Give Kueka back!" That is what indigenous people's call the stone. It means "petrification.""

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A Venezuelan Indigenous Group Battles Berlin (Spiegel Online 10/7)