PARIS, FRANCE.-The International Council of Museums in Paris issued a red list this week of pre-Columbian and colonial-era art stolen and smuggled out of Latin America. Manus Brinkman, secretary general of the council, said in a news release accompanying the list that thousands of objects taken illegally from archaeological sites and churches often end up in North America.

The list has been published to increase the awareness of art dealers, museum curators, and customs and police officials and to encourage collectors to stop buying such cultural property, he added. The list includes 25 categories of art that figure in an illicit trade described by the council as pervasive. They include Peruvian Indian textiles and colonial religious paintings, figurines and masks of several Mexican cultures, and clay figures and vessels from all over Central and South America.