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NEIGHBOURS: AFGHANISTAN
Bust to Dust
International outrage doesn't deter the Taliban
from going ahead with the destruction of 2,000-year-old Buddha statues
in Bamiyan
By Rory McCarthy in Afghanistan
Hewn
out of the sandstone cliff-face in the 2nd century A.D., the two monolithic
Buddha statues in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan withstood the invasions
of Genghis Khan in the 13th century, and of his brutal descendant Timur.
Last week the priceless carvings, witness to the ancient cultural riches
of a country since ravaged by war, had some ugly visitors-Taliban tanks.
Lining up in front of the statues, they blasted the 2,000-year-old statues.
Afghanistan's Taliban militia, pushing ahead with its hardline Islamic
vision, has ruled that such statues are the "shrines of infidels".
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SELF-MUTILATION: The statue of Buddha in Bamiyan
was on top of the Taliban's hit list
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"All statues and non-Islamic shrines located
in different parts of the country must be broken," the movement's
supreme leader, Mulla Mohammad Omar said this past week. "Allah Almighty
is the only real shrine and all false symbols should be smashed."
He has ordered soldiers from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue
and Prevention of Vice to begin a massive and unprecedented wave of destruction.
Mulla Omar's order, the latest in a long line
of anti-cultural and misogynistic rulings, appeared to be a stark response
to the visit of a group of western diplomats who travelled to Kabul after
reports that ancient statues in the capital's National Museum were being
destroyed. The diplomats met the Taliban's Information and Culture Minister
Qudratullah Jamal on February 26 but were not allowed into the museum.
The building houses a collection of rare artefacts dating back to an era
when Afghanistan was a centre of Buddhist and Greek civilisations, long
before invading Arab armies brought Islam in the 7th century A.D.
More than a dozen pre-Islamic exhibits have
been damaged in recent months by zealous Taliban soldiers, including a
2,000-year-old Buddhist statue. Most of the museum's finest treasures
were looted in the factional fighting which followed the departure of
the Soviet forces after their decade-long occupation. Over the past 20
years, many of Afghanistan's richest archaeological finds have been smuggled
out to Peshawar in Pakistan and sold to private collectors around the
world. Others have been destroyed by artillery and rocket fire.
In the past, Mulla Omar has ordered non-Islamic
artefacts to be protected, although with little effect as the fate of
the Bamiyan Buddhas show. Ninety miles west of Kabul, Bamiyan represents
Afghanistan's finest archaeological site. The larger of the two Buddhas,
at 55 m, is the world's tallest standing Buddha.
The surrounding land was mined during the Soviet
occupation and the sculptures have remained at the centre of a war zone.
In September 1998, the head and folds of the robes of the shorter Buddha,
which is 37 m tall, were blown off with explosives by a Taliban commander.
He then fired rockets at the groin and the intricate folds of the clothes
of the larger statue.
Other ancient sites in Afghanistan now at risk
bear witness to India's own history. Archaeologists working in Bamiyan-which
was a centre of Buddhism before Genghis Khan's arrival-also found rock
edicts dating back to Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century B.C. and other
Buddhist stupas. Hadda, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, and Ghazni,
60 miles south of Kabul, are also home to Buddhist stupas and other sacred
objects.
Mulla Omar's decree was greeted with revulsion
across the world. "There can be only one priority for the government-to
rebuild the country, to renew the fabric of society and to relieve the
immense suffering and deprivation of the people of Afghanistan,"
said Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general.
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