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Afghanistan halts suspected reconstruction of Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by Taliban

Feb 12, 2014 4:44 pm By Robert Spencer

The Karzai government says it wants the statues rebuilt. But it has stopped this conservation team on suspicion that it is doing just that. Is this really simply because a plan for the reconstruction has not yet been agreed upon, or because the Karzai government has been making overtures to the Taliban and wants their support?

“Afghanistan halts suspected reconstruction of ancient Buddhas,” by Jessica Donati for Reuters, February 12 (thanks to Kenneth):

Afghanistan halts suspected reconstruction of ancient Buddhas: The larger of two ancient Buddha statues stood in this niche in the town of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, before they were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.

KABUL — Afghanistan has halted conservation work at a site once occupied by ancient Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban because the team involved is suspected of secretly trying to rebuild one of the statue’s feet, the United Nations said.

Any attempt to rebuild the statues without official permission could lead to the site losing its World Heritage status.

The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, decreed in early 2001 that two ancient giant Buddha statues in the valley in Bamiyan province were un-Islamic and ordered they be destroyed. They were blown up with dynamite the next month.

The German wing of the International Council on Monuments and Sites had been working alongside the United Nations in the valley, aiming to reinforce the cliff into which the Buddha statues were carved.

But the work was halted after a team from the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO visited the site in December and found pillars built into the rock looked suspiciously like feet, according to a UNESCO official.

“These pillars are the controversial issue … Questions were raised concerning their design, that they resembled somehow the feet or the legs,” said UNESCO’s Brendan Cassar.

Cassar said the pillars were never meant to look like part of the original statue and his office was unaware of their design when the work started.

“That should have been cleared not just by us, but the government and potentially the World Heritage Committee.”

The Ministry of Culture and Information had ordered that the work be stopped.

The ICOMOS office in Afghanistan referred queries to its office in Germany which did not respond to email requests for comment. Telephone calls also went unanswered.

REBUILDING THE STATUES?

The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 shocked the world and drew attention to the hardline rule of the Taliban.

Six months later, the Taliban’s al-Qaida allies launched the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. U.S.-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taliban weeks later.

Since then, there have been proposals for the statues to be rebuilt but the government has yet to settle on a plan.

The government’s director of historical monuments said he was in favor of rebuilding the statues if the World Heritage Committee approved of a design.

“The WHC has not approved but the government of Afghanistan has requested to rebuild the statue,” the director, Abdul Ahad Abassi, told Reuters at his office in Kabul.

“If the WHC accepts this request then we will proceed.”

The controversial work had taken place over two weeks in an eastern niche, where the smaller, 124-foot, statue once stood overlooking the valley. Its larger companion, to the west, towered 180 feet over the ancient Silk Route.

Abassi said he hoped the statues could be rebuilt with old fragments.

“We’ll put the original pieces in their place and maybe use some fillings for those that have vanished.”

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Comments

  1. Salah says

    Feb 12, 2014 at 6:21 pm

    Islam is always about stealing, killing and destroying. Islam is of the devil.

    “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.”
    John 10:10

    • Jay Boo says

      Feb 12, 2014 at 6:28 pm

      All religions are a threat to insecure Islam.
      Atheism, Islamic ‘apostasy’, singing, girls attending school, Muslims forgetting to pray and fast, etc are all a threat to Islam.
      Without endless rules people would begin to suspect that maybe Islam is not actually a religion.

      • Salah says

        Feb 13, 2014 at 12:52 am

        “Without endless rules people would begin to suspect that maybe Islam is not actually a religion.”

        True. Endless rules keep Muslims busy following them instead of THINKING.
        But there is one rule, and ONE rule only, Islam cannot survive without: the death penalty for apostasy.

  2. JamesonRocks says

    Feb 12, 2014 at 6:30 pm

    Let’s cut to the bottom line here… They will never be rebuilt. Not going to happen.

    • Defcon 4 says

      Feb 12, 2014 at 11:47 pm

      What construction worker in their right mind is going to rebuild Buddhist statues in islam0fascist Afghanistan? How much pay is worth your life?

  3. panther says

    Feb 12, 2014 at 7:19 pm

    Deceitful, corrupt but pious moslem as Karzai is , how west could ever trust his any word.

  4. doreva says

    Feb 13, 2014 at 12:56 pm

    they should leave them as is , destroyed, as a new world heritage site, demonstrating the intolerance of islam, not a religion of peace but a religion of violence, cruelty and intolerance. leaving the destroyed buddha statues will be a testimony to the darkness of this “religion” and the destruction wrought by it.

  5. gravenimage says

    Feb 14, 2014 at 1:30 pm

    But the work was halted after a team from the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO visited the site in December and found pillars built into the rock looked suspiciously like feet, according to a UNESCO official.

    “These pillars are the controversial issue … Questions were raised concerning their design, that they resembled somehow the feet or the legs,” said UNESCO’s Brendan Cassar.

    Cassar said the pillars were never meant to look like part of the original statue and his office was unaware of their design when the work started.
    ………………………………………

    Grotesque paranoia from pious Muslims that something might even resemble a human form.

    The idea that Karzai wants to rebuild the Buddhas is ludicrous.

    With the Taliban poised to retake power in Afghanistan, though, it’s just as well. If they were rebuilt, the Taliban would just blow them up again, and likely further damage the other artifacts in the caves behind where the Buddhas stood.

    No point in trying to introduce anything civilized into Afghanistan.

  6. Martal850 says

    Mar 23, 2014 at 11:52 am

    There was much the same discussion about rebuilding the World Trade Center, some saying that we need to keep reminding ourselves and the world about the evils of religious extremism by turning the site into a park in memory of those that were murdered, while others said we need to defiantly re-build — either 2 identical towers or, as was finally decided upon, something even higher and more majestic,

    Having been fortunate enough to see the 2 original statues a while back, I’d opt for an identical re-build of both of them, just as many of the ancient sites around the world that we think of as ‘still standing’ have been either re-built or repaired over the centuries. But not, I hasten to add, until the Taliban are safely on the ‘ash heap of history’, however long that takes, since they’d obviously just blown them up again.

    Though it would be a mistake to see the whole of the Muslim World and its rich history through the lens of these delusional maniacs that have of late hijacked a once enlightened and scholarly religion, one that originally regarded men and women as equals, were pioneers in the sciences, and preserved countless invaluable documents from the Ancient World that would otherwise have been lost or destroyed. Let’s just hope that they eventually either return to their honorable roots or come to accept, as many of us have, that God/Allah are really just an externalization of human consciousness, writ large and projected up into the heavens so we can comfort ourselves in the belief that Someone is at the controls and knows what the heck He’s doing, despite all the evidence to the contrary!

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