"It was a hard job to finish them. We had to use explosive materials"---Taliban

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Unk's Wild Wild West : One Thread

Monday March 26, 04:24 PM, Yahoo

Taliban show off complete destruction of Buddhas.

By Sayed Salahuddin

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The ruling Taliban has lifted their ban on visiting the site of two colossal statues of the Buddha, allowing outsiders to see the almost total obliteration of Afghanistan's most famous historical monuments.

"It took us 20 days to destroy the statues," an official of the hardline Islamic movement said near where the Buddhas had towered for nearly 2,000 years.

"It was a hard job to finish them. We had to use explosive materials," he said, reflecting Taliban indifference to worldwide outrage over the attacks on statues they consider pagan idols.

Permission to visit had been repeatedly refused since Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar ordered the destruction of all statues and drawings of animate objects a month ago. On Monday, it was clear the edict had been carried out with methodical thoroughness.

The bigger of the two ancient statues carved into the side of a cliff -- at 53 metres (175 ft) the tallest Buddha known -- had been completely destroyed through artillery fire and then explosives, Reuters correspondents confirmed.

The only remnant of the smaller Buddha, rising 38 metres (120 ft), was part of an elbow still adhering to the cliff. It was not clear if the Taliban would spare the fragment.

Cracks in nearby mud-houses were visible, giving an indication of how strong the main blast must have been when the statues were razed.

Two big piles of rubble beneath the side of the statues seemed like the remnants of a landslide with small and big stone pieces scattered as far as 500 metres.

There were fresh scars of blasts inside the nearby caves once used by monks and inside the deserted Buddhist monasteries built when the area was a centre of Buddhist civilisation before the arrival of Islam.

FRESCOES DESTROYED

Inside the caves, there was no trace of frescos or paintings, which witnesses said the Taliban had also destroyed.

The frescoes were some of the finest anywhere from a period when Bamiyan was a rich centre of Buddhist pilgrimage and study astride the Silk Route. The smaller giant Buddha dated from as early as the third century, the larger one soon after.

"Welcome to the pure Islamic country of Afghanistan. Bamiyan is now clean of the statues and we are proud of it," a Taliban fighter said while greeting a team of 16 journalists who were allowed to visit the site. Taliban fighters blocked a group of Japanese journalists among the team from taking the rubble of the destroyed Buddhas. "I am sad, but I can't do anything," a Japanese reporter said.

The Taliban had ordered the destruction of the statues despite earlier repeated assurances from Omar that he would protect Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage.

The movement, which aims to create what it sees as the world's purest Islamic state, has never explained why it reneged on those previous pledges.

But experts in Afghan culture had remained sceptical since the Taliban began their rise to power in 1994, noting continuous reports of statues being vandalised across the Taliban-held areas.

NATIONAL MUSEUM

Last week, the Taliban opened the National Museum to reporters for the first time since last August, proving they had carried out their pledge to also destroy all statues in the country's main collection. Taliban zealots had even chiselled away the heads of birds carved on a wooden screen in the museum.

The movement had spurned a number of U.N. envoys and rejected foreign offers to find a way to save Afghanistan's heritage without violating the Taliban's iconoclastic policy.

The Taliban, which sprung from religious schools in Pakistan, believe it is their religious duty to eliminate all portrayals of animate objects -- an extreme interpretation that has drawn objections from across the Muslim world.

"Now Bamiyan is an Islamic province of Afghanistan," the Taliban official explained in Bamiyan, which looked deserted except for a few Taliban fighters and a handful of residents.

Journalists had repeatedly been blocked from seeing the destruction of the Buddha statues, which visitors from the region had said was overseen by the defence minister.

Even after television footage emerged of the moment that explosions were detonated in the statues, which could only have been managed with Taliban complicity, officials had refused permission to visit. A promised flight last Saturday was cancelled on grounds the runway was damaged.

However, there may also have been security concerns. The Taliban's opposition said on Sunday it had resumed attacks in the Bamiyan region, which has traded hands several times in the past three months.



-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 26, 2001

Answers

The Taliban obvously relishes the publicity. I say, let them go cold turkey on outraged western news coverage for a year or so. And, by the bye, let's get the UN-member countries to stop trading with them. That wouold hurt lots more.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 26, 2001.

Not wrong Nipper cept for the "stop trading with them" part. Better to get eveybody out of that country that wants to come. Sanctions hurt everybody still there and before that lets remove and care for the refugees. Once these innocents are out then wall 'em and let 'em eat the rubble they've made. Even the Pakistanis would go for that specially if lots of the refugees show up on their turf and more especially if they get a western nod for their trouble.

That felt good, but then if we did that the Iranians would show up and given the military help they're getting from Russia (and the Chinese) we might be better off with a bunch of mindless statue bashers.

Gets complicated don't it?

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), March 27, 2001.


I don't see what the problem is; they were just following regulations.

-- KoFE (your@town.USSA), March 27, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ