YUKO NARUSHIMA IMMIGRATION CORRESPONDENT
18 Jan, 2011 03:00 AM
AUSTRALIA has the green light to deport thousands of Afghan asylum seekers after reaching a historic agreement with the Afghan government.
The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan Refugee Minister, Jamaher Anwary, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Sydney yesterday.
It enables the forced return of Afghans whose bids for asylum fail. The move is alarming security experts and refugee advocates.
Mr Bowen said it would deter Afghans considering travelling to Australia. ''Never, all through the Howard years, never before today, has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan,'' he said.
''To dissuade people from risking their lives by joining people-smuggling ventures, it is important that Afghans found not to be owed protection by Australia are returned to Afghanistan."
About 2600 Afghans are in Australia's detention centres. Of those, 49 must win court appeals to avoid imminent deportation.
The opposition was sceptical about the agreement, saying it was only as good as the government's will to enforce it. ''The minister is unable to say when anyone is going to be returned,'' said its immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison. ''It's not clear to me the government has the resolve to implement this.''
In three years, only three asylum seekers have been returned to Afghanistan - all last year after volunteering to go. In 2008 and 2009, 126 people were returned to their countries of origin.
The director of the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, William Maley, warned that ethnic Hazaras, in particular, should not be deported without extreme caution. ''The security situation in Afghanistan is extremely unsettling,'' he said.
He cast doubt on the security expertise of Australian officials making refugee assessments.
The decapitation of 11 Hazaras in Oruzgan province in June contradicted a cable from the Kabul embassy proclaiming a ''golden age'' for Hazaras, he said.
The Refugee Council of Australia was concerned by the lack of safeguards the memorandum provided for returned asylum seekers. ''In Afghanistan, people are not so much under threat from actions by government but the actions of people who the government cannot, or chooses not to, control,'' said the chief executive, Paul Power.
The Australian government has promised money to help Afghanistan improve its passport system and accommodation for returned asylum seekers. The UN has agreed to ad hoc monitoring.
source;
http://www.coomaexpress.com.au/news/national/national/general/thousands-of-afghan-asylum-seekers-face-deportation/2049852.aspx
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Deeper Into Fathomless Afghanistan
January 18, 2011, 5:00 am
By MICHAEL KAMBER
Afghanistan still feels utterly new and fantastically complex. The dynamics, geography and people are completely different from Iraq, different really than anywhere I’ve ever been. As I spend more time here, I feel the war becoming more intricate, more complicated. Some of what is attributed to the Taliban is simply Afghan culture. Much of the war in Afghanistan is a war with the Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Af-Pak border. Yet there are other non-Pashtun groups fighting us all over the country — groups that are lumped together as Taliban when, in fact, they have nothing in common save for an antipathy towards coalition forces.
•
In early December, Alissa J. Rubin, The Times’s bureau chief in Kabul, takes me along on a visit to meet with the public affairs team at the International Security Assistance Force. I’m skeptical at first, but they turn out to be a smart, slightly ironic bunch who are tremendously helpful in getting us to where we want to go and furnishing us with updates. There is little of the mutual distrust I felt between the press and the military in Iraq. Weeks later, though, a high-ranking officer will call to complain about my written coverage: a quote from a Taliban spokesman has particularly incensed him.
•
Michael Kamber
Photographers at War
Interviews with:
Teru Kuwayama
Joao Silva
Stanley Greene
Tim Hetherington
Patrick Baz
Alissa and I take a day trip up to the Panjshir Valley, home of the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Afghan commander who fought the Russians to a standstill for a decade, then later led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. The Panjshir is extraordinarily beautiful: clear mountain streams and green rolling valleys. You can still see Russian markings on the destroyed armored personnel carriers that litter the roadside.
Massoud read Mao and Che Guevara, and was once offered a scholarship to study in France. I expect to find the Panjshiri women “liberated.” (I had an argument with a close relative in New York before I left. “We’re liberating the women from the Taliban,” she had said.) In the Panjshir, a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment, it quickly becomes clear that the Taliban are not the only impediment to women’s liberation.
The Panjshiris will not let me enter the village where I want to work; there are women in the village and I cannot lay eyes on them. I set my camera to auto and give it to our female translator. I go with the driver to the local kebab house. There are probably 100 men inside in the sweet smoky room, not a woman in sight. Outside, the women navigate the road in burkas down to their ankles.
A Panjshiri man tells me: “The Russians were terrible. They came into my house with guns in the middle of the night, in front of my wife!” I think back to the night raids in Logar that I photographed in 2009, the women and children led out into the pasture as the men were handcuffed and led away.
•
A friend in Ivory Coast e-mails me: the ultranationalist government, refusing to relinquish power after losing the election, is once again blaming the foreign press for its troubles. They have put photos of the journalists on state-run TV, a potential death sentence in this climate. The Ivorians have killed at least two foreign journalists in recent years. Many of the journalists have gone into hiding. Long distance, we worry for one another’s safety.
•
In Ghazni Province in mid-December, the Third Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne is in a daily fight with the Taliban. The soldiers have suffered 25 percent casualties since September. In the Hazara part of their district, there has never been a single attack upon them. In the Pashtun half, they are attacked as often as several times a day. Out of 100,000 Pashtun residents, exactly three voted in September’s parliamentary election. The Hazaras voted, and now control all the parliamentary seats for the province.
I pull on my flak jacket. The steel and ceramic cocoon offers an odd reassurance. We climb into massive, heavily armored vehicles. That which keeps us safe also separates us from the population.
Beside me, an Afghan, clearly an interpreter, introduces himself in accented English as Bob.
“What’s your real name?” I ask him.
“My name’s Omid. But on the first day at this job, the sergeant asked me my ‘terp’ name. I told him: ‘I don’t have a terp name. My name is Omid.’
” ‘Omid is too complicated for us to remember,’ he told me. ‘From now on, your name is Bob.’ ”
Michael Kamber for The New York Times
Dec. 16: Members of Bravo Company on a humanitarian assistance patrol in Ghazni Province distributed crank-powered radios, books, candy and drinks.
•
For most of the day, I watch and photograph as the Americans crawl in armored vehicles through fields in search of insurgents zipping about on motorcycles; as impoverished villagers step from their adobe homes to gape at the millions of dollars in American hardware bogged in their narrow mud lanes; as 19-year-old soldiers — abroad for the first time in their lives — swarm ancient compounds, finding bomb-making materials in haystacks and interrogating white-bearded Afghan elders.
It is an astonishing spectacle, bordering on the surreal at times. It is the very front line of the war in Afghanistan. A man in a turban drives by on a motorbike; his wife or daughter, draped in a baby-blue burka, sitting sidesaddle on the back.
“It’s like we are on the moon,” a soldier says. “Is there any place in the world more completely opposite to where we come from?”
That night, a sergeant is telling a story about talking to local villagers.
“I told the guy: ‘You think this is nice? This ain’t nothing! Where I live, I drive my car up to my house, press a magic button and a door opens up in the side of my house. I drive my car inside. Where I live, even my car has its own room! If you would just stop shooting at us, you could have that, too.’ ”
•
A few days later, at an Afghan government press conference, officials take the opportunity to press repeatedly for more economic aid and development from the West. An Afghan journalist turns to me with a laugh. “The U.S. is a big milky cow. We just milk it and milk it and milk it.”
•
In the middle of a January night, I’m standing in a wooden shack on an air base in Helmand, trying to get on a flight to remote Sangin District, where the fighting is heavy. The door opens and a face peers around the corner at me. It is Teru Kuwayama, another photojournalist. The last time I saw him, we were drinking beer on a warm Brooklyn night and arguing about the role of the media.
We embrace and talk for an hour or so in the darkness. Then I board a plane and fly off into the night. Teru will take a flight the next morning in another direction.
Source:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/deeper-into-fathomless-afghanistan/?partner=rss&emc=rss
By MICHAEL KAMBER
Afghanistan still feels utterly new and fantastically complex. The dynamics, geography and people are completely different from Iraq, different really than anywhere I’ve ever been. As I spend more time here, I feel the war becoming more intricate, more complicated. Some of what is attributed to the Taliban is simply Afghan culture. Much of the war in Afghanistan is a war with the Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Af-Pak border. Yet there are other non-Pashtun groups fighting us all over the country — groups that are lumped together as Taliban when, in fact, they have nothing in common save for an antipathy towards coalition forces.
•
In early December, Alissa J. Rubin, The Times’s bureau chief in Kabul, takes me along on a visit to meet with the public affairs team at the International Security Assistance Force. I’m skeptical at first, but they turn out to be a smart, slightly ironic bunch who are tremendously helpful in getting us to where we want to go and furnishing us with updates. There is little of the mutual distrust I felt between the press and the military in Iraq. Weeks later, though, a high-ranking officer will call to complain about my written coverage: a quote from a Taliban spokesman has particularly incensed him.
•
Michael Kamber
Photographers at War
Interviews with:
Teru Kuwayama
Joao Silva
Stanley Greene
Tim Hetherington
Patrick Baz
Alissa and I take a day trip up to the Panjshir Valley, home of the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Afghan commander who fought the Russians to a standstill for a decade, then later led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. The Panjshir is extraordinarily beautiful: clear mountain streams and green rolling valleys. You can still see Russian markings on the destroyed armored personnel carriers that litter the roadside.
Massoud read Mao and Che Guevara, and was once offered a scholarship to study in France. I expect to find the Panjshiri women “liberated.” (I had an argument with a close relative in New York before I left. “We’re liberating the women from the Taliban,” she had said.) In the Panjshir, a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment, it quickly becomes clear that the Taliban are not the only impediment to women’s liberation.
The Panjshiris will not let me enter the village where I want to work; there are women in the village and I cannot lay eyes on them. I set my camera to auto and give it to our female translator. I go with the driver to the local kebab house. There are probably 100 men inside in the sweet smoky room, not a woman in sight. Outside, the women navigate the road in burkas down to their ankles.
A Panjshiri man tells me: “The Russians were terrible. They came into my house with guns in the middle of the night, in front of my wife!” I think back to the night raids in Logar that I photographed in 2009, the women and children led out into the pasture as the men were handcuffed and led away.
•
A friend in Ivory Coast e-mails me: the ultranationalist government, refusing to relinquish power after losing the election, is once again blaming the foreign press for its troubles. They have put photos of the journalists on state-run TV, a potential death sentence in this climate. The Ivorians have killed at least two foreign journalists in recent years. Many of the journalists have gone into hiding. Long distance, we worry for one another’s safety.
•
In Ghazni Province in mid-December, the Third Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne is in a daily fight with the Taliban. The soldiers have suffered 25 percent casualties since September. In the Hazara part of their district, there has never been a single attack upon them. In the Pashtun half, they are attacked as often as several times a day. Out of 100,000 Pashtun residents, exactly three voted in September’s parliamentary election. The Hazaras voted, and now control all the parliamentary seats for the province.
I pull on my flak jacket. The steel and ceramic cocoon offers an odd reassurance. We climb into massive, heavily armored vehicles. That which keeps us safe also separates us from the population.
Beside me, an Afghan, clearly an interpreter, introduces himself in accented English as Bob.
“What’s your real name?” I ask him.
“My name’s Omid. But on the first day at this job, the sergeant asked me my ‘terp’ name. I told him: ‘I don’t have a terp name. My name is Omid.’
” ‘Omid is too complicated for us to remember,’ he told me. ‘From now on, your name is Bob.’ ”
Michael Kamber for The New York Times
Dec. 16: Members of Bravo Company on a humanitarian assistance patrol in Ghazni Province distributed crank-powered radios, books, candy and drinks.
•
For most of the day, I watch and photograph as the Americans crawl in armored vehicles through fields in search of insurgents zipping about on motorcycles; as impoverished villagers step from their adobe homes to gape at the millions of dollars in American hardware bogged in their narrow mud lanes; as 19-year-old soldiers — abroad for the first time in their lives — swarm ancient compounds, finding bomb-making materials in haystacks and interrogating white-bearded Afghan elders.
It is an astonishing spectacle, bordering on the surreal at times. It is the very front line of the war in Afghanistan. A man in a turban drives by on a motorbike; his wife or daughter, draped in a baby-blue burka, sitting sidesaddle on the back.
“It’s like we are on the moon,” a soldier says. “Is there any place in the world more completely opposite to where we come from?”
That night, a sergeant is telling a story about talking to local villagers.
“I told the guy: ‘You think this is nice? This ain’t nothing! Where I live, I drive my car up to my house, press a magic button and a door opens up in the side of my house. I drive my car inside. Where I live, even my car has its own room! If you would just stop shooting at us, you could have that, too.’ ”
•
A few days later, at an Afghan government press conference, officials take the opportunity to press repeatedly for more economic aid and development from the West. An Afghan journalist turns to me with a laugh. “The U.S. is a big milky cow. We just milk it and milk it and milk it.”
•
In the middle of a January night, I’m standing in a wooden shack on an air base in Helmand, trying to get on a flight to remote Sangin District, where the fighting is heavy. The door opens and a face peers around the corner at me. It is Teru Kuwayama, another photojournalist. The last time I saw him, we were drinking beer on a warm Brooklyn night and arguing about the role of the media.
We embrace and talk for an hour or so in the darkness. Then I board a plane and fly off into the night. Teru will take a flight the next morning in another direction.
Source:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/deeper-into-fathomless-afghanistan/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Monday, January 17, 2011
Australia signs asylum seeker agreement with Afghanistan
Elizabeth Byrne, Canberra
Last Updated: 21 hours 49 minutes ago
Concerns have been raised that a new agreement between Australia and Afghanistan to return failed asylum seekers could expose some individuals to danger.
The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the agreement will mean failed asylum seekers can be returned involuntarily.
"People who are not genuine refugees will be returned to Afghanistan with dignity and humanity, but they will be returned," he said.
But Professor William Maley from the ANU says Afghanistan is still not a safe place particularly for Hazaras, with several recent beheadings.
He says a safe return depends on a robust assessment process.
"If those processes are feeble, if those processes are defective in any way, the danger is that those people will be exposed to this kind of risk," he said.
The government says there are about 50 failed Afghan asylum seekers in detention.
But a recent High Court ruling has given them access to court appeals.
Source,
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201101/3114795.htm?desktop
Last Updated: 21 hours 49 minutes ago
Concerns have been raised that a new agreement between Australia and Afghanistan to return failed asylum seekers could expose some individuals to danger.
The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the agreement will mean failed asylum seekers can be returned involuntarily.
"People who are not genuine refugees will be returned to Afghanistan with dignity and humanity, but they will be returned," he said.
But Professor William Maley from the ANU says Afghanistan is still not a safe place particularly for Hazaras, with several recent beheadings.
He says a safe return depends on a robust assessment process.
"If those processes are feeble, if those processes are defective in any way, the danger is that those people will be exposed to this kind of risk," he said.
The government says there are about 50 failed Afghan asylum seekers in detention.
But a recent High Court ruling has given them access to court appeals.
Source,
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201101/3114795.htm?desktop
Australia, Afghan refugee forced return deal
Updated January 17, 2011 21:47:27
A new agreement between Australia and Afghanistan paves the way for the first forced return of Afghans who are deemed not to be refugees. And if that happens, they are likely to be from the persecuted Hazara minority because they form the majority of Afghan arrivals in Australia. Australia claims Afghanistan is now safer for Hazara people. But analysts say Australia's refugee determination process is based on poor information and that is dramatically underplaying the dangers and potentially exposing forced returnees to unacceptable risks.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Jamaher Amwary, Afghan refugee and repatriation minister; Chris Bowen, Australian immigration minister; Professor William Maley, director, Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National University; Younus Noori, Hazara refugee and social worker, Australia
MOTTRAM: Jamaher Amwary is Afghanistan's minister for Refugees and Repatriation. A big job, since his country has more refugees than any other.
AMWARY: (speaking in Pashto)
MOTTRAM: But at the signing in Sydney on Monday of the new memorandum of understanding between his country and Australia, Dr Amwary pledged that with Australia's help, Afghanistan would work to stop the people smuggler traffic and boats destined for Australia that have so agitated Australia's political debate.
For Australia, the immigration minister, Chris Bowen, signed the memorandum and stressed that Afghanistan's agreement to accept forced returns would send a message to the people smugglers.
BOWEN: No longer will people smugglers be able to tell people that even if they are not regarded as a genuine refugee, there is no mechanism for the Australian government to return them to Afghanistan. That is no longer the case. This is a sustainable and robust approach, which treats people with dignity but makes it clear that the end result of not being regarded as a refugee [...] is return to Afghanistan.
MOTTRAM: Australia for its part will provide limited reintegration assistance to returnees and also help improve Afghan government services like the country's corrupted passport system.
Lending its weight to the deal, the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, also signed on.
Expert on refugees and on Afghanistan, Professor William Maley of the Australian National University, says the memorandum does have some important provisions.
MALEY: One is that it requires that cases be assessed not simply in terms of refugee convention obligation of protection but also against instruments such as the convention against torture as well as against compelling humanitarian need.
MOTTRAM: That means better prospects to have cases approved, especially for about 200 unaccompanied Afghan children who are currently in Australian detention. In addition, a recent court victory in Australia has required that all asylum seekers get access to judicial review.
But it's less the new memorandum and more the Australian government's processes for assessing refugee claims in the first place that concerns Professor Maley.
MALEY: That's partly because the government has had to pull in all sorts of people with relatively minimum training in recent times to undertake assessments and one wonders whether the people who are doing these kinds of assessments really have a good smell and feel of what the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is like.
MOTTRAM: Not only are those officers ill equipped for their task - as rejection rates for Afghans grow - they are, Professor Maley says, labouring under a questionable Australian claim that security has improved in Afghanistan, especially for the persecuted minority Hazaras, who make up most of the Afghan refugee claimants in Australia.
And just last year Professor Maley says there was particularly gruesome evidence of that.
MALEY: Eleven Hazaras in June 2010 were decapitated in the province of Oruzgan, where Australian troops are deployed, and their bodies were left by the roadside and those who are making decisions in cases of this sort need to think very carefully about whether they would even possibly be exposing somebody to the risk of that kind of treatment.
MOTTRAM: Ethnic Hazara, Younus Noori, made the dangerous boat journey to Australia from Indonesia in 2000, fleeing the Taliban's threats. Eventually granted asylum in Australia, he now works, studies and raises his family in Adelaide. He can barely describe how dangerous his journey was, but during a visit to Canberra said the dangers still facing Hazaras were so much greater that nothing would stop them taking the trip.
NOORI: This is the most difficult and the most horrible journey that you can ever feel coming to Australia by boat. But the problem is that when the people are inside like a kind of a burning house, whenever they see a hole, they hope that they can go through and get out of that and they will try to use that.
MOTTRAM: Australia claims no one will be returned to face persecution. And with 49 of the 2600 Afghans currently in Australian detention having had their cases rejected at two reviews, Chris Bowen, the minister, says forced returns could come within the year. But with the international community advocating a deal with the Taliban as part of a political settlement in Afghanistan, Hazaras fear they are facing the prospect of much more - not less - persecution.
Source,
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201101/s3114979.htm
A new agreement between Australia and Afghanistan paves the way for the first forced return of Afghans who are deemed not to be refugees. And if that happens, they are likely to be from the persecuted Hazara minority because they form the majority of Afghan arrivals in Australia. Australia claims Afghanistan is now safer for Hazara people. But analysts say Australia's refugee determination process is based on poor information and that is dramatically underplaying the dangers and potentially exposing forced returnees to unacceptable risks.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Jamaher Amwary, Afghan refugee and repatriation minister; Chris Bowen, Australian immigration minister; Professor William Maley, director, Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National University; Younus Noori, Hazara refugee and social worker, Australia
MOTTRAM: Jamaher Amwary is Afghanistan's minister for Refugees and Repatriation. A big job, since his country has more refugees than any other.
AMWARY: (speaking in Pashto)
MOTTRAM: But at the signing in Sydney on Monday of the new memorandum of understanding between his country and Australia, Dr Amwary pledged that with Australia's help, Afghanistan would work to stop the people smuggler traffic and boats destined for Australia that have so agitated Australia's political debate.
For Australia, the immigration minister, Chris Bowen, signed the memorandum and stressed that Afghanistan's agreement to accept forced returns would send a message to the people smugglers.
BOWEN: No longer will people smugglers be able to tell people that even if they are not regarded as a genuine refugee, there is no mechanism for the Australian government to return them to Afghanistan. That is no longer the case. This is a sustainable and robust approach, which treats people with dignity but makes it clear that the end result of not being regarded as a refugee [...] is return to Afghanistan.
MOTTRAM: Australia for its part will provide limited reintegration assistance to returnees and also help improve Afghan government services like the country's corrupted passport system.
Lending its weight to the deal, the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, also signed on.
Expert on refugees and on Afghanistan, Professor William Maley of the Australian National University, says the memorandum does have some important provisions.
MALEY: One is that it requires that cases be assessed not simply in terms of refugee convention obligation of protection but also against instruments such as the convention against torture as well as against compelling humanitarian need.
MOTTRAM: That means better prospects to have cases approved, especially for about 200 unaccompanied Afghan children who are currently in Australian detention. In addition, a recent court victory in Australia has required that all asylum seekers get access to judicial review.
But it's less the new memorandum and more the Australian government's processes for assessing refugee claims in the first place that concerns Professor Maley.
MALEY: That's partly because the government has had to pull in all sorts of people with relatively minimum training in recent times to undertake assessments and one wonders whether the people who are doing these kinds of assessments really have a good smell and feel of what the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is like.
MOTTRAM: Not only are those officers ill equipped for their task - as rejection rates for Afghans grow - they are, Professor Maley says, labouring under a questionable Australian claim that security has improved in Afghanistan, especially for the persecuted minority Hazaras, who make up most of the Afghan refugee claimants in Australia.
And just last year Professor Maley says there was particularly gruesome evidence of that.
MALEY: Eleven Hazaras in June 2010 were decapitated in the province of Oruzgan, where Australian troops are deployed, and their bodies were left by the roadside and those who are making decisions in cases of this sort need to think very carefully about whether they would even possibly be exposing somebody to the risk of that kind of treatment.
MOTTRAM: Ethnic Hazara, Younus Noori, made the dangerous boat journey to Australia from Indonesia in 2000, fleeing the Taliban's threats. Eventually granted asylum in Australia, he now works, studies and raises his family in Adelaide. He can barely describe how dangerous his journey was, but during a visit to Canberra said the dangers still facing Hazaras were so much greater that nothing would stop them taking the trip.
NOORI: This is the most difficult and the most horrible journey that you can ever feel coming to Australia by boat. But the problem is that when the people are inside like a kind of a burning house, whenever they see a hole, they hope that they can go through and get out of that and they will try to use that.
MOTTRAM: Australia claims no one will be returned to face persecution. And with 49 of the 2600 Afghans currently in Australian detention having had their cases rejected at two reviews, Chris Bowen, the minister, says forced returns could come within the year. But with the international community advocating a deal with the Taliban as part of a political settlement in Afghanistan, Hazaras fear they are facing the prospect of much more - not less - persecution.
Source,
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201101/s3114979.htm
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Bamiyan City in Afghanistan
If you’re into picturesque views and history, then you’ll certainly love Bamiyan Afghanistan. This picturesque locale is considered 1 with the places that tourists should never miss seeing or visiting when within the country because it is the site of several ruined Buddha statues that had been destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. These statues have been close to for centuries and stood the test of time but had been not able to withstand the ravages of war between religions within the country.
To obtain to Bamiyan, you are able to go by road from Kabul. Whenever you venture into this region, attempt to blend in by with the assist of a scarf covering your head, your mouth and your nose. Aside from keeping your self inconspicuous, this also helps keep the dust out of your nose and mouth because these routes are frequently rough and extremely dusty. You will be able to get to Bamiyan via a shared 4WD minivan that can seat around five to ten people. The drive to Bamiyan generally takes close to 9 hours.
Whenever you get to Bamiyan town, aside from the well-known ruined Buddhas, you will probably be in a position to see just how badly war has torn some of the city apart. You can see many weapons that were left behind, jeeps that have been destroyed and buildings and houses which are now part of the ruins around these destroyed Buddhas. You can also visit the Shahr-e Gholghola, which is a fort that may give you majestic views of the valley below because it’s discovered high above the town.
To experience the cuisine that the locals enjoy, you might want to attempt what is known as pulao and naan. You can purchase these rice, vegetable and mutton stews and nearby flat breads from what are known as chaikhanas and you are able to wash down these delicious nearby fare with lots of green tea that’s also being sold by these extremely same vendors.
source: http://www.bestpageresourcelisting.info/uncategorized/bamiyan-city-in-afghanistan/
To obtain to Bamiyan, you are able to go by road from Kabul. Whenever you venture into this region, attempt to blend in by with the assist of a scarf covering your head, your mouth and your nose. Aside from keeping your self inconspicuous, this also helps keep the dust out of your nose and mouth because these routes are frequently rough and extremely dusty. You will be able to get to Bamiyan via a shared 4WD minivan that can seat around five to ten people. The drive to Bamiyan generally takes close to 9 hours.
Whenever you get to Bamiyan town, aside from the well-known ruined Buddhas, you will probably be in a position to see just how badly war has torn some of the city apart. You can see many weapons that were left behind, jeeps that have been destroyed and buildings and houses which are now part of the ruins around these destroyed Buddhas. You can also visit the Shahr-e Gholghola, which is a fort that may give you majestic views of the valley below because it’s discovered high above the town.
To experience the cuisine that the locals enjoy, you might want to attempt what is known as pulao and naan. You can purchase these rice, vegetable and mutton stews and nearby flat breads from what are known as chaikhanas and you are able to wash down these delicious nearby fare with lots of green tea that’s also being sold by these extremely same vendors.
source: http://www.bestpageresourcelisting.info/uncategorized/bamiyan-city-in-afghanistan/
Friday, January 14, 2011
The boy who plays on Buddhas of Bamiyan
By Phil Grabsky
Background Information
9 hours drive from Kabul, at the heart of the Hindu Kush, lies the valley of
Bamiyan. It is surely one of the most beautiful of all Afghanistan. Moreover, its
position and fertility led to the establishment of a trading post on the Silk Road
almost 2000 years ago. It subsequently grew to become an important
Buddhist centre with many monasteries and hundreds of monks. Around the
1st Century AD, a Central Asian nomadic tribe, the Kushans, established
themselves in Afghanistan. Around the end of the 1st century AD their king
was a man called Kanishka who adopted Mahayana Buddhism – which
revered the Buddha as a man as much as a God. Previously Buddha had only
been represented symbolically but under Kanishka the first images of Buddha
the man appeared. The fusing of an Indian artistic style with that of the
Greek-Bactrians led to the so-called ‘Graeco-Buddhic’ art – and the two great
Buddhas of Bamiyan were examples of this.
On completion, the two tallest were 55metres (9m taller than the Statue of
Liberty) and 38m high – an accomplishment that may have taken two hundred
years to achieve. By the time of their first record in 400 AD by a Chinese
Buddhist pilgrim they were covered in a mud and straw mixture to model the
face, hands and robes. The large Buddha was painted red, the smaller blue.
Both had hands and a face of gold. Alongside the Buddhas were excavated
dozens of caves, in which lived monks and other devotees.
Islam had arrived in Bamiyan by the 10th Century but the Buddhas remained
relatively unscathed, even after Genghis Khan in 1222 stormed the valley and,
in response to the killing of his grandson, killed every living thing in the valley.
This destruction marked the end of Bamiyan as a key trade point for centuries
but when the area slowly repopulated it did so with an increasing mix of
Mongol blood – and simultaneously added Shia Islam to the region’s religions.
The people of the area became known as Hazara – and the area (known as
Hazarajat) remained independent of the Afghan state until 1893. It revolted
against the Afghan communist government in 1978 but then came under
Soviet control until struggling free in 1981. The area was stricken with internal
division until the 1990 creation of the Hizb-e Wadhat party initially led by
Abdul Ali Mazari and then, after his mysterious death at the hands of the
Taliban, by Karim Khalili.
During the Taliban period, Bamiyan changed hands several times resulting in
great destruction and civilian casualties. Worse, the Taliban blockaded the
Shia Hazaras adding to the woes of the terrible drought. International attention
turned back to Bamiyan and the Hazara when, in March 2001, Mullah Omah
declared the Buddhas idolatrous and ordered them destroyed once and for all.
Only rubble remains.
link to source: http://www.theboywhoplaysonthebuddhasofbamiyan.co.uk/about.htm
Background Information
9 hours drive from Kabul, at the heart of the Hindu Kush, lies the valley of
Bamiyan. It is surely one of the most beautiful of all Afghanistan. Moreover, its
position and fertility led to the establishment of a trading post on the Silk Road
almost 2000 years ago. It subsequently grew to become an important
Buddhist centre with many monasteries and hundreds of monks. Around the
1st Century AD, a Central Asian nomadic tribe, the Kushans, established
themselves in Afghanistan. Around the end of the 1st century AD their king
was a man called Kanishka who adopted Mahayana Buddhism – which
revered the Buddha as a man as much as a God. Previously Buddha had only
been represented symbolically but under Kanishka the first images of Buddha
the man appeared. The fusing of an Indian artistic style with that of the
Greek-Bactrians led to the so-called ‘Graeco-Buddhic’ art – and the two great
Buddhas of Bamiyan were examples of this.
On completion, the two tallest were 55metres (9m taller than the Statue of
Liberty) and 38m high – an accomplishment that may have taken two hundred
years to achieve. By the time of their first record in 400 AD by a Chinese
Buddhist pilgrim they were covered in a mud and straw mixture to model the
face, hands and robes. The large Buddha was painted red, the smaller blue.
Both had hands and a face of gold. Alongside the Buddhas were excavated
dozens of caves, in which lived monks and other devotees.
Islam had arrived in Bamiyan by the 10th Century but the Buddhas remained
relatively unscathed, even after Genghis Khan in 1222 stormed the valley and,
in response to the killing of his grandson, killed every living thing in the valley.
This destruction marked the end of Bamiyan as a key trade point for centuries
but when the area slowly repopulated it did so with an increasing mix of
Mongol blood – and simultaneously added Shia Islam to the region’s religions.
The people of the area became known as Hazara – and the area (known as
Hazarajat) remained independent of the Afghan state until 1893. It revolted
against the Afghan communist government in 1978 but then came under
Soviet control until struggling free in 1981. The area was stricken with internal
division until the 1990 creation of the Hizb-e Wadhat party initially led by
Abdul Ali Mazari and then, after his mysterious death at the hands of the
Taliban, by Karim Khalili.
During the Taliban period, Bamiyan changed hands several times resulting in
great destruction and civilian casualties. Worse, the Taliban blockaded the
Shia Hazaras adding to the woes of the terrible drought. International attention
turned back to Bamiyan and the Hazara when, in March 2001, Mullah Omah
declared the Buddhas idolatrous and ordered them destroyed once and for all.
Only rubble remains.
link to source: http://www.theboywhoplaysonthebuddhasofbamiyan.co.uk/about.htm
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Get your hands on Pataka's latest publication Bamiyan - the Heart of Afghanistan
Only available at Pataka's shop $25.00
All good things are worth waiting for! Pataka Museum has just taken delivery of the Bamiyan exhibition book from the printers in China.
This full colour, 204 page book with its beautiful page layouts of virtually all the images from the recent Bamiyan exhibition is an absolute stunner!
Relive the experience, savour the images of the people of Bamiyan. Recall the history of the region, review the scenic sights and historic sites. Drool over Chris Weisserborn's remarkable panoramic images, revisit the work of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, enjoy the children's artwork, savour again the photographs of Pedram Pirnia and ponder the words and thoughts of the local interviewees.
Every aspect of the stimulating exhibition that was visited by over 60,000 people is encompassed in the book. Buy your copy now and celebrate the memory of the exhibition and Porirua's Friendly City relationship with Bamiyan.
Link to source: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1101/S00072/pataka-events-for-february.htm
All good things are worth waiting for! Pataka Museum has just taken delivery of the Bamiyan exhibition book from the printers in China.
This full colour, 204 page book with its beautiful page layouts of virtually all the images from the recent Bamiyan exhibition is an absolute stunner!
Relive the experience, savour the images of the people of Bamiyan. Recall the history of the region, review the scenic sights and historic sites. Drool over Chris Weisserborn's remarkable panoramic images, revisit the work of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, enjoy the children's artwork, savour again the photographs of Pedram Pirnia and ponder the words and thoughts of the local interviewees.
Every aspect of the stimulating exhibition that was visited by over 60,000 people is encompassed in the book. Buy your copy now and celebrate the memory of the exhibition and Porirua's Friendly City relationship with Bamiyan.
Link to source: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1101/S00072/pataka-events-for-february.htm
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