Updated March 11, 2011 13:30:41
World culture body UNESCO has unveiled plans to preserve the site of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, an Afghan archaeological treasure destroyed by the Taliban 10 years ago. The UN's cultural body says international experts and Afghan officials stopped short of recommending the two Buddha statues be fully rebuilt in replica.
Presenter:Sonja Heydeman
Speakers: Professor Abdullah Saeed, Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. Member for the UNESCO Commission in Australia;Shahib Sharifi, Afghan journalist; Associate Professor Nigel Lendon, Australian National University's College of the Arts and Social Sciences
HEYDEMAN: UNESCO has plans to preserve the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan site. It says the westernmost of the two cliff-side niches that housed the Buddhas should be left empty, "as a testimony of the violence that occurred" under the Taliban.
UNESCO says for the other niche, a feasibility study may be undertaken to determine whether or not a partial re-assembling of fragments of the eastern Buddha could be an option in the coming years. The UN's cultural body says there's also a need to construct a central museum in Bamiyan, and smaller site museums within the landscape.
Professor Abdullah Saeed is Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. He's also a member for the UNESCO Commission in Australia. Professor Saeed says anything that can be done to remedy the violence the Taliban created should be seen as a welcome development.
SAEED: It is a global cultural issue, Buddhism is an important religion, and Buddhism has always been there in that region for a very long time. And when one looks at these kinds of issues today, one should not look at them as a short term issue, it is a long term cultural issue. And as a global community, whether we are Buddhists or Muslims or anybody else, we should all be concerned about maintenance and preservation of these cultural artifacts and sites.
HEYDEMAN: But not everyone is so upbeat about possible plans. Within Afghanistan � journalist Shahib Sharifi says the news has registered no interest whatsoever.
SHARIFI: The announcement comes at a time the country is grieving for maybe one of the bloodiest weeks, in the east and in the north, and most of the attention of the people is towards that, and it has not on a local level, it has not even drawn any attention.
HEYDEMAN: Shahib Sharifi says part of the problem with any development plans is lack of access by road from Kabul to Bamiyan. And he says the province remains under serious threat.
SHARIFI: Anything about tourism inside that security bubble would still at the moment would be meaningless for people, when the future looks bleak, when still the province threatened, when at any time the situation destabilises, the Taliban could return and take revenge.
HEYDEMAN: Associate Professor Nigel Lendon is with the Australian National University's College of the Arts and Social Sciences.
Associate Professor Lendon says any museum style development would be an enormous undertaking and one unlikely to be shared widely. He says it would make a poor investment.
LENDON: Museums are keeping places for a country's treasures certainly, but they're also primarily places for people to visit, and there's no one visiting. So I can't really see the purpose of that sort of a project. I'd much rather see a hospital built on the site rather than a museum, frankly.
HEYDEMAN: Associate Professor Lendon says bringing tourists to the region could also draw the unwanted attention of terrorists.
LENDON: In a sense having so many foreigners might in fact create a kind of target for other people.
HEYDEMAN: Shahib Sharifi says instead of development plans such as museums � the focus should be on protection of what's left at the site.
SHARIFI: To train the local structure, increase the number of these local structures, give the local institutions more support just to look after what has remained, until Afghanistan is safe enough to create further tourist attractions. What is there needs to be protected properly, and unfortunately, it's not.
HEYDEMAN: UNESCO added the Bamiyan valley to its list of endangered heritage sites in 2003.
Since then, UNESCO says it's spent years preserving the remains and removing mines from the site.
Source,
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201103/s3161599.htm
Thursday, March 10, 2011
DCIFF: The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan
Posted by Tessa Moran on Mar. 9, 2011 at 10:30 am
Eight-year-old Mir and his family live in the mountains of Afghanistan. It's 2001 and the long-oppressive Taliban regime has been toppled by U.S. and allied forces. Mir and his family have already fled from the Taliban and drought in their village in the North to the caves of Bamiyan. It's here that filmmaker Phil Grabsky meets the boy, who peeps into his camera his very first day of filming.
Grabsky documented the boy for a year, resulting in 2003 documentary The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The Buddhas were massive 6th century statues built into the cliffs of Bamiyan and destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban. It's one of many scars left from the regime. As Grabsky explains in the introduction of his latest doc, The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan, he sensed one year was not enough time to document the true impact of Afghanistan's new realities, so he set about documenting Mir's life over a decade's time.
Mir is instantly infectious with his chubby cheeks and boyhood playfulness. In one scene, he giggles as he shows the filmmaker his "room," a few blankets arranged in the small cold cave where his family lives. He's prideful of his space despite his family's extreme poverty. This picture of innocence hauntingly sticks with you as the film shows Mir growing up over ten years, his skin roughened and wrinkled even in that short time. Throughout these times he struggles to balance his attendance at school and the need to work to feed his family, a task his elderly father is unable to shoulder. Meanwhile, much older half-brother Kushdel, a second father of sorts to Mir, uses his own life as a cautionary tale of the destiny that awaits illiteracy.
Mir's journey into manhood takes place throughout the war in Afghanistan, although the viewer only knows it from audio snippets of news reports and scenes of the family listening to the radio. Only once does Mir meet a couple of Humvees of American soldiers. He's scared of their size and weapons but notices they're scared too. Mir and his family are not victims of the violence of war but rather the other effects of it: a fractured country and a gap in humanitarian aid promised from foreign occupiers. It's a side of Afghanistan rarely seen and one framed in a narrative that depicts the strength of the human spirit.
Source,
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2011/03/09/dciff-the-boy-mir-ten-years-in-afghanistan/
Eight-year-old Mir and his family live in the mountains of Afghanistan. It's 2001 and the long-oppressive Taliban regime has been toppled by U.S. and allied forces. Mir and his family have already fled from the Taliban and drought in their village in the North to the caves of Bamiyan. It's here that filmmaker Phil Grabsky meets the boy, who peeps into his camera his very first day of filming.
Grabsky documented the boy for a year, resulting in 2003 documentary The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The Buddhas were massive 6th century statues built into the cliffs of Bamiyan and destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban. It's one of many scars left from the regime. As Grabsky explains in the introduction of his latest doc, The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan, he sensed one year was not enough time to document the true impact of Afghanistan's new realities, so he set about documenting Mir's life over a decade's time.
Mir is instantly infectious with his chubby cheeks and boyhood playfulness. In one scene, he giggles as he shows the filmmaker his "room," a few blankets arranged in the small cold cave where his family lives. He's prideful of his space despite his family's extreme poverty. This picture of innocence hauntingly sticks with you as the film shows Mir growing up over ten years, his skin roughened and wrinkled even in that short time. Throughout these times he struggles to balance his attendance at school and the need to work to feed his family, a task his elderly father is unable to shoulder. Meanwhile, much older half-brother Kushdel, a second father of sorts to Mir, uses his own life as a cautionary tale of the destiny that awaits illiteracy.
Mir's journey into manhood takes place throughout the war in Afghanistan, although the viewer only knows it from audio snippets of news reports and scenes of the family listening to the radio. Only once does Mir meet a couple of Humvees of American soldiers. He's scared of their size and weapons but notices they're scared too. Mir and his family are not victims of the violence of war but rather the other effects of it: a fractured country and a gap in humanitarian aid promised from foreign occupiers. It's a side of Afghanistan rarely seen and one framed in a narrative that depicts the strength of the human spirit.
Source,
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/film/2011/03/09/dciff-the-boy-mir-ten-years-in-afghanistan/
Kabul, UNESCO agree not to reconstruct Bamiyan Buddha statues
Mar 10, 2011, 17:13 GMT
New York - The Afghan government and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have agreed that the Buddha figures in Bamiyan blown up by Taliban 10 years ago this month will not be reconstructed, a UNESCO official said Thursday.
The two 1500-year-old statues, which measured 38 and 55 metres and were carved into a solid rock cliff face in the Bamiyan province, were reduced on March 12, 2001, to dust, and the small fragments that would make it impossible to reconstruct, Francesco Bandarin said in New York.
Bandarin, UNESCO's assistant director-general for culture, said little was left of the two statues after they were blown up with tons of explosives.
'Only 7 per cent of the larger statue remained and the rest was reduced to dust and rocks,' Bandarin said. 'The reconstruction is not possible. We are not doing it.'
He said the decision not to reconstruct the statues was taken last week in Paris, where UNESCO maintains its world headquarters, by his organization and representatives of the Kabul government after a study was carried out at the Bamiyan site.
Archeologists and rock experts have been doing work to protect and preserve the site, Bandarin said. The two solid rock niches that housed the statues are still standing, but they are empty.
Source,
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1625092.php/Kabul-UNESCO-agree-not-to-reconstruct-Bamiyan-Buddha-statues
New York - The Afghan government and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have agreed that the Buddha figures in Bamiyan blown up by Taliban 10 years ago this month will not be reconstructed, a UNESCO official said Thursday.
The two 1500-year-old statues, which measured 38 and 55 metres and were carved into a solid rock cliff face in the Bamiyan province, were reduced on March 12, 2001, to dust, and the small fragments that would make it impossible to reconstruct, Francesco Bandarin said in New York.
Bandarin, UNESCO's assistant director-general for culture, said little was left of the two statues after they were blown up with tons of explosives.
'Only 7 per cent of the larger statue remained and the rest was reduced to dust and rocks,' Bandarin said. 'The reconstruction is not possible. We are not doing it.'
He said the decision not to reconstruct the statues was taken last week in Paris, where UNESCO maintains its world headquarters, by his organization and representatives of the Kabul government after a study was carried out at the Bamiyan site.
Archeologists and rock experts have been doing work to protect and preserve the site, Bandarin said. The two solid rock niches that housed the statues are still standing, but they are empty.
Source,
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1625092.php/Kabul-UNESCO-agree-not-to-reconstruct-Bamiyan-Buddha-statues
Rethinking the Afghan Engagement: An Interview With Johan Freckhaus
Johan Freckhaus has a wide-ranging background and engagement with Afghanistan. He is a French citizen and graduate of Saint Cyr. After serving as an officer in the French Infantry and in the Foreign Legion, he went to Afghanistan to join Ahmad Shah Massoud’s resistance fight and helped train his commandos.
After the strategically important and tragic murder of Massoud, Freckhaus has remained engaged in Afghanistan in various ways and he has had over a decade of experience on the ground. Providing consultancy services for several companies or directly managing the projects, he has been involved in the rehabilitation of urban water supply network systems, the deployment of military satellite communication equipment, the construction of district centers and police district headquarters, as well as the supply of petrol, diesel and jet fuel for the International Security Assistance Force.
In addition, he served as a former team member of the political advisory group supporting the presidential campaign of the candidate Abdullah Abdul.
In 2008, Freckhaus was captured by the Taliban and then released in a prisoner exchange and ordered to leave Afghanistan. He did so only to return shortly thereafter. His kidnapping was described in Newsweek Magazine.
03/10/2011 – It is rare that a voice with so much experience can provide understanding of a possible path to withdrawal from Afghanistan and ending the endless mission. We introduced our readers to this experienced Afghan hand late last year, when our French correspondent Olivier Azpitarte interviewed Johan Freckhaus after a visit to Afghanistan. [1]
According to Johan Freckhaus:
“The truth is that the centralized and authoritarian system that we have put in place with the help of an emigrant, urban and progressive Afghan elite, is unsuited to the fundamentally rural, conservative and religious country. This system has no chance of survival and, by using force to impose itself, it only creates rejection, as indeed before him Prince Daoud’s “republic” in the ’70s and the Communists’ “democracy” in the 80′s. The more resentment, the less hope and the more Afghans are in the moment, in search of quick profits. Today, there are foreigners and money; it’s time to fill their pockets for the future of the family, the future education of the children, even exile if the Taliban was to be back soon! ”
The SLD team interviewed Johan Freckhaus in both Paris and Washington DC to get a better sense of his thinking about the past and the way out of the endless tunnel. How best to shape the future of Afghanistan and the Western engagement?
In our interviews with Freckhaus he connects two broad points.
First, the light footprint followed by the Bush Administration after 9/11 was the right strategy. The piling on of foreign troops has stirred up a hornets nest of Taliban activity who are using the large scale foreign presence as a recruiting issue. The point simply put is that Afghans distrust foreign motives and the large number of troops. And the foreign troops are backing a centralized government, which is out of sync of broader Afghan national aspirations and objectives. Certainly, recent events in the Middle East suggest that building up the power of the Presidency, as a focus of Western activity might well be counterproductive for political progress. In a recent speech to the Kuwait National Assembly, on 22 February 2011, the UK Prime Minister admitted: “For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes (…). [We] faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice.”
Johan Freckhaus also suggested an interesting lesson from history that might just work — a Swiss “neutrality” model from the time of Napoleon. His observations in his own words are extremely interesting. The West can work with Russia, Pakistan and others to shape a neutrality treaty and can assist where appropriate in countering foreign fighters like Al Qaeda and the Taliban seeking to penetrate Afghan territory. But the West needs to leave security to the provinces, and work with a much smaller central government tasked with dispensing aid to the provinces, control of the Army and collecting taxes. But the provinces cannot, nor need, manage large police forces.
In the earlier interview, Olivier underscored the following remarks by Johan:
There is indeed an insurgency in Afghanistan because you have 30 000 or 40 000 rebel fighters – according to allied military intelligence – backed by millions of Afghan civilians, in growing numbers, who feed them, house them, transport them, protect them, give them information and so on. These civilians are doing it foremost to drive foreign troops out of the country and in rejection of the system we are trying to impose, but do not want the return to power of the mullahs either.
Withdrawing our troops is therefore the right strategy to effectively drive a wedge between the rebels and their supporters. This famous momentum, this magic moment where the power relationship can be reversed, will come from fair and complete withdrawal of foreign forces, because then the fate of the country will return to its population. Then the Afghan security forces, as they exist today, would very well be capable, with the help of villagers, of chasing away those rebels on motorcycles mainly armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, whose most lethal know-how is simply to trigger explosives remotely.
The strategy of “always more” prevalent until today for the Afghan security forces is a dangerous illusion: more troops, more money, more power to the central government, all of this is counter-productive, it fuels the insurgency! We are building oversized security forces in Afghanistan that the country is far from being able to afford. We imagine a police state, supported from abroad, which would subject the population to the decisions of Kabul.
We imagine building in a few years, for one of the poorest countries in the world, an army that could successfully maintain in power a hyper-centralized system. This is not sustainable.” Let’s remember, for the record, that the Afghan government, which now has 140, 000 military and 109, 000 police officers, aims at a 240,000 military and 240,000 police officers force. And that is for a country of about 20 million inhabitants. In comparison, France, for a population three times larger, has fewer than 170,000 military personnel (ground and air) and 265 000 gendarmes and police officers.
We have included in this interview some video cuts of the discussion to give a feel not only of the argument, but the individual making a powerful case for significant strategic repositioning of the West.
***
SLD: In your view, why will the current strategy fail?
Johan Freckhaus: Because we are part of the problem. The political model is wrong. We need to return to 2002 where we had more limited and realistic objectives in a certain sense. We are seeking to build too large of an army and too large of a police force to support a model of government, which cannot be sustained. By the way, who is going to invade Afghanistan after we leave? We are building unstable equilibrium, not stability. It looks like it could stand but any kind of disturbances tend to bring the system down, and we need to spend a lot of energy – blood, toil, sweat and money – to maintain it.
The political model is wrong. We need to return to 2002 where we had more limited and realistic objectives in a certain sense. We are seeking to build too large of an army and too large of a police force to support a model of government, which cannot be sustained.
SLD: So, we declare victory.
Freckhaus: We should have declared victory in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, after a regime that was oppressing its own people, lying to the world and supporting terrorism collapsed under our joint military action. On the other hand, what was called the “war on terror” goes on and this is not a kind of struggle that ends with a statement. On the Afghan battlefield, better than declaring victory we must acknowledge mistakes. There is a Nation over there with several ethnic groups used to live together on the same land for centuries. The so-called State building went wrong. The central government should be no more than a clearinghouse for development. We should not build up the power of the President to become a dictator for the country.
SLD: But we’re focusing on basically provincial police and security. We can call it an American National Guard; the kind of people who belong to the states.
Freckhaus: We built the Afghan National Army, but they are dedicated to defend their country against foreign forces. The ANA is reluctant for counterinsurgency, because they are Afghan insurgents. There is no more. Let’s consider insurgency like a part of your own people supporting armed and organized rebellion groups. If you ask the Afghan Army to fight Afghan insurgents, they don’t want to; when you leave, they will stop fighting their own people, I’m sure. They are likely to look for local deals or even recognize another leadership considered as more legitimate than a foreign-backed central government.
SLD: Could you discuss your concept about the relevance of the Swiss model and the relevance of bargained neutrality?
Freckhaus: We need to enforce neutrality of Afghanistan by making Pakistan become a signatory to an argument and an enforcer of the accord. Making them part of a Western counter-insurgent strategy will not be considered legitimate by the Pakistani military. Pakistan plays against Afghanistan because they don’t want Afghanistan to play with India against them. Iran plays the same dirty game because they don’t want Afghanistan to play with the U.S. against them.
And actually, we are there because we don’t want Afghanistan to play again with a terrorist organization against us. That is the great game. But to end it, to neutralize Afghanistan, let’s come back to the old story. There is no sustainable way but make Afghanistan neutral and give up on this idea of “strategic partnership”. No Afghanistan against us or with our enemies; that is all what we need.
SLD: Please explain the Swiss model.
Freckhaus: The history of Europe can help to understand what happens now in central Asia. If we compare Afghanistan to Switzerland, at the beginning of the 19th century or the end of the 18th century, we can see a way ahead. You have the problem of the cities and the countryside. Switzerland is a rural country at that time, conservative, religious with many proud people living in remote valleys. Like Afghans now are really conservative and religious and rejects the modernizing initiatives of the cities and the central government when it comes to cultural values and morality.
In 18th century Switzerland, the cities and urban elites supported the French revolution; the countryside did not. The urban elites even asked the French troops to come in to enforce the revolution, the same way that the Afghan urban elites have heavily solicitated for decades the Soviets and the West to help empowering a new generation for the progress of their own country. The French did an organized Switzerland in a centralized way with appointed governors. This failed. For four years, the French troops occupied Switzerland and enforced centralization. Eventually Napoleon got the point. A group of French senators were sent to Switzerland to see what they could do to do solve the issue there. The group of senators came back to Napoleon, to the emperor, and said okay, we have a problem because the political model is not correct; it’s wrong for this country.
We have to come back to what was Switzerland before the centralization and to give back the power for people to sort their problems at the village level, with an arbitrator chosen by themselves, sitting at an upper level, and who can solve most issues without necessarily referring to a central authority. There is a famous speech of Napoleon in 1802, in which he said that it’s not for a wise man to try to change the nature of the country in Switzerland. So, we came back to a more decentralized power in Switzerland. And I think it is reversed, this acknowledgement of mistake from Napoleon at that time, must inspire us for Afghanistan.
The model we put in 2002 to have a centralized country, actually, the idea is to control the president who controls the government, to control the governor who is supposed to control the province. This is a flawed organization. The power in Afghanistan is not culturally centralized and people want to be involved in any decision…
Of course, we have to think about the structure of the government. Should the district and provincial governors be selected by the president? Or elected by the people? Where is the limit between the people organizing themselves at the local level, and the central leadership?
How is it that the experts who say that the solution is political only propose to deal with the enemy? Politics is the way you organize the power and we did it wrongly in Afghanistan.
Let’s do real politics before asking the Taliban to sign any paper. How is it that we keep consulting historians of guerilla warfare, experts in counter-insurgency, psychological operations or information warfare, but don’t ask any help from specialists in decentralization, federalism and constitution? How is it that the people who studied at the Kennedy School of Government only rely on West Point graduates to find a solution? I strongly believe that the keys are not in the military toolbox.
SLD: Could you discuss the significance of the rural population in your thinking?
Freckhaus: Afghanistan is a rural country, it’s a conservative country, and it’s a religious country. But the West is talking with urban or emigrated elites who are not too much religious and does not really represent what their country is. I know many of them who think that a dictatorship is the way to bring progress to the mass of illiterate and ignorant farmers.
But you will not find a good dictator in Afghanistan and if you concentrate the power in Kabul you will never have enough seats of power for each community to be represented there. Better to send the money to the provinces – I mean to provide them with a budget – and rely on the people, than to ask all the communities to send representatives for request to the ministries in the capital city. Then, you have the Pashtuns who say they are 65% of the population, the Tajiks say they are 40%, the Hazaras 25%, the Uzbeks 15%, etc. Every community pretends that they are the least advantaged by the government. The relationship between Kabul and the provinces must be reinvented. The central government provides development whereas the provinces should provide security. It is not reconstruction before security or security before reconstruction, it should be an exchange of reconstruction for security and security for reconstruction, from two different entities and not all coming from a foreign supported central government.
The relationship between Kabul and the provinces must be reinvented. The central government provides development whereas the provinces should provide security. It is not reconstruction before security or security before reconstruction, it should be an exchange of reconstruction for security and security for reconstruction, from two different entities and not all coming from a foreign supported central government.
Like the Soviets and the British, we want to talk with modern elites. We want to change the society to fit our objectives; we want to adapt the people to the system. And we are wrong. We believe that it is a question of commitment, of resources, of time. “It will take one generation”; “it will take time as it takes”. I myself believe that it is not going to work… This idea of change and progress are not understood nor believed by the population. We may have some hidden agenda… And this hidden agenda of the West drives the Afghans into the arms of the Taliban. I thought it was interesting about the communists in Afghanistan was that they were in alliance with the Russians for kind of modernization agenda. Which in a certain sense, we’re doing the same thing.
SLD: Could you discuss your views on the light footprint role in 2002?
Freckhaus: I was in Afghanistan before 2001: after 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld organized a strategy, and he came out with a light footprint strategy. It was because there was only a small group of experts on Afghanistan and they told him, well… it is complicated. We must not do what the British or Russians did before. So let’s add very light footprint. And there were two objectives; to destroy Al Qaida, and to neutralize the Taliban. Actually, the first idea was not to remove the Taliban from history but to “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”, as President Bush said. The first, to destroy Al Qaida could not have been achieved, but the neutralization of the Taliban was completed quite quickly because as we say in French “the fruit was ready”.
After 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld organized a strategy, and he came out with a light footprint strategy. It was because there was only a small group of experts on Afghanistan and they told him, well… it is complicated. We must not do what the British or Russians did before. So let’s add very light footprint. And there were two objectives; to destroy Al Qaida, and to neutralize the Taliban. Actually, the first idea was not to remove the Taliban from history, but to “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”, as President Bush said. The first, to destroy Al Qaida could not have been achieved, but the neutralization of the Taliban was completed quite quickly because as we say in French “the fruit was ready”.
But then, in the months in 2002, we changed; there were many new experts of Afghanistan coming with an experience of Africa, with an experience of the Balkans, with an experience of South-East Asia, etc. All these people came with new ideas, new experiences, and the big machinery… They knew little about the real nature of the country and wanted to make a nation building, state building and organize the country like we would like. So, we lost the main first ideas, and we went to the wrong direction. And because things went badly we just added more resources to deepen our commitment and engagement. So we say okay, we need more. We need more troops; we need more money, we need more commitment. We need more time. And to me, that we are going the wrong way, and we’re going there faster. We cannot reach the point we want to go.
SLD: The final thing I just want to go back on one of the things we were talking about, which is the notion of the transition we need to do now. We put the Swiss model on the table; we have a Congress of Vienna, kind of concept of getting folks in the region to accept the neutrality of Afghanistan as the legitimate objective for the country. We can then transition militarily out of this situation. And really, focus on the central government as the development center for the country, not so much the governing and national army kind of focus. Beginning to focus more as a partner for international institutions to build development acceptable to the Afghan people. Underlying that is that you reminded us of the rural/urban divide, in that most Afghans are rural. So, probably the development that they would value would reinforce the rural existence, not impose a new urban existence on them. So, just your final thoughts on that.
Freckhaus: I do believe the rural people of Afghanistan can provide the security. They are their own masters in their village and in their house. And if they want to keep the Taliban away, they can do it. But now the Taliban are their guests, and it’s our big problem. They are living with the people, because the people open their door to the Taliban. Doing so, they do what they think has to be done: fighting the foreigners and the hidden agenda. But we cannot get back the people with counter insurgency model. Building the wrong political model, and actually occupying the country with more and more troops. We have to send a very strong message, like we tried to do, actually.
I do believe the rural people of Afghanistan can provide the security. They are their own masters in their village and in their house. And if they want to keep the Taliban away, they can do it. But now the Taliban are their guests, and it’s our big problem. They are living with the people, because the people open their door to the Taliban. Doing so, they do what they think has to be done: fighting the foreigners and the hidden agenda. But we cannot get back the people with counter insurgency model.
In the last year, there were two messages. One message from the political side, like Secretary Clinton. You hear the diplomats say we are not here to occupy the country. The Afghan people must understand that we are not occupiers. So, this speech and the other one where the military will say we are here as long as necessary. We are very committed, and we have to stay until the job is done. So, the Afghan are faced with these two speeches, and which one do you think they believe is the true one? When he does the surge in Afghanistan, President Obama focuses on counter-insurgency, not constitutional reform. America must acknowledge mistake and focus now on giving back the power to the Afghan people, as well as building the neutrality of the country. One of the consequences is a foreign withdrawal with commitment by the international community to closely monitor the neutrality.
Source,
http://www.sldinfo.com/?p=16559
After the strategically important and tragic murder of Massoud, Freckhaus has remained engaged in Afghanistan in various ways and he has had over a decade of experience on the ground. Providing consultancy services for several companies or directly managing the projects, he has been involved in the rehabilitation of urban water supply network systems, the deployment of military satellite communication equipment, the construction of district centers and police district headquarters, as well as the supply of petrol, diesel and jet fuel for the International Security Assistance Force.
In addition, he served as a former team member of the political advisory group supporting the presidential campaign of the candidate Abdullah Abdul.
In 2008, Freckhaus was captured by the Taliban and then released in a prisoner exchange and ordered to leave Afghanistan. He did so only to return shortly thereafter. His kidnapping was described in Newsweek Magazine.
03/10/2011 – It is rare that a voice with so much experience can provide understanding of a possible path to withdrawal from Afghanistan and ending the endless mission. We introduced our readers to this experienced Afghan hand late last year, when our French correspondent Olivier Azpitarte interviewed Johan Freckhaus after a visit to Afghanistan. [1]
According to Johan Freckhaus:
“The truth is that the centralized and authoritarian system that we have put in place with the help of an emigrant, urban and progressive Afghan elite, is unsuited to the fundamentally rural, conservative and religious country. This system has no chance of survival and, by using force to impose itself, it only creates rejection, as indeed before him Prince Daoud’s “republic” in the ’70s and the Communists’ “democracy” in the 80′s. The more resentment, the less hope and the more Afghans are in the moment, in search of quick profits. Today, there are foreigners and money; it’s time to fill their pockets for the future of the family, the future education of the children, even exile if the Taliban was to be back soon! ”
The SLD team interviewed Johan Freckhaus in both Paris and Washington DC to get a better sense of his thinking about the past and the way out of the endless tunnel. How best to shape the future of Afghanistan and the Western engagement?
In our interviews with Freckhaus he connects two broad points.
First, the light footprint followed by the Bush Administration after 9/11 was the right strategy. The piling on of foreign troops has stirred up a hornets nest of Taliban activity who are using the large scale foreign presence as a recruiting issue. The point simply put is that Afghans distrust foreign motives and the large number of troops. And the foreign troops are backing a centralized government, which is out of sync of broader Afghan national aspirations and objectives. Certainly, recent events in the Middle East suggest that building up the power of the Presidency, as a focus of Western activity might well be counterproductive for political progress. In a recent speech to the Kuwait National Assembly, on 22 February 2011, the UK Prime Minister admitted: “For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes (…). [We] faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice.”
Johan Freckhaus also suggested an interesting lesson from history that might just work — a Swiss “neutrality” model from the time of Napoleon. His observations in his own words are extremely interesting. The West can work with Russia, Pakistan and others to shape a neutrality treaty and can assist where appropriate in countering foreign fighters like Al Qaeda and the Taliban seeking to penetrate Afghan territory. But the West needs to leave security to the provinces, and work with a much smaller central government tasked with dispensing aid to the provinces, control of the Army and collecting taxes. But the provinces cannot, nor need, manage large police forces.
In the earlier interview, Olivier underscored the following remarks by Johan:
There is indeed an insurgency in Afghanistan because you have 30 000 or 40 000 rebel fighters – according to allied military intelligence – backed by millions of Afghan civilians, in growing numbers, who feed them, house them, transport them, protect them, give them information and so on. These civilians are doing it foremost to drive foreign troops out of the country and in rejection of the system we are trying to impose, but do not want the return to power of the mullahs either.
Withdrawing our troops is therefore the right strategy to effectively drive a wedge between the rebels and their supporters. This famous momentum, this magic moment where the power relationship can be reversed, will come from fair and complete withdrawal of foreign forces, because then the fate of the country will return to its population. Then the Afghan security forces, as they exist today, would very well be capable, with the help of villagers, of chasing away those rebels on motorcycles mainly armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, whose most lethal know-how is simply to trigger explosives remotely.
The strategy of “always more” prevalent until today for the Afghan security forces is a dangerous illusion: more troops, more money, more power to the central government, all of this is counter-productive, it fuels the insurgency! We are building oversized security forces in Afghanistan that the country is far from being able to afford. We imagine a police state, supported from abroad, which would subject the population to the decisions of Kabul.
We imagine building in a few years, for one of the poorest countries in the world, an army that could successfully maintain in power a hyper-centralized system. This is not sustainable.” Let’s remember, for the record, that the Afghan government, which now has 140, 000 military and 109, 000 police officers, aims at a 240,000 military and 240,000 police officers force. And that is for a country of about 20 million inhabitants. In comparison, France, for a population three times larger, has fewer than 170,000 military personnel (ground and air) and 265 000 gendarmes and police officers.
We have included in this interview some video cuts of the discussion to give a feel not only of the argument, but the individual making a powerful case for significant strategic repositioning of the West.
***
SLD: In your view, why will the current strategy fail?
Johan Freckhaus: Because we are part of the problem. The political model is wrong. We need to return to 2002 where we had more limited and realistic objectives in a certain sense. We are seeking to build too large of an army and too large of a police force to support a model of government, which cannot be sustained. By the way, who is going to invade Afghanistan after we leave? We are building unstable equilibrium, not stability. It looks like it could stand but any kind of disturbances tend to bring the system down, and we need to spend a lot of energy – blood, toil, sweat and money – to maintain it.
The political model is wrong. We need to return to 2002 where we had more limited and realistic objectives in a certain sense. We are seeking to build too large of an army and too large of a police force to support a model of government, which cannot be sustained.
SLD: So, we declare victory.
Freckhaus: We should have declared victory in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, after a regime that was oppressing its own people, lying to the world and supporting terrorism collapsed under our joint military action. On the other hand, what was called the “war on terror” goes on and this is not a kind of struggle that ends with a statement. On the Afghan battlefield, better than declaring victory we must acknowledge mistakes. There is a Nation over there with several ethnic groups used to live together on the same land for centuries. The so-called State building went wrong. The central government should be no more than a clearinghouse for development. We should not build up the power of the President to become a dictator for the country.
SLD: But we’re focusing on basically provincial police and security. We can call it an American National Guard; the kind of people who belong to the states.
Freckhaus: We built the Afghan National Army, but they are dedicated to defend their country against foreign forces. The ANA is reluctant for counterinsurgency, because they are Afghan insurgents. There is no more. Let’s consider insurgency like a part of your own people supporting armed and organized rebellion groups. If you ask the Afghan Army to fight Afghan insurgents, they don’t want to; when you leave, they will stop fighting their own people, I’m sure. They are likely to look for local deals or even recognize another leadership considered as more legitimate than a foreign-backed central government.
SLD: Could you discuss your concept about the relevance of the Swiss model and the relevance of bargained neutrality?
Freckhaus: We need to enforce neutrality of Afghanistan by making Pakistan become a signatory to an argument and an enforcer of the accord. Making them part of a Western counter-insurgent strategy will not be considered legitimate by the Pakistani military. Pakistan plays against Afghanistan because they don’t want Afghanistan to play with India against them. Iran plays the same dirty game because they don’t want Afghanistan to play with the U.S. against them.
And actually, we are there because we don’t want Afghanistan to play again with a terrorist organization against us. That is the great game. But to end it, to neutralize Afghanistan, let’s come back to the old story. There is no sustainable way but make Afghanistan neutral and give up on this idea of “strategic partnership”. No Afghanistan against us or with our enemies; that is all what we need.
SLD: Please explain the Swiss model.
Freckhaus: The history of Europe can help to understand what happens now in central Asia. If we compare Afghanistan to Switzerland, at the beginning of the 19th century or the end of the 18th century, we can see a way ahead. You have the problem of the cities and the countryside. Switzerland is a rural country at that time, conservative, religious with many proud people living in remote valleys. Like Afghans now are really conservative and religious and rejects the modernizing initiatives of the cities and the central government when it comes to cultural values and morality.
In 18th century Switzerland, the cities and urban elites supported the French revolution; the countryside did not. The urban elites even asked the French troops to come in to enforce the revolution, the same way that the Afghan urban elites have heavily solicitated for decades the Soviets and the West to help empowering a new generation for the progress of their own country. The French did an organized Switzerland in a centralized way with appointed governors. This failed. For four years, the French troops occupied Switzerland and enforced centralization. Eventually Napoleon got the point. A group of French senators were sent to Switzerland to see what they could do to do solve the issue there. The group of senators came back to Napoleon, to the emperor, and said okay, we have a problem because the political model is not correct; it’s wrong for this country.
We have to come back to what was Switzerland before the centralization and to give back the power for people to sort their problems at the village level, with an arbitrator chosen by themselves, sitting at an upper level, and who can solve most issues without necessarily referring to a central authority. There is a famous speech of Napoleon in 1802, in which he said that it’s not for a wise man to try to change the nature of the country in Switzerland. So, we came back to a more decentralized power in Switzerland. And I think it is reversed, this acknowledgement of mistake from Napoleon at that time, must inspire us for Afghanistan.
The model we put in 2002 to have a centralized country, actually, the idea is to control the president who controls the government, to control the governor who is supposed to control the province. This is a flawed organization. The power in Afghanistan is not culturally centralized and people want to be involved in any decision…
Of course, we have to think about the structure of the government. Should the district and provincial governors be selected by the president? Or elected by the people? Where is the limit between the people organizing themselves at the local level, and the central leadership?
How is it that the experts who say that the solution is political only propose to deal with the enemy? Politics is the way you organize the power and we did it wrongly in Afghanistan.
Let’s do real politics before asking the Taliban to sign any paper. How is it that we keep consulting historians of guerilla warfare, experts in counter-insurgency, psychological operations or information warfare, but don’t ask any help from specialists in decentralization, federalism and constitution? How is it that the people who studied at the Kennedy School of Government only rely on West Point graduates to find a solution? I strongly believe that the keys are not in the military toolbox.
SLD: Could you discuss the significance of the rural population in your thinking?
Freckhaus: Afghanistan is a rural country, it’s a conservative country, and it’s a religious country. But the West is talking with urban or emigrated elites who are not too much religious and does not really represent what their country is. I know many of them who think that a dictatorship is the way to bring progress to the mass of illiterate and ignorant farmers.
But you will not find a good dictator in Afghanistan and if you concentrate the power in Kabul you will never have enough seats of power for each community to be represented there. Better to send the money to the provinces – I mean to provide them with a budget – and rely on the people, than to ask all the communities to send representatives for request to the ministries in the capital city. Then, you have the Pashtuns who say they are 65% of the population, the Tajiks say they are 40%, the Hazaras 25%, the Uzbeks 15%, etc. Every community pretends that they are the least advantaged by the government. The relationship between Kabul and the provinces must be reinvented. The central government provides development whereas the provinces should provide security. It is not reconstruction before security or security before reconstruction, it should be an exchange of reconstruction for security and security for reconstruction, from two different entities and not all coming from a foreign supported central government.
The relationship between Kabul and the provinces must be reinvented. The central government provides development whereas the provinces should provide security. It is not reconstruction before security or security before reconstruction, it should be an exchange of reconstruction for security and security for reconstruction, from two different entities and not all coming from a foreign supported central government.
Like the Soviets and the British, we want to talk with modern elites. We want to change the society to fit our objectives; we want to adapt the people to the system. And we are wrong. We believe that it is a question of commitment, of resources, of time. “It will take one generation”; “it will take time as it takes”. I myself believe that it is not going to work… This idea of change and progress are not understood nor believed by the population. We may have some hidden agenda… And this hidden agenda of the West drives the Afghans into the arms of the Taliban. I thought it was interesting about the communists in Afghanistan was that they were in alliance with the Russians for kind of modernization agenda. Which in a certain sense, we’re doing the same thing.
SLD: Could you discuss your views on the light footprint role in 2002?
Freckhaus: I was in Afghanistan before 2001: after 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld organized a strategy, and he came out with a light footprint strategy. It was because there was only a small group of experts on Afghanistan and they told him, well… it is complicated. We must not do what the British or Russians did before. So let’s add very light footprint. And there were two objectives; to destroy Al Qaida, and to neutralize the Taliban. Actually, the first idea was not to remove the Taliban from history but to “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”, as President Bush said. The first, to destroy Al Qaida could not have been achieved, but the neutralization of the Taliban was completed quite quickly because as we say in French “the fruit was ready”.
After 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld organized a strategy, and he came out with a light footprint strategy. It was because there was only a small group of experts on Afghanistan and they told him, well… it is complicated. We must not do what the British or Russians did before. So let’s add very light footprint. And there were two objectives; to destroy Al Qaida, and to neutralize the Taliban. Actually, the first idea was not to remove the Taliban from history, but to “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”, as President Bush said. The first, to destroy Al Qaida could not have been achieved, but the neutralization of the Taliban was completed quite quickly because as we say in French “the fruit was ready”.
But then, in the months in 2002, we changed; there were many new experts of Afghanistan coming with an experience of Africa, with an experience of the Balkans, with an experience of South-East Asia, etc. All these people came with new ideas, new experiences, and the big machinery… They knew little about the real nature of the country and wanted to make a nation building, state building and organize the country like we would like. So, we lost the main first ideas, and we went to the wrong direction. And because things went badly we just added more resources to deepen our commitment and engagement. So we say okay, we need more. We need more troops; we need more money, we need more commitment. We need more time. And to me, that we are going the wrong way, and we’re going there faster. We cannot reach the point we want to go.
SLD: The final thing I just want to go back on one of the things we were talking about, which is the notion of the transition we need to do now. We put the Swiss model on the table; we have a Congress of Vienna, kind of concept of getting folks in the region to accept the neutrality of Afghanistan as the legitimate objective for the country. We can then transition militarily out of this situation. And really, focus on the central government as the development center for the country, not so much the governing and national army kind of focus. Beginning to focus more as a partner for international institutions to build development acceptable to the Afghan people. Underlying that is that you reminded us of the rural/urban divide, in that most Afghans are rural. So, probably the development that they would value would reinforce the rural existence, not impose a new urban existence on them. So, just your final thoughts on that.
Freckhaus: I do believe the rural people of Afghanistan can provide the security. They are their own masters in their village and in their house. And if they want to keep the Taliban away, they can do it. But now the Taliban are their guests, and it’s our big problem. They are living with the people, because the people open their door to the Taliban. Doing so, they do what they think has to be done: fighting the foreigners and the hidden agenda. But we cannot get back the people with counter insurgency model. Building the wrong political model, and actually occupying the country with more and more troops. We have to send a very strong message, like we tried to do, actually.
I do believe the rural people of Afghanistan can provide the security. They are their own masters in their village and in their house. And if they want to keep the Taliban away, they can do it. But now the Taliban are their guests, and it’s our big problem. They are living with the people, because the people open their door to the Taliban. Doing so, they do what they think has to be done: fighting the foreigners and the hidden agenda. But we cannot get back the people with counter insurgency model.
In the last year, there were two messages. One message from the political side, like Secretary Clinton. You hear the diplomats say we are not here to occupy the country. The Afghan people must understand that we are not occupiers. So, this speech and the other one where the military will say we are here as long as necessary. We are very committed, and we have to stay until the job is done. So, the Afghan are faced with these two speeches, and which one do you think they believe is the true one? When he does the surge in Afghanistan, President Obama focuses on counter-insurgency, not constitutional reform. America must acknowledge mistake and focus now on giving back the power to the Afghan people, as well as building the neutrality of the country. One of the consequences is a foreign withdrawal with commitment by the international community to closely monitor the neutrality.
Source,
http://www.sldinfo.com/?p=16559
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
In praise of … the Bamiyan Buddhas: The Guardian Editorial
In praise of … the Bamiyan Buddhas
These statues were a reminder of a more beguiling version of Afghanistan than Mullah Omar pressed upon his people
Editorial
The Guardian, Thursday 10 March 2011
Article history
They stood 55 metres and 38 metres high, the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan, and blowing up the bigger statue took 25 explosions and all the dynamite local commanders had. Afghanistan's Taliban demolished these two "shrines of the infidels" 10 years ago this month on the grounds that they were idolatrous. But the world's largest Buddhas, carved into the sandstone cliffs of Bamiyan in the sixth century AD, were also a reminder of a different and more beguiling version of Afghanistan than Mullah Mohammed Omar pressed upon his people. Bamiyan was a staging post on the Silk Road that carried goods and ideas all the way from China to Rome, and Buddhism came to Afghanistan as an export from the Indian subcontinent. Religious monuments have been regular victims of intolerance throughout history – but there was something peculiarly bloody minded about the destruction of these statues. It was done amid Afghanistan's worst drought in 30 years, while three million people faced starvation. Taliban commanders gave their orders as a show of defiance against the imposition of more UN sanctions, despite the pleadings of Kofi Annan and countless other world leaders. Almost as soon as the statues were reduced to rubble, repeated promises have been made to restore them. German scientists are now talking about putting the smaller Buddha back together again. But they also note "practical and political" obstacles to doing so – a phrase that seems to have the due combination of sadness and sobriety.
Source,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/10/bamiyan-buddhas-statues-afghanistan?utm_source=darjeelinglimited&utm_medium=twitter
These statues were a reminder of a more beguiling version of Afghanistan than Mullah Omar pressed upon his people
Editorial
The Guardian, Thursday 10 March 2011
Article history
They stood 55 metres and 38 metres high, the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan, and blowing up the bigger statue took 25 explosions and all the dynamite local commanders had. Afghanistan's Taliban demolished these two "shrines of the infidels" 10 years ago this month on the grounds that they were idolatrous. But the world's largest Buddhas, carved into the sandstone cliffs of Bamiyan in the sixth century AD, were also a reminder of a different and more beguiling version of Afghanistan than Mullah Mohammed Omar pressed upon his people. Bamiyan was a staging post on the Silk Road that carried goods and ideas all the way from China to Rome, and Buddhism came to Afghanistan as an export from the Indian subcontinent. Religious monuments have been regular victims of intolerance throughout history – but there was something peculiarly bloody minded about the destruction of these statues. It was done amid Afghanistan's worst drought in 30 years, while three million people faced starvation. Taliban commanders gave their orders as a show of defiance against the imposition of more UN sanctions, despite the pleadings of Kofi Annan and countless other world leaders. Almost as soon as the statues were reduced to rubble, repeated promises have been made to restore them. German scientists are now talking about putting the smaller Buddha back together again. But they also note "practical and political" obstacles to doing so – a phrase that seems to have the due combination of sadness and sobriety.
Source,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/10/bamiyan-buddhas-statues-afghanistan?utm_source=darjeelinglimited&utm_medium=twitter
Experts outline plans for preservation of Bamiyan Buddhas World Heritage site: UNESCO Press
09.03.2011
Afghan officials and international experts outlined plans for the future safeguarding of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of Bamiyan Valley (Afghanistan) at the end of two meetings at UNESCO in Paris from 2 to 4 March. The meetings were held on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the tragic destruction of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan.
Afghan officials and international experts outlined plans for the future safeguarding of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of Bamiyan Valley (Afghanistan) at the end of two meetings at UNESCO in Paris from 2 to 4 March. The meetings were held on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the tragic destruction of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan.
After hearing proposals for remedial measures and the future presentation of the two Buddha niches from international teams of experts from Germany, Italy, and Japan, the participants, including the Afghan Minister of Information and Culture, the Minister for Urban Development Affairs and the Governor of the Bamiyan Valley, agreed that:
- A total reconstruction of either Buddha sculpture is not to be considered for the moment in view of the scientific data presently available, and according to the best estimates of available resources against cost.
- The larger western niche will be consolidated and left empty as a testimony of the violence that occurred, while a feasibility study may be undertaken to determine whether or not a partial reassembling of fragments of the eastern Buddha could be an option in the coming years.
- There is a need to construct a central museum in Bamiyan and smaller site museums within the Landscape in order to preserve and display findings from the valley within the World Heritage property.
- Work needs to be pursued to safeguard and preserve the entire cultural landscape of Bamiyan Valley with due regard for all the archaeological and architectural components necessary for the future development of Bamiyan.
- A master plan needs to be developed in close collaboration with the local authorities to serve as reference for all future interventions.
Since 2003, when the Cultural Landscape and Archaoelogical remains of the Bamiyan Valley were inscribed on the List of World heritage in danger, UNESCO has led a three-phase preservation plan for the property. Its focus has been to safeguard what remained after the intentional destructions of the Buddha statues and to render the site safe, notably by carrying out a complex demining operation of the site.
The 2011 Expert Working Group meeting concluded that the World Heritage site is potentially ready to be removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger by 2013. This conclusion was reached upon examining progress made to address security; structural stability of the remains of the two standing giant Buddhas; conserve the Archaeological Remains and Mural Paintings; and implement the property’s Management Plan and the Cultural Master Plan.
Participants at the meetings further concluded that, with the tragedy of the destruction now behind us, Bamiyan Valley - with its unique history, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and local communities - constitutes a fertile environment for learning how to transform a destructive act into an opportunity to reinforce tolerance, peace and development through culture for future generations.
The International Forum ‘Towards Cultural Rapprochement and Tolerance’ organized by UNESCO on 2 March 2011 reaffirmed the vitality of cultural heritage and its tremendous potential to bring together cultures and promote tolerance.
Source:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/experts_outline_plans_for_preservation_of_bamiyan_buddhas_world_heritage_site/back/18256/?utm_source=UNESCO+Press&utm_medium=twitter
Afghan officials and international experts outlined plans for the future safeguarding of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of Bamiyan Valley (Afghanistan) at the end of two meetings at UNESCO in Paris from 2 to 4 March. The meetings were held on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the tragic destruction of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan.
Afghan officials and international experts outlined plans for the future safeguarding of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of Bamiyan Valley (Afghanistan) at the end of two meetings at UNESCO in Paris from 2 to 4 March. The meetings were held on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the tragic destruction of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan.
After hearing proposals for remedial measures and the future presentation of the two Buddha niches from international teams of experts from Germany, Italy, and Japan, the participants, including the Afghan Minister of Information and Culture, the Minister for Urban Development Affairs and the Governor of the Bamiyan Valley, agreed that:
- A total reconstruction of either Buddha sculpture is not to be considered for the moment in view of the scientific data presently available, and according to the best estimates of available resources against cost.
- The larger western niche will be consolidated and left empty as a testimony of the violence that occurred, while a feasibility study may be undertaken to determine whether or not a partial reassembling of fragments of the eastern Buddha could be an option in the coming years.
- There is a need to construct a central museum in Bamiyan and smaller site museums within the Landscape in order to preserve and display findings from the valley within the World Heritage property.
- Work needs to be pursued to safeguard and preserve the entire cultural landscape of Bamiyan Valley with due regard for all the archaeological and architectural components necessary for the future development of Bamiyan.
- A master plan needs to be developed in close collaboration with the local authorities to serve as reference for all future interventions.
Since 2003, when the Cultural Landscape and Archaoelogical remains of the Bamiyan Valley were inscribed on the List of World heritage in danger, UNESCO has led a three-phase preservation plan for the property. Its focus has been to safeguard what remained after the intentional destructions of the Buddha statues and to render the site safe, notably by carrying out a complex demining operation of the site.
The 2011 Expert Working Group meeting concluded that the World Heritage site is potentially ready to be removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger by 2013. This conclusion was reached upon examining progress made to address security; structural stability of the remains of the two standing giant Buddhas; conserve the Archaeological Remains and Mural Paintings; and implement the property’s Management Plan and the Cultural Master Plan.
Participants at the meetings further concluded that, with the tragedy of the destruction now behind us, Bamiyan Valley - with its unique history, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and local communities - constitutes a fertile environment for learning how to transform a destructive act into an opportunity to reinforce tolerance, peace and development through culture for future generations.
The International Forum ‘Towards Cultural Rapprochement and Tolerance’ organized by UNESCO on 2 March 2011 reaffirmed the vitality of cultural heritage and its tremendous potential to bring together cultures and promote tolerance.
Source:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/experts_outline_plans_for_preservation_of_bamiyan_buddhas_world_heritage_site/back/18256/?utm_source=UNESCO+Press&utm_medium=twitter
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Quarryman recalls being forced to destroy Buddha statues
By Farhad Peikar Mar 9, 2011, 3:02 GMT
Bamiyan, Afghanistan - While the world was pleading with the Taliban not to obliterate Afghanistan's Buddha statues in March 2001, Didar Ali was working hard to bring the giants down.
The then-40-year-old was no iconoclast himself, but Taliban fighters had told him that they would spare his life only if he helped destroy the sculptures.
In February 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had ordered the statues in Bamiyan province, 230 kilometres north-west of Kabul, to be dynamited. Despite widespread international opposition, the Taliban maintained the images were idols and, therefore, not tolerable under Islam.
Starting March 2, the militants began shelling the 1,500-year-old statutes with artillery for several days, but with little result. The sixth-century Buddhists had done a great job, carving them in hard stone into the same cliff face with a distance of around 800 metres between them.
The Sunni militants, who has wrested control of the province from their Shiite rivals, forced a group of local men to drill and plant explosives inside the statues, 38 and 55 metres high, respectively.
While the international community was increasing its pressure on the Taliban to abandon their plan, the militants were arresting more male villagers from the near-deserted town to complete the job.
But it was not until much later that the militants learned that one of the men, Ali, was an expert in using explosives to quarry stones from the mountains, which local people would use for construction.
'They tied a rope around my waist and hung me from the top of the cliff to dig holes and bury explosives on the two shoulders of tallest statue,' Ali recounted. 'I refused to do it, but they threatened to push me from the top of the statue without a rope and kill all the other (arrested) men.'
'They also told me that if I tried to escape, they would kill my family and burn down my home,' said the father of five, who still lives in Sultano village, 20 kilometres west of Bamiyan city.
Suspended from the top of the cliff, Ali and two other men drilled holes into the statues and filled them with explosives and rocket shells. When they were detonated, the statues were flattened, leaving the niches where they had stood empty. Around 50,000 kilograms of explosives were used in the two-week operation, according to a Taliban-linked publication.
The world was shocked by the news, but Ali was glad to be able to return to his family. 'I know they were our cultural heritage. They also belonged to the entire world, but at that time I could only think about my life.'
The statues were not the only victims of the Taliban.
According to Omara Khan Masoudi, director of the National Museum in Kabul, the ultra-Islamist regime destroyed more than 2,000 ancient statues and other artifacts depicting human-like figures before Bamiyan's sculptures were brought down.
When they seized the Bamiyan area in 1998, two years after taking Kabul, the Taliban torched hundreds of homes and 'massacred at least 500 people, including women and children,' said Haji Qasim Kazimi, deputy provincial governor.
'I was only a schoolteacher, not a fighter, but the Taliban burned down my home after I fled my village,' said Ebrahim Akbari, who is currently the head of the information and culture department in Bamiyan.
Sitting in his mud-walled office near where the statues' feet would have been, Akbari, whose job it is to preserve the remaining debris, said the international community only began condemning the Taliban after they bombed the giant sculptures.
'There were more serious atrocities before and after that incident.'
In the 10 years that have passed, the statues have been preserved against further destruction and one or both of them might even be reconstructed, but Ali is far from forgetting his ordeal. Despite living only a 30-minute drive away, he only visits the snow-covered valley once or twice a year.
'Whenever I really have to go to the city, I don't want to look at the statues because they remind me of those days when I had to take part in their destruction,' the farmer said.
'Every minute I was living between life and death because if the rope had suddenly been cut or if we failed to bring the statues down, I would have been killed.'
Source,
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1624591.php/Quarryman-recalls-being-forced-to-destroy-Buddha-statues
Bamiyan, Afghanistan - While the world was pleading with the Taliban not to obliterate Afghanistan's Buddha statues in March 2001, Didar Ali was working hard to bring the giants down.
The then-40-year-old was no iconoclast himself, but Taliban fighters had told him that they would spare his life only if he helped destroy the sculptures.
In February 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had ordered the statues in Bamiyan province, 230 kilometres north-west of Kabul, to be dynamited. Despite widespread international opposition, the Taliban maintained the images were idols and, therefore, not tolerable under Islam.
Starting March 2, the militants began shelling the 1,500-year-old statutes with artillery for several days, but with little result. The sixth-century Buddhists had done a great job, carving them in hard stone into the same cliff face with a distance of around 800 metres between them.
The Sunni militants, who has wrested control of the province from their Shiite rivals, forced a group of local men to drill and plant explosives inside the statues, 38 and 55 metres high, respectively.
While the international community was increasing its pressure on the Taliban to abandon their plan, the militants were arresting more male villagers from the near-deserted town to complete the job.
But it was not until much later that the militants learned that one of the men, Ali, was an expert in using explosives to quarry stones from the mountains, which local people would use for construction.
'They tied a rope around my waist and hung me from the top of the cliff to dig holes and bury explosives on the two shoulders of tallest statue,' Ali recounted. 'I refused to do it, but they threatened to push me from the top of the statue without a rope and kill all the other (arrested) men.'
'They also told me that if I tried to escape, they would kill my family and burn down my home,' said the father of five, who still lives in Sultano village, 20 kilometres west of Bamiyan city.
Suspended from the top of the cliff, Ali and two other men drilled holes into the statues and filled them with explosives and rocket shells. When they were detonated, the statues were flattened, leaving the niches where they had stood empty. Around 50,000 kilograms of explosives were used in the two-week operation, according to a Taliban-linked publication.
The world was shocked by the news, but Ali was glad to be able to return to his family. 'I know they were our cultural heritage. They also belonged to the entire world, but at that time I could only think about my life.'
The statues were not the only victims of the Taliban.
According to Omara Khan Masoudi, director of the National Museum in Kabul, the ultra-Islamist regime destroyed more than 2,000 ancient statues and other artifacts depicting human-like figures before Bamiyan's sculptures were brought down.
When they seized the Bamiyan area in 1998, two years after taking Kabul, the Taliban torched hundreds of homes and 'massacred at least 500 people, including women and children,' said Haji Qasim Kazimi, deputy provincial governor.
'I was only a schoolteacher, not a fighter, but the Taliban burned down my home after I fled my village,' said Ebrahim Akbari, who is currently the head of the information and culture department in Bamiyan.
Sitting in his mud-walled office near where the statues' feet would have been, Akbari, whose job it is to preserve the remaining debris, said the international community only began condemning the Taliban after they bombed the giant sculptures.
'There were more serious atrocities before and after that incident.'
In the 10 years that have passed, the statues have been preserved against further destruction and one or both of them might even be reconstructed, but Ali is far from forgetting his ordeal. Despite living only a 30-minute drive away, he only visits the snow-covered valley once or twice a year.
'Whenever I really have to go to the city, I don't want to look at the statues because they remind me of those days when I had to take part in their destruction,' the farmer said.
'Every minute I was living between life and death because if the rope had suddenly been cut or if we failed to bring the statues down, I would have been killed.'
Source,
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1624591.php/Quarryman-recalls-being-forced-to-destroy-Buddha-statues
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