Islamic destruction of human cultural heritage .
Mo
verses in 'context' but the Muslims themselves like the Taliban are
not fooled and they are the ones who matter .
So they do as the Quran says' idolworshipping is worse than
bloodshed' 'wage war till idol worshipping is no more' and they
follow the example of Prophet Mohammed who destroyed all the beautiful
pagan idols of the Arabs and expelled Jews and Chrisitans and they
know he was following non existent Allah's commands.
So they are now likely to move on to the next step , verse 9/5
'slay the idol worshippers wherever you find them' and do that in
Afghanistan , Pakistan ( they have already started on the Shias and
Ahemdis) and finsih the job in India once the Muslims become a
majority.
Unfortunately the cowardly pseudoseculars will neither read the
Quran - a small book of 200 pages - nor look around them to see the
fate that will soon befall them as followers of the 'one true faith'
go on rampage. Muslims who believe the Quran is the unalterable word
of God , and people of other faiths Hindus/Jews/Buddhists/Christians
cannot live together and one acquires AK 47s and other potent weapon
so the other must defend themselves or perish ..
Mo
statues is in daily telegraph print edition..
Devastation of Afghan Buddha statues begins
By Alex Spillius, South East AsiaCorrespondent
World Heritage Centre - United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation [Unesco]
Taliban Online
Afghan News
Bamiyan [photos] - Afghanhome.com
Bamiyan - Postcards from Hell [photojournalism site]
Buddhist information - Buddhanet
DEFYING protests from around the world, the Taliban militia who rule
much of Afghanistan said yesterday they had begun destroying all
"icons", including two huge, 2,000-year-old Buddha statues, because
they were un-Islamic.
Monotheist intent: this 2,000-year-old Buddah is on the United Nations
World Heritage List
The Muslim fundamentalist movement said: "Whatever means of
destruction necessary to demolish the statues will be used." It said
the obliteration had started in several provinces, following orders by
its reclusive supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. The programme of
devastation will be organised by the Ministry for the Promotion of
Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
The Buddhas in the central Afghan city of Bamiyan are on the United
Nations World Heritage List. The city has changed hands three times in
the past 18 months during fighting between the Taliban and opposition
forces.
The figures, one of them the world's tallest standing Buddha, are
carved into a rock face and soar 100 feet over an exquisite valley. In
the Seventies tourists were able to climb up through one of the
statues and look out through the eyes. The statues are now likely to
be blasted by tank shells.
Kabul Museum still holds many priceless images, coins, items of
jewellery and frescoes, despite repeated plunder by various factions
during the civil war that followed the Russian occupation of 1979-89.
The Taliban had previously held off from destroying the Bamiyan
Buddhas, but as the movement has become more isolated it has decided
to follow its principles, which it claims follow the word of the
Prophet Mohammed to the letter.
Mullah Qudratullah Jamal, information and culture minister, said: "The
work began early in the day. All of the statues are to be smashed.
This also covers the idols in Bamiyan." Kofi Annan, the UN
Secretary-General, led appeals to spare the country's rich cultural
past. Most of the statues and artefacts date from Afghanistan's period
as a centre of Buddhist learning and pilgrimage.
The ancient Silk Road crossed the country, bringing to it a unique mix
of eastern and western traditions and influences. Mr Annan urged the
Taliban "to do all in their power to preserve the unique and
irreplaceable relics of Afghanistan's heritage".
Buddhist nations such as Thailand and Sri Lanka also called for a halt
to the demolition. The parliamentary affairs minister of India, the
cradle of Buddhism, said "a legacy of humanity" was in danger. Even
Muslim Pakistan, one of a handful of nations to recognise the Taliban
regime and widely held to have given it arms and funds, joined the
criticism.
Russia described Mullah Omar's command as vandalism and said it
displayed the Taliban's "clear enmity to common human values". Russia
has often criticised the Taliban, seeing them as a threat which might
spread their harsh version of Islam among Muslims in the former Soviet
states in Central Asia.
The movement quickly became a global pariah after it seized the Afghan
capital, Kabul, in September 1996 and banned women from working and
girls from education. It also destroyed cinemas, television and all
other forms of entertainment.
Mo
inside and outside the country to Pakistan-backed Taliban rule.
Shokrullah Kohgadai, the US-based publisher of the Karwan newspaper
told AAR, "we must not remain silent; a movement, a force and a
resistance at the international level must get underway by Afghans to
draw attention to this dangerous Taliban game."
Nasrine Gross, a writer and women's rights activist blasted the
extremist militia and said, "they are implementing Pakistan's
long-term plan… to incapacitate the Afghans to govern themselves."
She added, "the destruction of the statues or the violation of women's
rights are all part of the same program." Gross blamed the Taliban for
demolition of the statues, but also charged their overseas supporters
of being accessories to the crime. Political activist Soraya Baha, in
an analysis, warned that aside from "political colonialism" the
Afghans are victims of Pakistan's "cultural colonialism" that aims at
destroying the country's genuine historical and cultural bonds at the
hands of "internal agents through deception and treason." She also
attacked known US-based pro-Taliban circles, including media, for
"serving Pakistani interests at the expense of Afghan national
interests."
Afghan political organizations also reacted sharply. In a statement
from Virginia, the Movement for Democracy and Human Rights for
Afghanistan said, "today is the darkest day in the history of
Afghanistan - darker than the day when Chenghiz Khan's Mongol hoards
invaded our land. What they did not destroy - and perhaps did not want
to destroy - is now being destroyed by a most barbaric group, the
Taliban."
Afghan opposition says Taliban loots art
By Crispian Balmer
PARIS, March 2 (Reuters) - The Taliban militia's destruction of
Buddhist statues in Afghanistan is masking a parallel looting
operation sacking the country of priceless artwork, a representative
of the Afghan opposition said on Friday.
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement announced on Thursday that it
had started to fire mortars and cannon at the huge Buddhas carved into
a cliff at Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, despite international
protests in defence of the priceless art.
The opposition alliance led by ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani
believes many other pre-Islamic artefacts -- small Buddha statues and
other figures -- are being smuggled abroad.
"The destruction is underway and a certain number of statues have
already been destroyed, but simultaneously we know that the traffic of
stolen art works has gathered pace in recent weeks," said Mehrabodin
Masstan, Rabbani's representative in France.
He told Reuters that stolen Afghan antiquities had turned up regularly
at salesrooms in London, New York and Japan in recent years and said
the pace would now certainly pick up.
Masstan said he had spoken earlier on Friday by telephone with the
famed opposition commander Ahmed Shah Masood, whose forces held the
mountain town of Bamiyan -- site of the two towering Buddha statues
that the Taliban said it has begun to shell -- until the
fundamentalist Islamic group recaptured it last month.
"He told me he thought it was strange the world was suddenly so
concerned about these statues when it has ignored the plight of the
Afghan people under the Taliban for years," Masstan said.
"WE ARE LOSING OUR PAST"
While the art world would breathe a sigh of relief if at least some of
Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage escapes the Taliban wrath,
Masstan said the result was that his country would be left with
nothing. "We are losing our past," he said. "This is yet one more
tragedy for our country."
In other countries, antiquities are registered and stolen artefacts
can be traced and recovered via Interpol. But Afghanistan has not
registered its art and is not a member of Interpol. If someone tries
to sell a stolen Afghan antiquity, auctioneers will not find it on a
database as a stolen object and the sale will go ahead.
Afghanistan's early Buddhist culture, which flourished from ancient
times until Arab invaders brought Islam in the seventh century,
flourished under the influences of Persian, Turkic and Indian cultures
along the fabled Silk Route.
The 329 BC invasion led by Alexander the Great left behind Greek
influences that made it the only ancient fusion of European and Asian
culture.
KABUL MUSEUM HEAVILY LOOTED
Kabul Museum used to house a priceless collection of this art, much of
it brought there from Bamiyan, but it has been heavily looted since
the Taliban seized the capital in 1996.
Masstan said it had opened briefly last year but closed down again in
January. Kabulis could not get anywhere near the building now, he
added.
Masstan said sources in Afghanistan had told him over the past 24
hours that the Taliban had packed explosives around the two Buddha
statues in Bamiyan. "They plan to dynamite them after Friday prayers,"
he said.
The mullahs of the ruling Taliban movement, which controls more than
90 percent of Afghanistan, are determined to create an Islamic state
according to their own austere interpretation of the religion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afghan Taliban slip deeper into international wilderness
ISLAMABAD, March 2 (AFP) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia
slipped further into the international wilderness Friday as they
ignored global appeals to stop destroying precious historical
monuments.
Even before tank shells and rockets rained down on the ancient Buddha
statues in the central province of Bamiyan Friday, the world had
warned that the Islamic militia's credibility was on the line.
France has told the Taliban leadership, which controls some 90 percent
of Afghanistan and craves international recognition, that it was
stoking "hostility" to its regime in the world's capitals.
"It is not with such behaviour that the Taliban will be able to come
closer to the international community," foreign ministry spokesman
Bernard Valero said.
"So long as the Taliban do not radically change their behaviour as
regards terrorism, drugs, human and especially women's rights and the
search for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan, the international
community and public opinion, notably in France, will remain hostile."
Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, an Islamic scholar who shuns most
contact with non-Muslims, on Monday issued a decree ordering the
destruction of all statues in Afghanistan to prevent them being
worshipped as "false idols."
"Only Allah, the Almighty, deserves to be worshipped, not anyone or
anything else," Omar's decree said. Omar's puritanical regime, which
is recognised only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, is not represented at the United Nations nor the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
Appeals to spare the Afghan statues have come from Buddhist, Christian
and Muslim countries, including the Taliban's closest ally Pakistan.
UN special envoy to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell said he discussed
the edict with the Taliban foreign minister in Kabul Thursday but was
told "the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) is not in the habit of rescinding
their edicts."
"I told him that the international community is baffled at the moment
and it would create international outrage if the edict is carried
out," said Vendrell, who heads the UN's political division in
Afghanistan. "It's going to have negative implications for the
Taliban's image around the world."
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the "overall situation in
Afghanistan is very disturbing." "In this country reign famine, war
and deportations. Human rights, in particular those of women and
girls, are mocked in a blatant and continuous manner by the Taliban."
The United Nations in January slapped the Taliban with fresh
diplomatic and political sanctions for their refusal to extradite
alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden, blamed for the twin US embassy
bombings in East Africa in 1998 and other attacks.
The regime is accused of harbouring terrorist training camps and
spreading Islamic militancy throughout the world, while its human
rights record was this week condemned by the United States as
"extremely poor."
It was guilty of political killings and summary justice using
punishments such as stoning to death, flogging, public executions for
adultery, murder, and homosexual activity, and amputations of limbs
for theft, the State Department said.
Islamic fundamentalist party leaders in Pakistan who have close ties
with the Taliban said the decision to destroy part of the world's
cultural heritage could have been motivated by "frustration" with the
international community.
"This is nothing but frustration from Taliban against the West,"
Jamaat-i-Islami party deputy chief Ghafoor Ahmed said. "The world is
crying for statues but remained silent over the humanitarian crisis in
that country."
The Taliban and the United Nations have repeatedly appealed for urgent
international assistance to prevent a humanitarian disaster in
Afghanistan, where one million people are believed to be facing famine
this year.
Despite recent airlifts of emergency assistance, the response has
fallen well short of what is required