Buddha rubble 'up for sale'

[Guest guest]

Buddha rubble 'up for sale'

 

 

 

After the dynamite, only the rubble of the Buddhas remains

 

By BBC Eurasia analyst Adrian Foreman

The rubble of ancient giant statues of Buddha, which were blown up by

the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan last month, is said to have

been offered for sale.

 

Reports say several truck-loads of rubble from the statues turned up

in Pakistan and was offered to dealers.

 

The reports have led to heavy criticism of the trade from academics

and collectors.

 

Koichiro Matsuura, the director-general of the United Nations

cultural organisation, Unesco, is due in Pakistan on Wednesday for

talks about stopping the sale of antiquities from Afghanistan.

 

Tragic situation

 

Reports from the town of Peshawar on the Pakistan side of the border

with Afghanistan speak of truckloads of rubble, some of which can be

clearly identified as having come from the Buddhist statues.

 

 

 

The ancient statues were deemed offensive by the Taleban

 

But the UN is not yet convinced. Unesco says it wants to check, and

has again appealed to dealers not to reward the illicit trafficking

in antiquities.

 

It's a difficult and tragic situation.

 

The enormous statues, one as tall as a five-storey building, which

had stood for 2,000 years, were reduced to rubble by Taleban weaponry

because they were judged offensive to Islam.

 

No-one suggested as the Taleban showed off the ruined cliff face

niches in Bamiyan, where the statues had stood, that there had also

be an attempt to profit from the destruction.

 

Unpopular move

 

One dealer who said he had been approached to buy the remains

suggested that private collectors of Buddhist artefacts, perhaps

Japanese collectors, were prepared to pay for the statues to be

restored in another place.

 

That would be a daunting task, and in any case would be deeply

unpopular.

 

International experts say no museum nor respected collector would

help if it would reward the destruction.

 

But if the rubble is found to be genuine and a private individual

buys it, Pakistan only has to agree the paperwork for the sale to go

through.

 

That is something which the Unesco director-general is surely going

to discuss in Islamabad this week.