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Afghan Taliban Leader Orders Destruction Of Ancient Statues
KABUL, Feb 26 (News Agencies) - Taliban militia supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar on Monday ordered the destruction of all statues in Afghanistan including ancient pre-Islamic figures, according to official radio.
"Based on the verdict of the clergymen and the decision of the supreme court of the Islamic Emirate [Taliban], all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed," said the decree.
Radio Shariat said the decree ordered the ministry of information and culture and the ministry of fostering virtue and preventing vice, also known as religious police, to carry out the destruction.
"All the statues in the country should be destroyed because these statues have been used as idols and deities by the non-believers before. They are respected now and may be turned into idols in future too," the decree said.
"Only Allah, the Almighty, deserves to be worshipped, not anyone or anything else."
Afghanistan's former director of archaeology, now teaching in France, said he was "devastated" by the decree, which he branded a "global cultural catastrophe."
"We must urgently alert world public opinion to this unacceptable decision," Zemar Tarzi, who ran Afghanistan's archaeological center between 1972 and 1979, said in Paris.
Afghanistan, a Buddhist center before Islam came to the country around 1,400 years ago, is famous for two massive and ancient Buddha statues in the central province of Bamiyan, 110 kilometers (68 miles) north-west of here.
"Afghanistan has the world's most significant heritage in Buddhist statuary," Tarzi said.
The decree was issued as a team of western diplomats visited the Afghan capital to check the reports about the destruction of relics in the national museum.
One of the diplomats reacted with disbelief when told of Mulla Omar's edict, and then angrily condemned it.
"The international community cannot accept this. This is unbelievable and outrageous," the diplomat said, preferring anonymity.
He said the foreign ministry had told the diplomatic team an important decree for the preservation of these relics was being issued this evening.
"This is to the contrary," he said, hoping the Taliban leader would reverse the decree, which also contradicts two previous orders guaranteeing the protection of Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage.
Zealous officials among the ruling Islamic militia recently destroyed several ancient relics in Kabul Museum, including an exquisite and priceless Buddha statue dating back some 2,000 years, reports have said.
Taliban officials have categorically denied the reports but have refused journalists' requests to visit the museum.
The diplomatic team includes the ambassadors to neighboring Pakistan from Greece and Italy, the French charge d'affaires for Afghanistan, plus members of the Islamabad-based Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage.
The delegation earlier Monday called on Taliban Information and Culture Minister Qudratullah Jamal, a team member said.
But the source said the envoys were denied immediate access to the museum.
"We talked with the minister. He called these reports [of the vandalism] baseless propaganda and said he would ask the higher authorities for permission [to visit the museum]," the team member said.
Kabul museum has been closed to the public since 1992 after most of its unique collection was looted during factional fighting between Afghan warlords.
The Taliban, or movement of religious students, seized Kabul in 1996 and have imposed a very strict version of Sharia' law in a bid to create their idea of a pure Islamic state.
Their regime is recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and is not represented at the United Nations or the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
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