*EPF209 04/02/2002
Swiss Architect Wants to Help Afghans Rebuild Buddhas of Bamiyan
(UNESCO working to preserve Afghanistan's cultural heritage) (980)

By Wendy Lubetkin
Washington File Correspondent

Geneva -- Like many brutal regimes throughout history, the Taliban sought to shore up their totalitarian rule in Afghanistan by destroying their nation's history and cultural identity. In March 2001, the world learned in shock of the Taliban plan to destroy the extraordinary 1500-year old Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, and then watched helplessly as the plan was carried out.

But the dynamiting of the world's tallest Buddhas was just the most dramatic manifestation of the far-reaching cultural devastation already underway throughout the country. In Kabul, much of the collection in the national museum had already been reduced to a pile of rubble.

Now, even as peace begins to take hold in Afghanistan, plans are afoot to rebuild the statues, and to gather a collection of Afghan art to be restored to the country once the situation is secure.

In a quiet Swiss country town, a dedicated Afghanistan-expert has established a tiny museum to serve as a safe haven for Afghan cultural artifacts, and is working on a UNESCO pilot study on the reconstruction of the Buddhas.

"This is really the first time that the cultural heritage of a country is brought to security outside the zone of conflict," Paul Bucherer-Dietschi told journalists at his Afghanistan Museum in Bubendorf near Basel.

Bucherer-Dietschi believes the Buddhas of Bamiyan have an enormous significance for Afghans. Rebuilding them would be a sign of the country's emergence from oppression. "Many ordinary Afghans told us, 'When the Buddhas were destroyed, part of our soul was destroyed too,'" he recounted at a recent press conference.

High level officials from Afghanistan's interim government agree, according to Bucherer-Dietschi. On a March visit to the Afghan Museum, Deputy Prime Minister Muhammed Mohaqqeq called the Buddhas "symbols of identity" for the Afghan people.

Bucherer-Dietschi thinks the Buddhas could be rebuilt within 10 years, and estimates the work would cost between $30 million and $50 million. The main problem -- and the principle expense -- would be re-stabilizing the cliffs. Deep rifts were created in them when the Buddhas were demolished.

On a UNESCO mission to Bamiyan in January, Bucherer-Dietschi and colleagues carefully covered what stones they could find in plastic to protect them from winter elements, but he says 90 per cent of what was left was rubble.

"In Bamiyan they told us that between five and 12 truck loads of material from the statues was carried off to Pakistan," he said. "If this is correct, I think much of this material will be sold in the same way as the stones of the Berlin wall were sold as paperweights."

As a pilot project, the Swiss architect-engineer plans to build a one-tenth scale model of the large Buddha in Bubendorf in the Museum's backyard. "I hope that the people of Bubendorf will not all become Buddhists," he said with a chuckle.

The reconstruction will be built based on digital data from photographs taken in the 1970s by Robert Kostka, a professor at the University of Graz. "These are, as far as I know, the only precise measurements that were ever made of these statues," Bucherer-Dietschi said.

Although the feasibility study will be done in Switzerland, Bucherer-Dietschi said it is essential that the work of rebuilding the Buddhas be eventually managed and carried out by the Afghan people themselves.

The fight to preserve Afghanistan's cultural heritage became a mission for Bucherer-Dietschi many years before the destruction at Bamiyan.

By the mid-1990s it was clear to the Swiss architect that some sort of temporary safe haven was needed for Afghanistan's cultural artifacts. On trips to the region, he discovered that many Afghans agreed with him. The problem was finding a way to do so legally. UNESCO Conventions restrict the export of important cultural objects away from their historic settings.

Nonetheless, Bucherer-Dietschi moved ahead to establish the Afghanistan Museum in his hometown. His aim was to preserve artifacts of the Afghan cultural heritage in a safe place, until a new national museum is built in Kabul.

With support from the local and federal Swiss governments, Bucherer-Dietschi bought a modest two-story building in his hometown. Afghan refugees living in Switzerland contributed the manpower to help rebuild it into a museum. "We did not intend to create a Tate Gallery, but something very simple. Looking at all the humanitarian need in Afghanistan, with people dying of hunger, how could we create a palace for their culture?"

The doors opened on October 7, 2000. Initially cultural works already outside the Afghanistan were contributed to the Museum by Afghan intellectuals living abroad and other benefactors.

"This museum is like a basket and everyone is invited to put an apple in the basket," Bucherer-Dietschi says. Soon Afghans and others began arriving at the door bearing treasures to be preserved, and parcels arrived from the United States and elsewhere.

"Once Taliban themselves arrived bearing large sized antique photographic plates that would have been destroyed," he recalled.

It was not until the destruction of the Buddhas in March 2001 that Bucherer-Dietschi got authorization from UNESCO to begin directly exporting works from Afghanistan's cultural heritage, but by then it was too late.

By the time he was able to return to Kabul on a UNESCO trip last January, caretakers at the Museum told him that all art with any representation of human beings or animals had been shattered into tiny bits.

The Afghanistan Museum has an agreement with UNESCO that UNESCO will decide when the time has come to return the artifacts to Afghanistan, Bucherer-Dietschi explained. "From the beginning this museum was not intended as something for eternity, but something which will be closed on the day when peace is back in Afghanistan."

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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