UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura confirmed today that Afghanistan's Taliban rulers had destroyed two ancient giant Buddha statues in what he called a "crime against culture".
|
|
One of the two statues
defaced by the Taliban |
Mr Matsuura said the statues in central Afghanistan had been destroyed despite appeals from around the world to save the priceless examples of the country's pre-Islamic art.
The fundamentalist Taliban, who consider the famous statues carved into a cliffside in Bamiyan as heathen images, began destroying the statues last week and have told several visiting delegations they would not stop until the job was done.
"The Taliban have committed a crime against culture. It is abominable to witness the cold and calculated destruction of cultural properties which were the heritage of the Afghan people, and, indeed, of the whole of humanity," Mr Matsuura said.
"As inexcusable as this action is, I hope that it will not provide fanatics excuse for acts of destruction targeting Moslem cultural properties," he added.
The Taliban heeded neither the unprecedented scope of international mobilisation, nor the advice against their decision, spontaneously issued by the highest religious authorities of Islam.