Sunday Morning News

U.N. Attempts to Stop Taleban's Destruction of Buddhist Statues

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KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The United Nations is pressuring the Taleban militia to stop the destruction of two giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. An envoy from the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has met with Taleban's foreign minister. Although the envoy says he's cautiously optimistic, the Taleban says it cannot reverse the order.

With more now on this meeting, we're joined on the phone by Moneer Bouchenaki. He's UNESCO's Assistant Director for culture and is calling now from Paris. Mr. Bouchenaki, can you hear us OK?

MOUNIR BOUCHENAKI, UNESCO ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR CULTURE: Yes, I hear you very well.

PHILLIPS: Thank you for calling in. We're getting missed messages -- mixed messages, rather -- here in the States. Have these statues remained unscathed or not?

BOUCHENAKI: What we received as information are really contradictory. Yesterday when I spoke with Mr. Lafrance (ph), he is the special envoy of the Director General of UNESCO, Mr. Matura (ph), he informed us that he had meetings with the ambassador of Taleban, who assured him that there was no destruction of the statues at the time.

He also explained to us that what was done was not decreed by the head of the Taleban, but an order, and there is a difference legally speaking between a decree, which is much stronger decision which needs the approval of the maglis of the council of the Taleban and an order is just, I think, something that can be reversed.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to talk more about that order in a minute, but before we do, will you please talk about these statues and just the cultural and historical importance.

BOUCHENAKI: Yes, certainly. As you know, this region of Afghanistan is at the crossroads of the different civilizations coming from India and going towards Iran and also the western part of Asia. This is what we call the central silk road civilizations and during the Buddhist period and particularly from the second to the sixth century after Christ, there was a series of monasteries installed in this province where we have now the two gigantic Buddhas who are called Bamiyan Buddhas. These Buddhas have, are unique in their feature because they are, they have been carved in the place and they have both influence of Indian art and also the influence of the Greek art and this is why they are considered as unique in their, when they are standing during more than 15 centuries.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. So it's multi-cultural. Now you're, are you Muslim?

BOUCHENAKI: Yes.

PHILLIPS: OK, so can you identify with the Taleban's reasoning for wanting to destroy these statues, saying that they are un-Islamic?

BOUCHENAKI: You know, we are really not understanding. I am not alone. And many, many of my colleagues who are responsible for heritage and particularly our colleagues from the professional NGOs like the ICOMAS, the International Council of Monuments and Sites, or ICOM, the International Council of Museums, all from, all the Arab countries and all Islamic countries they consider that this has nothing to do with Islam.

You know, in our countries we have a series of sites and monuments belonging to pre-Islamic cultures and they are well kept and if you see, for example, Almir (ph) in Syria or Fersepalais (ph) in Iran or Abousimbal (ph) in Filian (ph) Egypt, all these are pre- Islamic remains which are, of which all these peoples are proud and they have never had the intention to destroy them.

PHILLIPS: Well, no doubt they're quite an incredible piece of history.

Mr. Bouchenaki, thank you so much, Assistant Director for Culture with UNESCO. Thank you for joining us and we will continue to follow up on what does happen to these statues.

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