Flash Info n°045-2004

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UNESCO, 22 March 2004


Ambassador Madanjeet Singh and the Director-General of UNESCO sign
agreement for the creation of an Afghan cultural heritage training centre

UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh and the Director-General of
UNESCO Koïchiro Matsuura today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the
creation of a training centre for Afghan cultural heritage specialists in
Kabul, the Madanjeet Singh Institute for Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage,
to be operated in cooperation with UNESCO.

During the signing ceremony, held in the presence of the permanent
delegates of Afghanistan and India, Mr Singh's native country, Mr Matsuura
thanked the Goodwill Ambassador for his "generous donation" of US$ 1
million for the Institute, pointing out that while UNESCO was used to
working with governments, it was "very rare to receive such assistance from
a private person." The Director-General mentioned UNESCO's numerous
cultural heritage preservation projects in Afghanistan and drew attention
to the fact that the country had a particular need for international
cooperation in this area.

Mr Singh for his part recalled that as soon as he had heard of the
Taleban's destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, "one of the most
precious treasures of humanity", he had written to the Director-General to
express his conviction that action had to be undertaken to preserve the
cultural heritage of Afghanistan. He further recalled his visit to the
country, at the invitation of the Minister of Culture of Afghanistan, and
said that President Hamid Karzai had himself chosen the site for the
Centre. "I think that the one million dollars [provided for in the
Memorandum of Understanding] will be a nucleus that should grow to much
more so that, through joint effort, we will be able to send people from the
whole region to train there," Mr Singh added.

The Permanent Delegate of Afghanistan Mohammad Zahir Aziz then took the
floor and said he was sure that Mr Singh's "important gesture will remain
in the heart and minds of the people of Afghanistan for a long time, not
just because of the size of the gesture but because of the spirit in which
it is being made." He too recalled the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas
qualifying their loss as a loss for humanity, not just for Afghanistan, and
voiced the conviction that "the sites and culture of Afghanistan belonged
to every one."

Finally, the Permanent Delegate of India, Neelam D. Sabharwal, praised Mr
Singh for his far-sighted vision and spoke of the long friendship between
the peoples of Afghanistan and India, a friendship "for which the Buddhas
of Bamiyan had stood witness through the ages." She went on to express the
hope that the new training Centre in Kabul would "foster respect for the
cultural heritage of the entire region and that India would be able to
contribute its expertise to the work of the centre."

The Institute, made possible through Mr Singh's donation to the Ministry of
Information and Culture (MoIC) of the Transitional Islamic State of
Afghanistan, will provide training in all areas of monument and object
preservation to staff of the Ministry's culture departments and to
conservation specialists from southeast Asia. Sayed Makhdoum Raheen,
Afghanistan's Minister of Information and Culture, already signed the
Memorandum of Understanding in February for the project, which will be
implemented directly by his Ministry.

The first phase will involve rehabilitating and equipping the building that
will house the Institute, the former Press Club, which was severely damaged
in the war. A training programme for Afghan specialists will then be
established in cooperation with UNESCO and the International Centre for the
Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).

The centre will also cooperate with specialized nongovernmental organization
such as the International Council on Museums and Sites (ICOMOS) and the
International Council of Museums (ICOM), and UNESCO will help liaise between
the government of Afghanistan and the Centre and its partners. The
curriculum will focus on fields such as museology, the conservation of
museum objects, museum management, mural painting conservation,
architectural restoration and site management.

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