On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Feltus, Pamela wrote:

> Is there anything we can do here in the States about this?
>
> http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10297-2001Mar1.html

==========================

Pamela & colleagues:

Sadly, I fear not.  Even condemnation by the Taliban's nearest ally -
Pakistan, the Al Aqsa Mosque - generally accepted as the supreme arbiter
on Islamic law and practice across the world, and even the Supreme
Religious Council of Iran - usually portrayed as extreme "Islamic
fundamentalists", has had absolutely no effect.

Promises made to an high level international delegation which visited
Kabul on Monday were in effect repudiated within less than half an hour of
the end of their meeting.

In broadcasts on the BBC World Service and on Vatican Radio on Thursday
and Friday I have argued that since Afghanistan is still in a state of
civil war overall, there is a strong case for arguing that such
destruction of cultural heritage monuments and of museum collections
during a civil war or other internal armed conflict constitutes a war
crime. This can certainly be argued  under specific international treaties
to which Afghanistan is a party, including the 1954 Hague Convention on
the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, the
1972 World Heritage Convention, and indeed under the Geneva Conventions,
and probably more generally under what is termed "customary international
humanitarian law".

However, both sides (and the Soviet/Russian military) have been accused of
numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity of many kinds in
Afghanistan over the past decade or more with apparent impunity.  There
have been no moves by the USA or any other State to set up an
International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan, parallelling those for
former Yugoslavia or Rwanda.

In relation to this week's dreadful events, despite the fact that the
views of the Afghan religious leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, are being
quoted by the Taliban regime, he actually insisted publicly that Islamic
law did NOT call for the destruction of pre-Islamic statues, less than two
years ago when the first military attacks on the Bamiyan buddhas took
place.

At least some of the experts on the region believe that what is actually
happening is nothing at all to do with religion, but is in fact probably
totally political. They argue that it is probably revenge for last
month's toughening of United Nations sanctions by the Security Council
against the (illegal) Taliban regime at the request of the new Bush
Administration in the USA, because of its continued protection of Bin
Laden.  (He is the dissident Saudi who is on the US's "most wanted" list
as an alleged promoter and funder of international terrorism, whose
headquarters is alleged to be in Afghanistan.)

If this interpretation is even half true, then protests from countries
that are members of the Security Council, or from the United Nations or
its agencies such as UNESCO, are likely to have little or no effect,
unless accompanied by direct threats and a determination to carry these
through (as with Iraq over Kuwait in 1991), and there are no signs of
anything comparable in this case. (Also, now that the regime has very
publicly insisted that the very existence of figurative sculptures and
other works of art depicting human beings or animals are contrary to
Islam and sagrilegious in their very creation and continued existence,
they would remain just as sacrilegious if transferred to a Western museum
such as the Metropolitan.)

Short of effective UN action, the best hope - though still a forlorn one,
I very much fear - probably lies with the growing sense of outrage within
the Islamic world itself.



Patrick Boylan
(Head of NGO Delegation,
Hague Convention updating Diplomatic Conference, 1999)

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