Islamabad: Bamiyan Cultural Center should be completed last month, featuring an extraordinary heritage from a site matched by the Afghan Taliban two decades ago by showing off the ancient Buddha statues.
But the celebration of the red carpet must wait.
After the Taliban was swept away with the capital of Kabul, everything was detained.
“Everything is suspended,” said Philippe Delanghe, from UNESCO, the UN Cultural Agency, who said they were waiting for a new regime’s decision.
Afghanistan had stood on the legendary silk trade route, an ancient intersection of civilization.
Now at the hands of The Taliban Islamic Hardline, there is a concern of his inheritance.
In March 2001, the Taliban spent weeks using dynamite and artillery to blow up two Giant 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues, carved into cliffs in Bamiyan, around 175 kilometers (78 miles) to the west of Kabul.
Many consider the destruction of Wanton to be one of the worst cultural crimes in the world.
It was an action that brought the radical ideology of Islam to global attention, just a few months before Al-Qaeda – who the Taliban was hosted in Afghanistan – carrying out an 9/11 attacks in America.
“We judge with history, and 20 years ago there was a terrible result,” Ernesto Ottone, Assistant Director General of UNESCO culture, told AFP.
In February, the Taliban said that the relics of Afghanistan were part of the “history, identity and culture of the country’s rich” and that “all have an obligation to protect, monitor, and preserve these artifacts”.
Among the Top Afghan sites were Buddhist temples in Mes Aynak, and the 12th century jam towers, UNESCO World Heritage Site.
But because of seizing power, the Taliban said nothing more.
There are signs that are worrying.
In mid-August, Bamiyan residents accused the Taliban to blow up a statue to honor a Hazara leader – an ethnic group was persecuted by Islamists – they had killed in the 1990s.
AFP cannot confirm the report, but social media images appear to show behalf beheaded.
Philippe Marquis, director of the French archaeological delegation in Afghanistan (Dafa), told AFP that he remained careful about what would happen.
“We have no declaration that says:” We will destroy everything or remove everything from non-Islamic ‘past “, he said.
Since 2016, it has become a war crime to destroy a cultural heritage site.
Many are worried for the National Museum in Kabul, which Congratulations from being searched both during the Civil War 1992-1996 who attended the Soviet military withdrawals, and under the Taliban’s first regime, from 1996-2001.
Some are worried about the prospect of mass looting, as happened after the conflict in Iraq and Syria, where extremist fighters collect funds by selling ancient artifacts in the black market.
However, the seizure of the Taliban Kabul was reached by barely dismissed, and the museum seemed to have appeared without injury.
Only one third of thousands of invaluable objects in the Kabul Museum were prevented.
Director of the Kabul Mohammad Museum Fahim Rahimi told New York Times last month the Taliban had promised their protection.
But he added him M Asih has a “great concern for our staff safety and our collection”.
International funding for cultural protection has also been suspended, and it is not clear when it will continue.
“We hold my breath,” said Marquis.
“But I hope soon we will be able to breathe a little lighter.” Many Afghans who work to protect cultural heritage have fled abroad, or hiding and too afraid to speak.
Those who have warned that Taliban protection promises are empty rhetoric to win international support.
“As illiterate extremists, they are proud to destroy non-Muslim monuments,” Mustafa said, a former UNESCO employee in Bamiyan, is now a refugee in Germany.
An official who worked for the Bamiyan government said the Taliban fighters destroyed instruments and art objects belonging to the Ministry of Culture after seizing the province in early August.
“I’m sad, but I can’t protest,” said the official.
“I have no guarantee that they will not accuse me …
idol worshipers and swivel my weapon and kill me.”