| Trade in anitquities is big business GoAsiaPacific
05/27/2003
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The rebuiding of Afghanistan cuts across all areas of society. This week, the first repairs at the war-ravaged National Museum in the capital, Kabul, were finally completed, as part of an international effort to rebuild the museum. The majority of the museum's collection was stolen or looted during the Afghan civil war in the 1990's and the illegal trading and smuggling of antiques is continuing at a rapid rate. The Afghan Government and the United Nations says the illicit traffic of cultural items is big business and is worth more than the illegal drugs trade. Transcript: WILLIAMS: There were many many rockets that hit the summer palace and there were mines put out in different places as well. The summer palace was at the begining of the 19th century the Gerrman embassy and before that it was the Queen's palace. LANNIN: Rebuilding the war damaged Babur's Gardens, a 16th century park in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage which includes Buddhist, Greek, Hindu, Persian, and Muslim periods, is at risk after years of war and the plundering of historical sites. The country's minister for information and culture, Sayed Makhdoom Raheen, has been at the forefront of efforts to crack down on the illicit trade in antiques, which he says is the most serious problem facing the country. Last month, a local official in central Logar province, who has been assisting the ministry in its efforts to stop the illegal business, was shot in the foot and kidnapped by antique smugglers. He was later released but is in fear for his life, as is the minister. Jim Williams, senior cultural specialist from UNESCO, the UN's cultural agency says criminal cartels are involved in the trade. WILLIAMS: To say who it is is difficult. But the network involved is very organised and very widespread. The excavations itself are carried out by villagers who not employed but pushed into digging on a percentage basis of what they find LANNIN: So do you have evidence that it is linked to the opium trade or is it the same kind of people involved in the opium trade are involved in the smuggling of cultural arifacts? WILLIAMS: Its the same kind of people involved. To say that they are exactly the same is to say alot ..but its the same network and the foreigners invovled seem to be the same as well.
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LANNIN: llegal excavations are unearthing historic sites before they are officially discovered, and AFghanistan
lacks the resources to protect what is left. Last July, an ancient city was discovered in Logar, after smugglers were caught near the Pakistani border with 24 Buddhist relics. Most antiquities are taken to Pakistan and end up in
antique shops or are sold to private collectors there or overseas. Nancy Hatch Dupree is one of the most well known cultural experts on Afghanistan and wrote the guidebook to the national museum in Kabul. She help set up the Society for the Protection of Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage which buys back stolen artifacts. DUPREE: They are very big and they are very heavy and you do not get these things through custom without a network knowing about it and those networks are paid off. LANNIN: These networks are very well established in PAkistan? DUPREE: Very well established and the Pakistani government knows it and they try every once in a while to do something about it. Then you know corruption and bribery goes all the way up to very high levels LANNIN: Some of the worst looting took place at the National Museum during the Afghan civil war. 70 per cent of the Museum's vast collection, which covered early Buddhist art to modern artifacts , was looted or destroyed
because of its isolated location in the war damaged suburb of Darul-aman. Nancy Hatch Dupree says some items are still on the market. DUPREE: There's one piece which has been floating around here for four or five years ...which I'm lusting over, I want it very badly and I've seen it twice because they offered it to me for a million. It's a big piece with lots of figures in it. It comes from the museum, I''ve seen it I've examined it and I know its genuine. They wanted a million and I offered them 15 thousand. Well they laughed at me and dispapeared. Then they told me that it was going to go out of the country ... this is where your network starts ... to the Soviet Union and from the Soviet Union its going to go to Europe. LANNIN: Afghanistan has appealed for the return of its antiquities and it's signing international agreements
outlawing the trade in cultural items. Late last year, Japan, one of the major markets for Buddhist art, signed the UN Convention banning the illegal traffic of antiquities. Jim Williams from UNESCO says moral pressure may also
work. WILLIAMS: Legally there are instruments ..somethings could be taken back in that way. Now there are other ways as well ... simply by publishing and we are trying to do this now with ICOM a book on missing objects from Afghanistan. ICOM has done this recently for Cambodia and it's been very successful because when you publish a picture of the missing object with its exact description some collectors seeing they have a missing object will return it LANNIN: But Nancy Hatch Dupree says the return of items by dealers or collectors is few and far between. DUPREE: Every once in a while collectors decide that they want South American objects and then they decide they want South Asian objects. They are voracious so I put the blame on the collectors who have no sense. Transcripts from programs "AM", "The World Today", "PM", the "7:30 Report" and "Lateline" are created by an independent transcription service. The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of the transcripts. ABC Online users are advised to listen to the audio provided on this page to verify the accuracy of the transcripts.
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