ANALYSIS-Taliban shatter statues - and hopes of recognition
By Jack Redden
 
ISLAMABAD, March 3 (Reuters) - The Taliban's hopes for transformation from a band of Islamic zealots to the internationally recognised government of Afghanistan lie as shattered as the historic statues they have labelled un-Islamic.

"I'm sure the Taliban would like international recognition," Dimitri Loundras, the Greek ambassador to Pakistan and head of a committee dealing with the Taliban on archaeological issues for the United Nations, commented bitterly. "But that will never come to them."

If the Taliban did not realise the anger they would trigger by ordering the destruction of all statues from Afghanistan's rich past -- "idols" in their interpretation of Islam -- they also have shown no willingness to compromise.

Taliban's culture minister Qudratullah Jamal exulted on Saturday over the ease with which the destruction had been carried out so far. He talked of a piece-by-piece demolition of the two soaring statues of Buddha in Bamiyan -- the tallest in the world and Afghanistan's best-known archaeological treasure.

"They are putting themselves beyond the pale," one senior diplomat told Reuters. "In the 21st century there are some things that are just not acceptable."

World outrage has gone far beyond Western countries to encompass those with large Buddhist populations and even Muslim countries alarmed at the image of Islam spread by the Taliban.

"We feel we were betrayed," Masamai Kinefuchi, a Japanese diplomat in Islamabad, said on Friday at a news conference called to condemn the campaign of destruction.

A stream of diplomats, including Francesc Vendrell, an envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have discussed the statues with one member of the Taliban leadership only to find another was saying elsewhere there would be no halt in the destruction.

The Taliban say they are merely carrying out the edict of their reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, to enforce an Islamic ban on images of living things -- part of their efforts to create the world's purest Muslim state.

"It has nothing to do with a give and take policy," Jamal said, rejecting speculation the Taliban have struck out wildly because of the world's refusal to accept them. "We deem it a must to finish them all because of our religious responsibility."

TALIBAN ISOLATION

But the decision to proceed with their iconoclastic campaign reversed promises made by Omar himself to protect the pre-Islamic treasures of Afghanistan, a country where invaders from Alexander the Great to Tamerlane left a priceless legacy.

"I'm sure that the Taliban authority are in a difficult position at this moment because of the sanctions of the U.N. Security Council," said Loundras, who held talks with the Taliban in Kabul on the day the destruction order was issued.

"Maybe they just do it to show that they have a reaction, or maybe because there is internal strife," he said.

Certainly the Taliban feel isolated, perhaps concluding even before the latest disastrous publicity that they would never win acceptance as the legitimate government away from their opponents who hold the northeast corner of Afghanistan.

Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates accept the Taliban, which captured most of Afghanistan from other Islamic groups in 1996 but has never established its sway over the whole country.

DIPLOMATIC DEEP FREEZE

Many diplomats dealing with Afghanistan believe the United States is determined to keep the Taliban in the diplomatic deep freeze unless it hands over Osama bin Laden, the Saudi militant accused of blowing up two U.S. embassies.

U.N. sanctions, driven by U.S. anger over bin Laden, were imposed in January although the Taliban for the first time signed an agreement with Vendrell to work for a peaceful end to the civil war that has ravaged their country for over a decade.

Last month the United States ordered the Taliban to close its office in New York, endangering offices in Afghanistan used by Vendrell in his efforts to start U.N.-mediated peace talks.

But the Taliban's onslaught on Afghanistan's past has given Washington ample support for isolating the Islamic group. It has reinforced the image of intolerance in a movement already under fire for extreme restrictions on women, public executions and making war while the drought-stricken country faces famine.

"It would be a big mistake to consider the problem of the statues as the main problem of Afghanistan," said Italian Ambassador Gabriele De Ceglie, another member of the committee trying to safe Afghanistan's cultural heritage.

"The absolutely stupid decision to destroy the statues is only a symptom of a very, very general malaise. It is a country where nothing is really going the way it should go."