Nine years later, Swiss to return Afghan treasures

Even the Taliban — who later were to destroy the gigantic Buddha statues at Bamiyan — joined in the concern about losing the country’s heritage — that included rare masterpieces.

Now, it is time for the treasures to go home. International and Afghan authorities have declared Kabul to be safe enough for their return and they are to be flown back on March 15, said Paul Bucherer, director of the Afghanistan Museum in Bubendorf.

“It was a joint-request from the Taliban and the Northern Alliance at that time,” said Bucherer, an expert in Afghan history and culture who has frequently visited the country and had high-level contact with both sides.

Getting the objects out of Afghanistan was extremely difficult.

A cargo flight that would have brought thousands of artifacts to Switzerland in 2000 had to be cancelled because of problems in obtaining international legal authorisation to move such objects from their country of origin, according to Bucherer.

The delay resulted in the destruction of those artifacts in fighting the following January, he said.

But individuals had already started bringing artifacts to the Swiss museum. Among them were Afghans on trips to Europe and Europeans who contributed objects they had collected while living in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s.