Al Jazeera’s Treasure Trove
It seems that I succeeded. Not only did he grant me access to interview the prisoners of war, but also arranged for a helicopter to take us from Kabul military airbase to Bamyan. Since I’d had back surgery weeks before, I was unable to board the plane. I assigned our cameraman. He came back with a rich collection of images of Hizb-i-Wahdat fighters who had frozen to death while retreating. The collection also included some footage of the monumental 6th century statues carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley at an elevation of 2,500 metres. We did not imagine it would be a scoop. They were some of the rare images of the statues in good condition before the demolition.
We tried to be present during the destruction, but no journalists were allowed into the area. So, we tried to retain a local fixer who would not be suspected as journalists. A few days later, we heard that the process had begun. In mid-March, a US television station showed some images of heavy smoke above the monuments. We learnt that a hefty amount of money was paid for those images. The following day, our fixer came back a with video tape documenting the first destruction attempt, which had failed. One of the many journalists who had flocked to the area approached me to obtain the footage. He offered a huge amount of money – enough, in his words, to “secure my retirement.” But I refused.
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