Burma's military regime ruins Buddhist ruins

The military junta in control of Burma (also known as Myanmar) is basically destroying the country's historical Buddhist sites in an attempt to attract tourists:

The bricklayers are paid $1.35 a day to rebuild the ancient ruin: a small, 13th century temple reduced by time to little more than its foundation.

But they have no training in repairing aged monuments, and their work has nothing to do with actually restoring one of the world's most important Buddhist sites. Instead, using modern red bricks and mortar, they are building a new temple on top of the old.

They work from a single page of drawings supplied by the government. Three simple sketches provide the design for a generic brick structure and a fanciful archway. No one knows, or seems to care, what the original temple looked like. Nearby are two piles of 700-year-old bricks that were pulled from the ruin. The bricklayers use them to fill holes in the temple. ...

The late Myanmar historian Than Tun called the restoration "blitzkrieg archeology."

"They are carrying out reconstruction based on complete fantasy," said an American archeologist who asked not to be identified for fear of being banned from the country. "It completely obliterates any historical record of what was there." ...

Untrained workers began covering old walls with plaster, obliterating the original contour of the brick. Statues were removed and replaced with no attempt to make accurate copies. The damage has been greatest to the medium-sized temples, many of which were neglected after the earthquake and then damaged by subsequent restoration work, said French architect Pierre Pichard, one of the foremost experts on Bagan.

"The monuments have lost a great part of their authenticity and individuality," said Pichard, who worked extensively at Bagan after the 1975 quake and wrote an eight-volume catalog of the monuments published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. "Their missing parts, especially their upper superstructures, have been rebuilt without evidence of their former shape." ...

The actions of the Burmese military regime are wrong, in regards to both the archeological treasures and the people of Burma, and must be condemned.

Here is another article on the topic of the destruction of Burma's archeological heritage:

The delicate beauty of Bagan, unfortunately, is under dire threat because it lacks something Angkor Wat, for instance, has — a World Heritage Site designation from UNESCO, whose decades-long efforts on Bagan came to a halt in recent years. The unwillingness of Myanmar's ruling junta of generals to turn over preservation and restoration work to the international body, which had created a detailed plan to conserve and protect one of the world's great cultural heritages, proved too great a barrier to surpass. Now many Asian art conservationists and art lovers around the world fear for Bagan's future.

There are no signs the generals plan to open their relations with the wider world. Indeed, there have been clear signs that unskilled work has been carried out at the Bagan archaeological site that could jeopardize its integrity and also open the door to commercialization that could further threaten its future.

Over recent years, restoration experts have lamented misguided efforts of the Myanmar authorities, who lack the knowledge and the skilled experts to undertake sound conservation and restoration efforts. ...

The outside world must be made aware of the harm that Burma's military junta is doing to the culture and people of Burma.

南無阿彌陀佛