A decade on, critics decry Bagan facelift

BAGAN, Myanmar Nov 14: Unfurling a black-and-white drawing of a 700-year-old temple, Aung Chai scans the intricate sketch as diggers expose an ancient wall caked in red mud.

''We'll need many new bricks for this one,'' the 52-year-old foreman said on a roadside in Bagan, Myanmar's mystical ancient capital where the rebuilding of temple 2610 is underway.

With more than 3,000 medieval Buddhist ruins spread over a 42-sq km plain ringed by mist-covered mountains, Bagan rivals Cambodia's Angkor Wat and Borobudur in Indonesia as Asia's premier archaeological site.

It is the former Burma's biggest tourist draw despite opposition calls for a boycott of the isolated Southeast Asian nation under army rule since 1962.

At dusk, nimble visitors can scale a pagoda to watch the sun sink into the horizon against a backdrop of monuments stretching as far as the eye can see.

But among the dark, weathered relics are spruced up stupas and new reddish-pink temples which have dramatically, and inaccurately, changed Bagan's character, critics say.

More than 1,800 monuments have been fixed or rebuilt since the junta ordered the ''beautification'' of Bagan 10 years ago and shows no sign of stopping despite an outcry from foreign experts.

''It has become a kind of Disneyland,'' said Pierre Pichard, a French expert on the site built between the 11th and 13th centuries by King Anawrahta and his successors.

''Tourists are not stupid. They can see it was built two months ago and there is no ancient part of the building,'' he said, referring to the modern bricks and cement used in many rebuilding projects.

REWRITING HISTORY

Restorations are not new to Bagan, a victim of many floods, fires and earthquakes over the centuries.

A severe 1975 quake destroyed or damaged scores of clay brick and mud buildings and stunning wall murals some say are Bagan's greatest treasure.

The junta allowed UNESCO experts in to help, but it later ignored the U.N. culture agency's recommendations for World Heritage status, which would have required a conservation plan and unwanted international scrutiny.

After UNESCO withdrew in the mid-1990s, the generals launched their own restoration drive and solicited donations from wealthy Burmese and merit-seeking Buddhists from across Asia in pursuit of their own temple for the next life.

''They just wanted it to look beautiful,'' said Gustaaf Houtman, editor of UK-based magazine Anthropology Today, who believes it is part of a wider campaign to rewrite history.

''Generals sponsored the renovation of a pagoda as a merit-making exercise, as a way of demonstrating to the whole of Burma, and to the world, that they were in control,'' he said.

A decade on, critics decry Bagan facelift A forthcoming study by Australian archaeologist Bob Hudson says 650 complete buildings have had major repairs -- including new spires, roofs or corners -- since 1996. Another 1,200 -- anything from a section of wall to a mound of bricks -- were rebuilt based on historical documents and wall paintings of other buildings with similar floor plans.

The regime says it is preserving Bagan as a living Buddhist site for thousands of worshippers from home and abroad who flock to pray at the temples on the banks of the Irrawaddy River.

''Our government values and cherishes cultural heritage,'' Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told Reuters.

''To turn Bagan into a Disneyland is, of course, out of the question,'' he said, dismissing critics who see an all-out effort to lure tourist dollars.

They point to the 18-hole golf course in the shadow of pagodas, a gaudy new museum and a 60-metre-high viewing tower derided by some outsiders as an eyesore.

More worrying to archaeologists is the proliferation of cookie-cutter monuments emerging from mounds of rubble like 2610.

Pichard said restorers failed to recognize that temples or stupas could share the same floor plan but their shape and size varied widely, giving Bagan its rich diversity.

''Now this is lost to something that is very uniform and stereotype,'' said Pichard, who believes only the 400 wall murals could qualify for World Heritage status today.

Aung Chai, who has rebuilt or restored 50 monuments, says too much fuss is being made about a pile of old bricks.

The surviving chest-high wall of 2610 will be torn down and used for the foundation of a new mini-temple sponsored by a Burmese family, their names to adorn a headstone when it is finished.

''They only want a temple for their future life,'' he said as his crew, who earn 1,200 kyat (about 1 dollars) a day and are trained on the job, readied bricks and cement nearby.

MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL

Myanmar's Department of Archaeology, which declined to comment, has defended the restorations publicly. But some within the department opposed it privately and left to earn more money as tour guides, Pichard said.

''They have no choice. When a minister tells you to restore a temple and to make it as beautiful as possible, either you do it or you resign,'' he said.

Some see the controversy over Bagan as a clash of Western and Asian views on how best to preserve culture, laced with overtones of Myanmar's struggle with the West on its human rights record and detention of political prisoners.

''I think this whole question is in a political framework instead of a cultural framework. You have to ask who is setting the standards, the Asians or the West?,'' said Oliver E Soe Thet, general manager of the Bagan Hotel.

''The difference is that Bagan is a living culture,'' said Soe Thet, who added many of his guests are Buddhist pilgrims. Others say the argument should be about what is good archaeological practice.

They point to neighbouring Laos where its ancient royal capital, Luang Prabang, has balanced the needs of tourism and preservation with guidance from UNESCO.

Some experts believe the U.N. agency, which has toned down its criticism of the Bagan restorations, is trying a softer approach to get the junta to accept its advice.

But the regime has a long history of thumbing its nose at the international community and it may be too late.

''The damage has been done,'' said Houtman. ''Anyone who looks at it now will see something very different from what it was 20 years ago.''

Reuters