Borobudur to get light show treatment

Borobudur to get light show treatment

PARIS (AFP): UNESCO's World Heritage Committee has given the go-ahead for Indonesia to stage a controversial spectacle close to an ancient Buddhist temple at Borobudur, in Central Java, project officials said here Saturday.

The seven-person committee chaired by Gerard Bolla, a deputy director general of the world cultural organization and also an expert on the 9th-century temple, finally agreed to the Son et Lumiere project after an exhaustive study lasting several months.

However the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization demanded guarantees that the spectacle would not harm the monument or the close environs in any way.

It authorized two sessions of 45 minutes each per day in front of audiences initially of no more than 500 people -- although the number could later be raised to 2,000 -- for a total of 200 days per year during the dry season, the officials said.

It also demanded that the text written for the spectacle avoid any terms that could cause offense to Buddhists.

An earlier version of the project presented in January gave rise to strong objections by the Heritage Committee.

The Indonesian delegation, headed by the director-general for tourism, Andi Mappi Sammeng, held extensive talks over several weeks with UNESCO experts.