Kabul (AFP)

Inside the massive building in western Kabul, workers are hurrying to complete their jobs. Darulaman's palace, after decades of ruin, is the centerpiece of the centennial commemoration of Afghanistan's independence.

For nearly thirty years, the vast building, which faces the mountains surrounding the city, showed only its skeleton to the inhabitants of the capital. This building, emblematic of Afghan history, alone reflects the troubles that the country experienced during decades of war.

While the population hopes to combine the future with the word peace, pending a possible agreement between the United States and the Taliban, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan intends to briefly celebrate its past around Darulaman (Arabic name, that Afghans translate as "house of peace"), built in the early 20th century.

President Ashraf Ghani is due to inaugurate the famous neo-classical palace on Monday, August 19th, the centenary of Afghanistan's independence from British influence.

The renovations started in 2018 were colossal. From the palace, there remained only one ghost ship: no roof, no windows, holes of shelling shells and countless bullet holes.

For Javid Hammad, project manager, the reconstruction of the building marks a new beginning for Afghanistan ravaged by 40 years of conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1979.

"The message of Darulaman's palace is a message of peace, security, brotherhood and coexistence," he told AFP during a recent site visit where about 500 workers were working tirelessly.

This $ 10.5 million renovation (9.4 million euros) was a blessing for the workforce across the country. The cedar fittings in the high ceiling rooms come from the Kunar province (East). The marble ones of the city of Herat (West).

- Testimony of a troubled past -

The works are not unanimous, however. Voices have risen to their cost in one of the poorest countries in the world.

"It's a good thing to rebuild the Darulaman, but this money could have been spent on vital infrastructure for Afghanistan, such as dams, power plants or bridges," said Ali, a trader.

Another resident of Kabul, Ghulam Mohammad, suggests that the devastated palace should have remained in the state, as evidence of Afghanistan's troubled past.

"It should have been left as is for people to remember the brutality of the war," he observes, as the capital continues to be bruised, with grim regularity, by bloody attacks.

On August 19, 1919, London and Kabul signed the Anglo-Afghan Treaty by which Britain recognized the independence of Afghanistan and promised that British India would not extend west beyond the Khyber Pass, on the border of what is since 1947 Pakistan.

Designed by French and German architects and built on a promontory by King Amanullah Khan in the early 1920s, the building was meant to be a symbol of modern Afghanistan.

He has hosted several ministries over the years as well as a medical school or museum. Destroyed by a first fire in 1968, Darulaman's palace was then caught in the crossfire of Afghanistan's 40-year war.

Burned again in the 1978 communist coup, he was then bombed during the civil war in the 1990s. Open to the winds, he slowly decayed until the decision in 2016 of President Ashraf Ghani of the restore.

Today, the Afghans hope that its renewal is also that of the country, most of whom have never known anything but the war.

© 2019 AFP