Record crowds honour war dead

2003-04-25 10:52

Sydney - Record crowds turned out across Australia on Friday for annual Anzac Day ceremonies honouring the nation's war dead, their fervor heightened by the ongoing participation of Australian soldiers in Iraq.

Thousands of people attended pre-dawn services in major cities and towns while troops held their own ceremonies in the Middle East marking the costly World War I landing of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula.

Several thousand Australians also gathered at Gallipoli under the close watch of Turkish security forces following threats by international terrorists to target the ceremony.

Organisers said record crowds of up to 30 000 attended memorial services and veterans' marches around the country, with emotions fuelled not only by the presence of Australian troops in Iraq, but by memories of last year's terrorist bombing in Bali which killed 89 Australians.

Defence minister Robert Hill warned in a dawn Anzac Day address to troops aboard an Australian warship in the Gulf that terrorism remains a key threat to the nation.

While hailing the role that 2 000 Australian soldiers played in the war to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Hill said the Islamic extremists behind the Bali bombing and other terror attacks were still a threat.

"The terrorist attacks of recent years remind us also that despite our best efforts, diplomacy, containment and deterrence don't always work," he said.

While Australia's role in the US-led war on Iraq sparked the biggest protests since the Vietnam era and led to heightened security around Anzac day events, peace activists made no attempt to disrupt Friday's ceremonies.

But in Melbourne, a group of women strung hundreds of paper doves between trees around the Shrine of Remembrance, each containing messages of peace written on them by Victorian schoolchildren.

Organiser Virginia Beattie said the show was not a protest but a simple expression of peace.

"I think it's appropriate, as the Anzacs provided us with freedom of speech," she said.

The April 25, 1915, landing at Gallipoli began a disastrous eight-month battle that ended in defeat for the Anzac forces, with the deaths of 35 000 Allied troops and 87 000 Turks.

Despite the losses, the tenacity of the soldiers at Gallipoli has since been commemorated as a milestone in the development of Australia and New Zealand, which were both fledgling nations at that time.

Prime Minister John Howard said the same spirit was being shown today by Australian troops in Iraq and elsewhere.

"They are today's Anzacs, they deserve our salutes and our gratitude and they have our enduring respect," he said in his Anzac Day address in Canberra.

- AFX