- PM to attend 90th ANZAC anniversary -
06.12.2004 17:38:43
Prime Minister John Howard will attend the 90th anniversary of ANZAC Day in Gallipoli next year, and other MPs are likely to attend special services around the world.
Mr Howard, who will attend a memorial service on April 25 at Gallipoli, said other government representatives were likely to attend services in England, Borneo and Thailand.
A number of Coalition MPs suggested at the final joint party meeting of the year that services should be held at Hyde Park Corner in London, Hellfire Pass in Thailand, and Sandakan in Borneo.
"(The prime minister) thought it was a very good suggestion and that it had been done a couple of times that members of parliament had been present at Hyde Park Corner," a government spokesman said.
More than 13,000 prisoners of war – many of them Australian – died while constructing a railway linking Japanese-occupied Burma and Thailand in World War II.
Hellfire Pass is remembered for being one of the most treacherous sections of the railway.
In Borneo, more than 2000 Australian and British prisoners of war died during a perilous 260 km march from their camp at Sandakan to Ranau, in Borneo`s interior.
The Australian War Memorial at Hyde Park Corner was dedicated by Mr Howard, the Queen and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in November last year, 85 years after the idea was first suggested at the end of World War I.
acknowledge:
by The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au
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