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Anzac Cove damage disappoints RSA

Apr 11, 2005 11:48 AM

A spokesman for the Returned Services Association says he is deeply disappointed by reports major earthworks have destroyed significant battle sites in the Anzac Cove area of Gallipoli.

Australian newspaper the Sunday Age has reported that Anzac Cove, the site of the 1915 Gallipoli landings, has been radically changed.

The newspaper says the landscape has been dramatically altered in the past three months, due to preparations for the 90th anniversary of the Anzac landing. It says the original landmark sites are mostly gone because of the major earthworks carried out. Some of those include the slopes of the Aru Burnu knoll, and portions of MacLagan's Ridge and Anzac Gully.

Senior Australian officials who visited the site recently were surprised by the intrusive nature of the roadworks on the foreshore, the report said.

RSA spokesman Bill Hopper says his organisation is extremely concerned about the historically significant site and the possible damage. He says the party representing New Zealand soldiers at the Anzac commemorations this month in Gallipoli are anxious to see exactly how much change has occurred.

Hopper says the RSA has received information from many different sources, but will not know the true extent of damage until the commemorations.

Australian opposition leader Kim Beazley says Australian Prime Minister John Howard is to blame for the destructive roadworks.

Beazley said it was the Australian government's fault the area had been scarred because it had asked the Turkish government to improve roads around Anzac Cove to cope with the thousands of Australians and New Zealanders who travelled to the site each year for Anzac Day services.

"They went out there and argued that the Turks should do something about providing better transport facilities in the area and said that they were going to put this on the world heritage register and the Australian national register and then there's no follow through," Beazley told ABC TV.

"And if what has happened is that the topography of the site has been substantially altered then that's a tragedy because it cannot be repaired.

"It's we who asked the Turks to do this.

"I think this is very important to understand here, this is not something that the Turks naturally would have arrived at doing themselves. But we started putting the pressure on the Turks to do things about parking arrangements and about the road system through the area.

"I'm not here attaching any blame to the Turkish government at all. This is a lack of follow through by John Howard.

"If what has happened is true then the blame lies entirely at the feet of the Australian government."

Beazley said any change to the topography of the site was significant because it would not allow young Australians to clearly picture what their ancestors fought through.

"It has become as sacred a site for Australians as anything else you care to imagine," he said.

"And part of the challenge for them, part of what they want to do, is to be able to imagine exactly what they went through and therefore the topography is significant.

"And if the topography has been changed, that's significant.

"It is just so typical of this government."

President of the New Zealand RSA John Campbell says there is a fine line between preserving the site and allowing access for the expected record crowds.