Australian government blasted for damage at Anzac Cove

The 20,000-plus crowd at the Anzac Day dawn service this year put huge pressure on Turkish resources. Picture / Mark Mitchell

CANBERRA - The new Gallipoli campaign has opened further fronts as the Australian Government digests scathing criticism of its role in the desecration of Anzac Cove and the former minister responsible proposes the construction of a replica of the World War I battleground near Melbourne.

The developments follow reports this year that road construction on the Turkish peninsula where 2700 New Zealanders and 8700 Australians died in 1915 had severely damaged historic sites and unearthed human remains.

Records produced for a Senate inquiry into the roadworks estimate that one-third of the 43,400 Allied soldiers killed during the nine-month campaign have no known grave.

The Senate inquiry was launched to investigate the Australian Government's role in the decision to build the new roads, needed to cope with a steadily rising number of visitors, peaking at 17,000 mainly New Zealanders and Australians at this year's Anzac Day ceremony, and the more than 2 million Turks expected to visit the battleground this year.

Anzac Cove also holds significant memorial sites for the 87,000 Turkish soldiers killed defending the Dardanelles.

The revelation that serious and permanent damage was being done to the site by works requested by Canberra caused outrage in New Zealand and Australia which, the inquiry's report noted, widely regard Gallipoli as an unofficial symbol of nationhood.

The Australian Government distanced itself from the damage when it was first reported, and in New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said although Wellington had been aware that Canberra had asked for the work, her Government had not pressed for it.

Clark also said Gallipoli was Turkish territory and anything that happened there needed the goodwill of Turkish authorities, a view supported in a minority report by two Australian Government members of the Senate inquiry.

But the majority report conceded that existing facilities at Anzac Cove were inadequate and that roads had fallen into serious disrepair, leading to a request from then-Veteran Affairs Minister Dana Vale for upgrades on the coastal road and the inland route from the Australian memorial at Lone Pine to the ridge at Chunuk Bair, the site of the New Zealand memorial.

The report praised Turkey's declaration of the Gallipoli Peninsula as an international peace park and its decision to commit A$100 million ($107.4 million) to projects there, A$25 million of which has already been spent.

But it said Canberra had been asleep at the wheel in the months leading up to the work, placing too much faith in assurances by Turkish authorities and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and not responding until two months after the damage was done, despite knowing the impact of construction.

This included permanent damage to military heritage and the cove's fragile environment, and the unearthing of bone fragments.

The committee found that Australian officials did have first-hand knowledge while construction was going on that the roadworks were causing damage to the landscape.

No effort was made to investigate allegations that bone fragments had been uncovered, nor to negotiate with Turkish authorities on the extent of the roadworks.

The report recommended a full military and historical audit of the Gallipoli battlefield, and that the Government establish a working group to advise on future conservation and a new committee to oversee military commemorative programmes.

But the new Veterans Affairs Minister, De-Anne Kelly, said the report was politically motivated and the scale of the Turkish construction programme was greater than Australia had sought.

Although damage had occurred, the overall integrity of Anzac Cove was intact, she said.

And in a new twist, her predecessor this week proposed the creation of a replica of Gallipoli on Mornington Peninsula, enclosing Port Phillip Bay, south of Melbourne.

Vale told the Age newspaper the resemblance between the two was uncanny, and advocated a vast memorial park replicating as closely as possible the battlefields of Gallipoli, with their memorials and cemeteries.

She also proposed a range of theatrical events, such as re-enactments of the 1915 campaign.

The Returned Services League has rejected the idea, saying the plan would remove the true meaning of Gallipoli and create a theme park from a sacred site.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks agreed, saying it was tacky.

Prime Minister John Howard also panned the idea, saying it would inject an artificial element into the Anzac observance, and the special feeling of Gallipoli could not be replicated by a simulation.