Australians and New Zealanders yesterday paid tribute to their war dead as the two nations prepared to withdraw from their longest war in Afghanistan.
The two countries commemorate Anzac Day every April 25, the date in 1915 when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on Turkey in an ill-fated campaign that provided the soldiers’ first combat in World War I.
New Zealand is to withdraw its last troops from Afghanistan in May and Australia in September, in line with US plans to end the 20-year campaign.
Photo: Reuters
Australian Minister for Defence Peter Dutton said that the withdrawal allowed Australia to focus on its own region, where China is changing the security environment.
“Our focus now ... is to our own region, to providing support to our near neighbors,” Dutton told Nine Network television, referring to relief efforts for natural disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need to recognize our region is changing. China is militarizing ports across our region. We need to deal with all of that, and that’s exactly what we’re now focused on,” Dutton added.
After the public was banned because of the pandemic from last year’s Australian commemorations, thousands gathered for a dawn service in downtown Brisbane without restrictions on numbers, with little evidence of social distancing and with few people wearing masks.
Commemorative events were canceled in Perth because of a three-day lockdown that started on Saturday due to a rise in COVID-19 infections.
Western Australia State Premier Mark McGowan and thousands of others remembered the fallen in dawn ceremonies on their own on driveways, as they did last year.
Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city that last year became the nation’s worst pandemic hot spot, recently lifted its Anzac Day march limit from 5,500 to 8,000, after veterans complained that more than 75,000 spectators would be allowed to attend an Australian Rules Football match in Melbourne on the same day.
Given Australia’s relative success in preventing COVID-19 from spreading in the community, veterans have complained that pandemic restrictions have been excessive in parts of the country.
Services and marches were livestreamed for those who could not attend or did not wish to take the infection risk of attending.
Sydney, Australia’s largest city, limited its march to 10,000 people.
A Maori choir sang at a Sydney dawn service in recognition of the intrinsic link that Anzac Day generated between Australia and New Zealand.
For the first time, a soldier played a didgeridoo at the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, in recognition of the sacrifices of Aboriginals in war.
In past years, the service attracted up to 40,000 people, but this year, it was a ticketed event with a limit of 4,200 people.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the Canberra service that Australian troops would soon leave Afghanistan, after losing 41 Australian soldiers to the conflict there.
“It has been our longest war. The world is safer from the threat of terrorism than when the Twin Towers were felled almost 20 years ago, but we remain vigilant. However, this has come at a great cost,” Morrison said.
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