Vandalism
CWGC cemeteries are generally respected as humanitarian, non-political sites, and instances of vandalism and desecration appear to be rare; when they do occur they tend to make news in Commonwealth countries.
Accusations of vandalism of Imperial war graves were levelled at Nazi Germany after their victory in the Battle of France. On 2 June 1940, Adolf Hitler visited the Vimy Memorial to show that it had not been vandalised or destroyed by German troops.
Vandals defaced the central memorial of the Etaples Military Cemetery in northern France with anti-British and anti-American graffiti on 20 March 2003 immediately after the beginning of the Iraq War, leading to condemnation by Timothy Reeves, then-Director of France Area. The many war graves that the Commission looked after in Iraq were left to fall into disrepair after Saddam Hussein banned the Commission from visiting the graveyards after the first Gulf War On 9 May 2004 thirty-three headstones were demolished in the Gaza cemetery, which contains 3,691 graves, allegedly in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
In November 2008, nineteen headstones at the Wagga Wagga War Cemetery were desecrated by vandals. On 1 April 2009 the nineteen headstones were restored at a cost of A$7,500 with A$10,000 reward on offer for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the attack.
In late March 2009, vandals desecrated eight headstones at the Albury War Cemetery, in Albury, New South Wales, which were found by a member of the Office of Australian War Graves. Replacement headstones will cost A$2000 each and take up to eight weeks to replace.
On 24 February 2012, protesters enraged at the alleged deliberate burning of the Koran by NATO forces in Afghanistan rampaged through the Benghazi war cemetery and damaged dozens of headstones, as well as the central memorial.
Read more about this topic: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Famous quotes containing the word vandalism:
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)