Claims of Execution and Torture By Australian Army
According to Australian government records and PNG citizens who survived World War II, the Australian Army occasionally coerced and intimidated the local people into compliance.
A video report by the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Foreign Correspondent TV programme entitled "PNG Digger Hangings" claims execution and torture were used to control villages unsupportive of the Australian Army. The report claims the Army deceived the Australian Government inquiry that followed the executions, grossly understating the number of executions carried out by the Australian Army.
Backed by experts, such as Professor Hank Nelson (an eminent historian on the Second World War in PNG), reporter Trevor Bormann stated: "When Federal Cabinet was told of the hangings, it put a stop to them and directed that another fifty Papuans on death row should not face the noose.... Then in their explanation of what happened, field commanders fudged the figures on the number of men who had already been hanged."
According to historian Maclaren Hiari, the victims and families of victims do not want compensation. They only want "acknowledgement or any kind of apology to the people."
Read more about this topic: Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels
Famous quotes containing the words claims of, claims, execution, torture, australian and/or army:
“All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the aim of making men happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last, but that to do that it is absolutely necessary, and indeed quite inevitable, to torture to death only one tiny creature, the little girl who beat her breast with her little fist, and to found the edifice on her unavenged tears—would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?”
—Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind. With truth. With the golden sound of the Word. But only a few of them heard. Only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)