THE NATION: Australian PM to open B

[suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Australian PM to open Burma Railway memorial during
visit to Thailand

posted at 14:55 hrs (Bangkok time) 

SYDNEY, March 22 -- A memorial to 2,700 Australian prisoners-of-war who died building the
Burma railway in World War II will be opened next month by Prime Minister John Howard during a
visit to Thailand announced on Sunday. 

He will also meet the King of Thailand and its Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai during the four-day
visit, starting on April 23, Howard said in a statement released here. 

Howard will be accompanied by about 200 former Australian prisoners-of-war and war widows
during the April 24 ceremony at Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum built to commemorate the men
who died as prisoners of the Japanese. 

They will also attend dawn services marking ANZAC Day, commemorating the World War I
Australia and New Zealand Army Corp, on April 25 at the memorial and at the nearby
Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. 

''These sites have a special place in Australian history,'' Howard said. 

The group includes former POWs Sir John Carrick, Sir Reginald Schwartz and Tom Uren, all
former federal government ministers. 

The 1.6 million dollar (1.05 million US) memorial, which features a four-kilometre (2.5 mile)
walking track along part of the railway roadbed with a museum at the top of the Hellfire Pass, will
honour all Australian POWs who died in the Pacific. 

''Fifty-five years ago this Anzac Day, about 400 Australian POWs began work on what would
become Hellfire Pass,'' Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott said in a statement. 

''With little more than basic hand tools, supplemented with a compressor drill, the POWs were to
make an excavation about 150 metres long, up to 10 metres wide and, in places, 20 metres deep.'' 

''The story of the many thousands who laboured and died on the railway will be accurately
portrayed so that current and future generations never forget their sacrifice,'' he said. 

The two prime ministers will meet for formal talks in which they will discuss Thailand's economic
collapse which preceded the economic crisis which has since swept across Asia, engulfing Indonesia
and South Korea, and to a lesser extent Malaysia and Japan. 

Australia has contributed to all three International Monetary Fund bailouts for Thailand, Indonesia
and South Korea. 

''Through its support for Thailand's IMF package, Australia is making a significant contribution to
the rebuilding of international confidence in Thailand's economic prospects,'' Howard said. 

''I very much look forward to discussing with Mr Chuan the good progress Thailand has made in
implementing its economic reform program and stabilising its economy.'' (AFP)