Despite a spirited campaign to include peacekeepers on the War Memorial’s Roll of Honour the board has announced it’s thinking on maintaining the status quo:
Today, the Memorial has three honour rolls commemorating those servicemen and women who have given their lives for this country: the Roll of Honour, the Commemorative Roll, and the Remembrance Book.
The Roll of Honour includes those who died in war or on warlike service.
The Commemorative Roll records the names of Australians who died in wars while serving with allied forces, the Merchant Navy, and certain civilian organisations.
The Remembrance Book commemorates members of the Australian Defence Force and Australian police forces who have died during or as a result of designated as non-warlike or humanitarian peacetime service.
Currently, 11 of the 52 names in the Remembrance Book are names of peacekeepers; the others lost their lives in other non-warlike operations. Three peacekeepers’ names appear on the Roll of Honour, as they died on operations classified by Defence as warlike.Taking all these matters into consideration, the Council came to the unanimous decision to retain the existing criteria but will further review this matter at its next meeting.