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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001 time: 06:27
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By the way, you might be interested by the difference of coverage between The Sun and the regional newspaper. here is the handmade translation :
From La Voix du Nord, 4th Apr. 2003
"Vandals
Insults written in a symbolical place, where lie more than 10,000 WW1 soldiers
Etaples' British cemetary desecrated
Hostile paroles to the war in Iraq and to the US/UK coalition have been written on the stele and the walls of the monument located at the entrance of Etaples' military cemetary. In this peace haven now belonging to the British territory, located newt to the road leading to Boulogne, rest 11 530 soldiers, including about 9 000 Britons killed during WW1.
No harm has been done on tombs. The insults, some of them targetted to George Bush and Tony Blair, have been written in the night between 26th and 27th March. The gardening leader has discovered the writings at the beginning of his shift, thursday. He alerted the national seat of th Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), in Beaurains near Arras, which has sent a team to erase the same day the message painted in red.
This organization manages in France 2 908 memorial places for the 690 000 Commonwealth soldiers, fallen in France during both World Wars.
In the Pas-de-Calais, CWGC maintains 623 cemetaries and 180 000 tombs. Etaples' cemetary is the biggest in France gathering WW1 British victims. The symbol was obvious for those who wanted to hurt the British people in particular. The cemetary is visited each year by more than 10,000 British tourists. Whether relatives of a dead or not, they like mourning before the perfectly lined-up and cleaned tombs, before they write some words on one of the registers located each side of the stele.
Uneasy inquiry
Who is the culprit of this desecration ? So wonder the policemen of Etaples and the inquirers of Montreuil, who are now on this case of "violated tomb". Is it a "political move" or an "isolated act" ? Inquirers are in an awkward situation, with few clues. What is certain : the message is quite elaborated, and refers for example to the International Criminal Court (TPI), with nearly no misspellings.
This desecration has been revealed in Britain by tourists, who have taken pictures before the writings were erased. Whereas the emotion is great beyond the Channel, the British consular assistant in Le Touquet, William Porter, avoids any confusion about a supposed Anglophobia, in the Iraqi War's context. He says he's "sad" of such an action and considers these words hostile to the British are "not at all the way of this region's French, who keep the memories of both world wars". Socialist representative of the Pas-de-Calais Jack Lang, has judged this desecration as "unqualifiable". "This violation of a burial place - scandalous in itself - is an attack on the memory of the sacrifice made by the British and American soldiers who contributed to the liberation of our soil."
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