Pressure for Munich Memorial in London

(ATR) Politicians around the world are urging that memorials should be held during the London Olympics for victims of the Munich 1972 terror attack.

On Thursday, Canada’s House of Commons unanimously passed a resolution calling for remembrance of the tragedy 40 years ago.

"Civil society groups and political leaders around the world have been calling on the International Olympic Committee to hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremony of the London Games," MP Irwin Cotler, who proposed the motion, was quoted by AFP.

"I am delighted that the Canadian parliament is the first to unanimously support this call," he said.

In Australia, Prime Minister Julia Gillard also signed a letter calling for a moment of silence.

"Silence is a fitting tribute for the athletes who lost their lives on the Olympic stage. Silence contains no statements, assumptions or beliefs and requires no understanding of language to interpret," she says in the letter.

Joining Gillard were other Australian politicians including Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan, Foreign Minister Bob Carr and opposition leader Tony Abbott.

On June 7, the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved a resolution calling for a moment of silence not just for the 40th anniversary, but Games in the future as well.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) co-sponsored the resolution, calling the IOC refusal to grant a moment of silence "indefensible."

"The murdered athletes were not only Israelis; they were Olympians, killed not in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv but at the Olympics itself," the committee chairwoman said in a statement. "Their murder was an attack not only on the Israeli Olympians and on Israel, but on the Olympics.

"A minute of silence would be a small, well-deserved, and overdue tribute to the brave Olympians and police officer who lost their lives. A minute of silence would also reaffirm Olympic values of honor, harmony, and fraternity, and would be to the credit of the Olympic Games, the IOC, and all Olympians."

Tessa Jowell, who was the first Olympics minister for the U.K., told the Jewish News agency on June 14 she will formally ask for a moment of silence in the British House of Commons.

"Forty years on, the memory of this tragedy remains not just with the families of the victims but with the whole of the Olympic family and the world beyond," she said. "As the Olympic Games come to London, I believe that it's important for us to mark the anniversary of this tragedy in the House of Commons.

"The Olympic and Paralympic Games stand for building a peaceful world, free from discrimination, through inspiring each generation of young people through sport. The terrible massacre at Munich, 40 years ago, should be remembered as an attack on everything that the Games stand for."

The IOC has repeatedly declined to schedule a memorial for the 11 Israeli athletes and officials who died in Munich. The IOC, of course, paid tribute to the Israelis with a memorial in the Munich Olympic Stadium after suspending competition for one day.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said the anniversary would not be commemorated in London via a May 15 letter. But he says the deaths in Munich will not be forgotten.

"Within the Olympic family, the memory of the victims of the terrible massacre in Munich in 1972 will never fade away."

Israeli IOC member Alex Gilady told Around the Ringslast month he is "not against" the request for a moment’s silence at London but said he "cannot be supportive."

"[It's] so dangerous for the very fragile unity of the Olympics, and it will not serve anything but bad things. And for the sake of the unity of the Olympics, I am standing where I’m standing," said Gilady.

Written by Ed Hula III.

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