HONG KONG, Nov 9: Hong Kong leaders refused to attend the territory's first Remembrance Day service under Chinese rule Sunday because they feared it would carry British colonial connotations, veterans' groups said.

Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa, Chief Secretary for Administration Anson Chan and a host of other senior officials declined invitations to the one hour ceremony in a downtown square, instead sending representatives from their offices, they added.

Chinese government representatives in Hong Kong, including People's Liberation Army garrison commander Liu Zhenwu and Foreign Affairs Commissioner Ma Yuzhen, also turned down invitations.

However, the ceremony was anything but a colonial affair, with no British flags flying beside the flapping Chinese and Hong Kong standards and a police band closing the service with a rendition of China's national anthem, despite the fact the organisers are all veterans who served with British forces.

Royal British Legion regional Chief Brigadier Christopher Hammerbeck said he understood the officials' concerns but hoped the lack of colonial links would encourage them to attend the service in future.

``Hopefully now people have seen how it is, hopefully senior officials will have confidence to come next time,'' he said, after some 500 people watched wreaths being laid at a permanent memorial in the square.

The veterans' groups said there had been no official directive not to fly the British flag.

They declined to comment on the significance of a third flag pole which remained empty beside the masts carrying the Chinese and Hong Kong banners.

``It is not a choice,'' said Hong Kong Ex-Servicemen's Association spokesman Tso Chiu-yin.

``We are in China now,'' Chiu-Yin said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.