Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a national
apology to the country's indigenous people in Canberra in the
parliament on Wednesday morning.
Australian Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd speaks during a traditional "welcome to
country" ceremony held at parliament house in Canberra on February
13, 2008.
"We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular
on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations, this
blemished chapter in our nation's history," Rudd said.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive
parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief,
suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," the apology
says.
The former Howard government, which lost last year's election,
refused to issue a formal apology claiming it would leave the
commonwealth liable to a flood of compensation claims.
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations,
their descendants and for their families left behind, we say
sorry.
"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters,
for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud
people and a proud culture, we say sorry," the prime minister said
in an emotional speech.
Hundreds of indigenous Australians descended on Canberra to
witness the historic apology which comes more than a decade after
the Bringing Them Home report.
The report documented the stories of tens of thousands of
Aboriginal children taken from their families by governments from
1910 to the early 1970s.
Rudd said a new page in Australia's history can now be
written.
"We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and
laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians," he
said.
(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2008)
