Australia to formally apologize to Aborigines

updated 3:15 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2008

MOUNT DRUITT, Australia - As a girl, Mari Melito Russell felt out of place. She was darker than the other kids at school, she felt more comfortable in the forest than her suburban home and she had vivid dreams of an Aboriginal woman beckoning her.

At age 24, she learned a shocking truth that helped explain her unease and set her on an agonizing search for an identity snatched away from her the day she was born.

Russell is among thousands of Australian Aborigines who were forcibly removed from their families under policies that lasted for decades until 1970, leaving deep scars on countless lives and the nation’s psyche.

Australia’s government said Wednesday it would formally apologize to the so-called “stolen generations” next month, as the first item of business of the new Parliament.

The issue has divided Australians for decades, and an apology would be a crucial step toward righting injustices many blame for the marginalized existence of Australia’s original inhabitants — it’s poorest and most deprived citizens.

“It’s not going to bring back my life,” Russell, 72, told The Associated Press Wednesday at her home on Sydney’s outskirts. “It’s not going to bring back my mum. It’s not going to take away the abuse that I had to endure when I was growing up.”

“But at least it’s a start.”

Compensation ruled out
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected last November and whose pledge to apologize overturns a decade of refusals by his predecessor, has ruled out paying compensation. But he says he is determined to help all Aborigines achieve better health, education and living standards.

“This is about getting the symbolic covenant, if you like, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia right and then moving on,” Rudd said this week.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said Wednesday the apology would “be made on behalf of the Australian government and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people.”

Her statement reflects the lingering concerns of many Australians that they should not be made responsible for mistakes by their forebears.

Aborigines — 450,000 among Australia’s population of 21 million — are the country’s poorest ethnic group and are most likely to be jailed, unemployed and illiterate. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than other Australians.

From 1910 until 1970, some 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws that argued the race was doomed and that integrating the children was a humane alternative.

An inquiry by the national Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission concluded in 1997 that many stolen generation children suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from their loss of family and culture. It recommended that state and federal authorities apologize and pay compensation to those who were removed. All state governments have apologized, but the question of compensation was left to the federal government.

Then-Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly refused to apologize or pay compensation, saying his government should not be held responsible for past policies.

Although the last laws granting authorities the power to take Aboriginal children from their families were abolished in 1970, many Aborigines say statistics show the government is still far more likely to take Aboriginal children into foster care than white children.

Last summer, the government passed a package of bills to fight what it said was rampant child abuse among Aborigines in the Northern Territory, fueled by widespread alcoholism, unemployment and poverty. The legislation, which included a controversial plan to take control of some Aboriginal lands, was condemned by critics as a racist attack on indigenous rights.

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