Australia says sorry to `stolen children'

AUSTRALIA said sorry yesterday. All over the country, policemen, former judges, actors, football players, pop stars and of ordinary Australians signed "sorry books" to apologise to the "stolen generation" of Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children. The most glaring absentee from the event was the federal government, led by John Howard.

A year after an official report revealed for the first time the devastating details of one of the most chilling chapters in Australian history, Mr Howard's conservative coalition government is sticking stubbornly to its stand of refusing to say "sorry" to the Aborigines and their descendants, estimated at about 100,000, who were taken from their mothers as babies and sent to foster homes where they were expected to grow up like whites.

The misguided policy started in the name of assimilation in 1910 and continued until 1970. It was not as brutal as colonial policy in the early 19th century, undertaken in the name of the Crown, of hunting down and slaughtering whole indigenous communities on the Australian frontier.

But the ends were no different: the assumption that there was no place for a so-called stone age culture in white Australia, and that the sooner it died out the better.

Sir Ronald Wilson, the former judge who conducted the "stolen generation" inquiry, called in his report a year ago for the federal government to lead the country in formally apologising for the pain it caused. Mr Howard said later he "regretted" what happened. But he regards Sir Ronald's call for an official national apology as a wishy-washy response driven by city Australians and what he sees as the "Aboriginal guilt industry".

He has no truck with Sir Ronald's description of indigenous child removal as "genocide" or for the Australian church leaders who have compared it to Nazism.

There is a general election in the air, and the Prime Minister's approach to the issue is driven by votes. Today, Mr Howard is expected to announce instead big spending increases on housing, health and education for Aborigines. His approach is probably in tune with that of conservative voters in rural, outback Australia.

Other public officials have heeded the call to mark Australia's first Sorry Day. Peter Ryan, the British-born commissioner of police in New South Wales, said: "On behalf of the police service I offer a sincere apology to the stolen generations and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people for the prominent role the police played in enforcing previous unjust laws. As agents of the Government, police caused unimaginable pain and anguish to communities, families and particularly mothers and children by the forcible removal of children."