Full Thread: The Apology
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Old February 12th, 2008 #5
Alex Linder
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National Apology: The Kimberley perspective

Last Update: Tuesday, February 12, 2008. 12:43pm AWDT

By Psembi Kinstan

The 13th of February will be remembered as an important day in Australian history. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd officially apologised to all indigenous Australians for the actions of previous governments regarding the stolen generation.

Large numbers of Kimberley children were forcefully removed from their families and taken to missions across Australia or Government run ration stations such as Moola Bulla near Halls Creek.

The Kimberley Stolen Generation Aboriginal Corporation estimates the scale of the removal was so large within the Kimberley that by 1958 about 25 per cent of all Kimberley Aboriginal adults and 45 percent of all Kimberley Aboriginal children were living in missions.

A delegation of Kimberley Aborigines was invited to Parliament house to witness the apology and they spoke to ABC Kimberley before departing from Broome airport.

Derby resident Ruby Rose was one of the many people affected by the stolen generation. She was taken from Alice Springs to Croker Island, then moved to New South Wales then finally returned to Croker Island by boat, “we were the cargo in the boat, the boys were in the first hull, the girls were in the second hull”.

Indigenous leader Mark Bin Bakar sees the apology as the first step in a new process, and believes it will “allow the sore to heal” and allow many Australians to come to terms with the “social experiment”.

“The apology is about reconciliation. The apology is about allowing people to move on, and for people to not have to share and wear the pain themselves anymore”.

http://www.abc.net.au/kimberley/stor...3.htm?backyard