CANADA:Canada formally apologised yesterday for forcing 150,000 aboriginal children into grim residential schools where many say they were sexually and physically abused.
Prime minister Stephen Harper told parliament there could be no excuses for what happened at the church-run schools, which mainly operated from the 1870s to the 1970s.
"The government of Canada sincerely apologises and asks the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly. We are sorry," Mr Harper said in a lengthy address to legislators, native chiefs and school survivors.
The schools were initially set up to educate native children but later became part of a government campaign to assimilate aboriginals and eradicate their culture.
"We recognise that this policy of assimilation was wrong [and] caused great harm," said Mr Harper. "There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the residential schools system to ever again prevail."
Contemporary accounts suggest up to half the children in some institutions died of tuberculosis and other diseases.
Many survivors say they were abused mentally, physically and sexually. Children were beaten for speaking their own languages and told they would be damned unless they converted to Christianity.
"The government of Canada now recognises that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologise for having done this," said Mr Harper.
Native leaders say the damage done at the schools is directly responsible for many of the social problems that plague the country's one million aboriginals today.
In May 2006, Canada reached a C$1.9 billion (€1.2 billion) settlement with the roughly 90,000 school survivors, who say an apology is crucial to help them overcome their trauma.
"I am one of many thousands that have lived this tragic experience and I, as many others, have been very troubled," said Phil Fontaine, who heads the Assembly of First Nations.
"I personally have come to a point in my life where this apology will enable me to put this behind me in a very real way. It's a very important moment," he said.
A formal truth and reconciliation commission started work on June 1st and will spend the next five years travelling the country to hear from school survivors.
The scandal is reminiscent of what happened during the same period in Australia, where at least 100,000 aboriginal children were removed from their homes.
Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the "Stolen Generations" in February.