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.''
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 thiairs 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.
Aboriginal leaders generally welcomed Wednesday's
pledge to issue a formal apology.
``Older people thought they would never live
to see this day,'' said Christine King, whose group the Stolen Generations Alliance
was consulted by the government about the apology.
Others still want compensation. Michael Mansell
of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center wants the government to set aside $882 million
for compensation.
Russell grew up in Sydney with parents of Scottish
and Irish backgrounds. She says her father beat her and sexually abused her.
Russell's mother once scolded her for bringing an Aboriginal girl home to play,
calling them ``dirty'' people.
She recalls having vivid dreams of an Aboriginal
woman who sat on a rock and said, ``Come back to your culture.'' Confused by
the dream then, she now believes it was her ancestors beckoning her.
For Russell, the first hard evidence that she
was adopted came after her mother died in 1959 and her aunt sent a letter saying
she did not belong in the family and was no longer welcome.
She began scouring hospital records, birth and
marriage registries and even shipping logs to try to discover her true identity,
but clues were few.
In the mid-1990s, changes to the law made it
easier for adopted children to access birth records and Russell discovered her
true heritage: She was born to a 13-year-old Aboriginal girl named Joyce Russell,
from whose arms she was taken on the day of her birth on Sept. 4, 1935.
A group called Link-Up, established to reunite
families of the stolen generations, helped Russell trace her birth mother to
a nursing home in Easton, Pa., and a nervous reunion between mother and daughter
was finally arranged in 2001.
``I was trying to be really strong and not cry,''
Russell recalled. ``It was a bit of a shock when they brought her up because
the resemblance between me and her was really strong. She kept grabbing my hand,
she kept walking with me everywhere. She wouldn't let me out of her sight.''
At first the elderly woman didn't realize who
the younger woman was, and welfare workers asked gently probing questions to
try to prompt her memory, mentioning Mari Russell's birth date and the hospital
she was born in.
``She started crying, and then she got so angry
and she was sobbing,'' Russell said. ``She said `I had a baby girl and they
took her away from me. Why did they do that? Why did they do that?'''
``I said to her, 'It's OK mum, I'm that little
girl.'''
Russell spent two weeks with her mother in Pennsylvania.
Joyce Russell died last month at the age of 84, and her daughter was bringing
her ashes home for burial.
For Russell, the apology is a positive step
but will never replace what she and so many others lost.
``We missed out on our culture, our language,
our history,'' she said. ``You can never get back those lost years, you just
can't.''
- Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk contributed
to the story from Canberra.
