|
not so recently linked:
August, 1983: Klaus Barbie
1965:
"Nostra Aetate,"
February 19, 1976: President
Ford says the internment of Japanese Americans was "wrong"
December 15, 1937: Japan apologizes
for sinking the U.S. gunboat Panay.
1919:
Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles
1863:
Abraham Lincoln issues Thanksgiving
1697: Salem Witch Trial
Political Apologies: Chronological
List.
The following is a fairly comprehensive chronological
listing of major political apologies and related events. It has been compiled
by Graham G. Dodds. <added to and eddited by
scottspeedwagon@yahoo.com.>
1077: Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV apologizes
to Pope Gregory VII for church-state conflicts by standing barefoot
in the snow for three days.
1697: One judge and twelve jurors
apologize for the Salem witch trials the injustices.
1711: Massachusetts compensates the families of the victims of the Salem
witch prosecutions.
1863:
Abraham Lincoln issues a proclamation establishing Thanksgiving as a national
holiday, enjoining the nation
to repent for "our national perverseness and disobedience" to
God during the Civil War and asking
forgiveness for the sins that led to so many deaths.
August 2, 1894: Japan reportedly apologizes and offers to pay compensation
to Great Britain for its cruiser Naniwa
mistakenly firing upon and sinking the British ship Kow Shing. Japanese
officials in London deny the
report.
1919:
Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles, admitting it was responsible for
World War I and agreeing to pay
reparations.
July 22, 1924: The Persian government apologizes for the death of U.S.
Vice Consul Major Robert Imbrie, who was
beaten to death by a mob in Teheran.
1927:
In response to complaints from Jewish leaders and in order to avoid a
lawsuit, automobile maker Henry Ford
retracts and apologizes for an anti-Jewish campaign in his newspaper "The
Dearborn Independent."
July 19, 1928: The U.S. government formally apologizes to Great Britain
for violating the sovereignty of the Bahamas
last year, when the Coast Guard seized a ship suspected of smuggling liquor.
September 1, 1937: The Chinese government apologies to the U.S. for bombing
the American ship President Hoover
and offers to pay reparations. The next day, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek
adds his personal apologies
to the formal apology of the Chinese government.
December 15, 1937: Japan apologizes
for sinking the U.S. gunboat Panay.
October 26, 1948: Mexico accepts an apology from the U.S. State Department
for recently allowing several thousand
Mexican farm laborers to cross the Texas border, in violation of an agreement
between the two
countries.
May 26, 1950: Israel agrees to apologize to the United Nations for the
murder of Palestinian mediator Count Folke
Bernadotte in Jerusalem in 1948.
August 18, 1955: Indian Prime Minister Nehru apologizes and expresses
deep regret to foreign missions and consulates
in New Delhi that were attacked by Indian demonstrators and offers to
pay full compensation
for damage.
October 4, 1960: At the United Nations, Soviet Premier Khrushchev demands
that the U.S. apologize for recent
spying activity, which he termed "unprecedented treacherous acts,"
before there can be any improvement
in Soviet-U.S. relations.
May 9, 1964: South Vietnam apologizes for its troops "unintentionally
straying" into Cambodian territory yesterday
during military action against the Communist forces.
March 18, 1965: The sheriff of Montgomery County, Alabama apologizes for
routing 600 civil rights demonstrators
with horses and clubs yesterday.
1965:
In a declaration entitled "Nostra Aetate," the Second Vatican
Council reverses the traditional condemnation
of Jews as the murderers of Jesus.
1965: A joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of Japan and South
Korea includes "twenty vague words
of apology" for Japan?s 36-year colonial rule.
October 23, 1968: Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad demands that
Israel apologize to Arab states for its
"aggression" in 1967.
1968: The United States signs an apology prepared by North Korea, admitting
that the U.S.S. Pueblo violated North
Korean territorial waters. The admission gains the release of the captured
U.S. crew but not the ship.
1970: At the site of
the Warsaw ghetto, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt falls to his knees
to express the
guilt, sorrow, and responsibility of Germany for the Holocaust.
1972: Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka tells visiting Chinese Premier
Chou En-lai that "Japan realizes her
heavy responsibility in causing enormous damage to the Chinese people
in the past through the war."
February 19, 1976: President
Ford says the internment of Japanese Americans was "wrong" and
officially revokes
President Franklin Roosevelt?s exclusion order.
1977: Two years after the death of Gen. Francisco Franco, Spain grants
an amnesty to his collaborators in order
to help the divided nation heal and to facilitate the transition to democracy.
September 19, 1980. President Carter refuses to apologize to Iran in order
to secure the release of American hostages.
October 30, 1981: The Soviet ambassador to Sweden conveys "unreserved
formal regrets" to the Swedish
foreign minister over a Soviet submarine that ran aground in Swedish territorial
waters.
November 1, 1981: Sweden says that the Soviet apology regarding the stranded
submarine is insufficient, but
the submarine and its crew are released.
June, 1983: The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
recommends that Congress
pass legislation providing an official apology and compensation to interned
Japanese Americans.
August, 1983: The United States formally apologizes to France for
having helped Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie
escape to Bolivia to avoid prosecution after World War II.
September 3, 1983: South Korea demands that the Soviet Union apologize
and provide reparations for shooting
down Korean Air Lines flight 007 on September 1, killing all 240 passengers
and 29 crew members
on board.
July 17, 1984: At the Democratic National Convention, Jesse Jackson asks
Jews for forgiveness for insensitive
remarks.
September 7, 1984: Alluding to World War II, Japanese Emperor Hirohito
tells the visiting South Korean President
that "it is regrettable that there was an unfortunate period in this
century."
May 8, 1985: In a speech to Parliament, West German President Richard
von Weizsacker stresses the importance
of remembering, guilt, and reconciliation.
October 23, 1985: In an address to the United Nations, Japanese Prime
Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone apologizes
for Japan?s role in World War II.
November 18, 1985: Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode apologizes for the
Move disaster that left 11 people
dead, 61 houses destroyed by fire, and 250 people homeless.
August 17, 1986: The United Church of Canada officially apologizes to
Canada?s native peoples for past
wrongs inflicted by the church.
July 3, 1988: President Reagan expresses regret to Iran over the U.S.
downing of an Iranian passenger jet over
the Persian Gulf that killed all 290 persons aboard.
May, 1988: At a summit conference in Moscow, Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri
Yazov apologizes to U.S. Defense
Secretary Frank Carlucci for the shooting death of U.S. Major Arthur Nicholson
by a Soviet sentry
in 1985 in East Germany.
August 10,
1988: The Civil Liberties Act apologizes on behalf of the people of
the U.S. for the internment of Japanese
Americans during World War II. The Act also authorizes $1.2 billion for
payments of $20,000 to
each of the roughly 60,000 internees still alive and for the establishment
of a $50 million foundation to
promote the cultural and historical concerns of Japanese Americans.
August 18, 1988: Canada?s All-Native Circle Conference officially acknowledges
but does not accept the August,
1986 apology from the United Church of Canada for past wrongs inflicted
on them.
February 18, 1989: Iranian president Hojatolislam Ali Khamenei says that
the death threat for author Salman Rushdie
could be lifted if Rushdie were to apologize for his book "The Satanic
Verses."
December 31, 1989: The U.S. apologizes to Nicaragua for the search of
the Nicaraguan ambassador?s residence
in Panama City by American troops.
April 13, 1990: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev admits the Soviet Union
was responsible for the 1940 massacre
of Polish POWs at the Katyn forest.
April 13, 1990: After 40 years of denial, the new East German parliament
issues an apology for Nazi crimes and
says it is willing to pay reparations and to seek ties with Israel.
May 5, 1990: Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste apologizes for the 1970
Kent State shootings. (Celeste took office
twelve years after the shootings.)
May 27, 1990: South Korean leader Roh Tae Woo accepts Japanese Emperor
Akihito?s words of regret for the occupation
of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
August, 1991: The mayor of Honolulu invites Japanese officials to a ceremony
to mark the fiftieth anniversary of
the attack on Pearl Harbor, but on the condition that they apologize for
the war. The Japanese spokesman
Ishihara Nobuo refuses, saying "the entire world is responsible for
the war."
December 1, 1991: President Bush refuses to apologize for the use of atomic
bombs in World War II.
December 4, 1991: Japanese Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe expresses
"deep remorse" for the wartime suffering
that followed Japan?s attack on Pearl Harbor.
December 7, 1991: On the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack,
the Japanese parliament considers apologizing
for the attack but decides not to do so.
January 18, 1992: Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologizes for
Japan?s use of "comfort women."
July, 1992: On the 50th anniversary of the roundup of Parisian Jews, French
President Francois Miterand refuses
to apologize for French complicity in the persecution of Jews.
October 23, 1992: During a royal visit to China, Japanese Emperor Akihito
expresses his sorrow for Japan?s wartime
abuses.
October 31, 1992: The Catholic Church begs pardon for placing Galileo
Galilei under life-long house arrest in 1633.
November, 1992: Russian President Boris Yeltsin apologizes for the Soviet
downing of a Korean Airlines jet with
269 people aboard in 1983.
December, 1992: Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating acknowledges wrongs
done to Aborigines.
August 9, 1993: Pope John Paul II apologizes for Catholic involvement
with the African slave trade.
August 10, 1993: Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa declares that
World War II was a mistake and an
act of aggression.
August 23, 1993: Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa uses his first
parliamentary policy address to convey
"a feeling of deep remorse and apologies for the fact that our country?s
past acts of aggression and
colonial rule caused unbearable suffering and sorrow for so many people."
August 29, 1993: South African President F.W. de Klerk apologizes for
apartheid.
August 31, 1993: Nelson Mandela apologizes for atrocities allegedly committed
by the African National Congress
against suspected enemies.
September 20, 1993: Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa apologizes
for suffering caused by Japan in World
War II.
October 12, 1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin apologizes for the internment
of 600,000 Japanese POWs in
Siberia after World War II.
November 6, 1993: In South Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa
apologizes to South Korean President
Kim Young Sam for Japan?s wartime actions.
November 15, 1993: The U.S. House passes U.S. Public Law 103-150: "To
acknowledge the 100th anniversary
of the January 17, 1893 [sic] of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to offer an
apology to native Hawaiians
on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii."
April 23, 1994: First Lady Hillary Clinton apologizes for confusion in
her responses to questions about the Whitewater
scandal.
April, 1994: 800 German Christians apologize to the Dutch for the Nazi
invasion of the Netherlands in World War
II.
August 15, 1994: Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologizes
for the suffering caused by Imperial Japan
and concedes that other Asians suffered "tragic sacrifices beyond
description."
August, 1994: German President Roman Herzog asks the Polish people for
forgiveness for the "inordinate suffering"
inflicted on their country during World War II.
Summer, 1994: Leftist historian Eugene Genovese argues in the journal
Dissent that the American left should apologize
for its complicity in immoral acts committed by communism.
November, 1994: The Catholic Church announces a commitment "to repent
of past ecclesiastical sins as prelude
to the celebration of Christianity?s third millennium. ?It is time,? John
Paul says, ?to examine the
past with courage, to assign responsibility where it is due in a review
of the long history of humanity.?"
March 11, 1995: On the thirtieth anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery
civil rights march, former Alabama Governor
George Wallace apologizes to civil rights advocates for resisting desegregation.
March, 1995: Lithuanian President Algirdas Brazauskas asks the Israeli
Knesset for forgiveness for Lithuania?s
deeds in the Holocaust.
March, 1995: The Jesuits? general congregation apologizes for abetting
"male domination" and pledged "solidarity
with women." (Cf. Pope John Paul II?s letter on 7/10/95.)
April, 1995: President Clinton says, "the United States owes no apology
to Japan for having dropped the atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
May, 1995: Pope John Paul II begs forgiveness in the Czech Republic for
the Church?s role in stake burnings and
the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation.
May, 1995: St. Petersburg, Russia unveils a monument to the millions of
victims of Stalin and others during the
Soviet regime. The monument consists of two sphinxes, situated across
from the former KGB building
where many political prisoners were taken for interrogation.
June 9, 1995: The lower house of the Japanese Diet expresses "deep
remorse" for the suffering inflicted on Asians
and others in World War II.
June, 1995: The Southern Baptist convention apologizes to African-Americans
"for defending slavery in the antebellum
South and for condoning ?racism in our lifetime.?"
June, 1995: Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama says, "I would
like to say that Japan is deeply remorseful
for its past and strives for world peace."
July 10, 1995: In an open letter addressed to "every woman,"
Pope John Paul II apologizes for the Church?s stance
against women?s rights and for the historical denigration of women.
July, 1995: Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologizes to the
roughly 200,000 women who were put
into brothels by Japanese forces to serve as sex slaves or "comfort
women" and sets up a private "Asian
Women?s Fund" to deal with reparations. The fund is "an expression
on the part of the people of Japan
to these women."
July, 1995: On the 53rd anniversary of the roundup of 13,000 Parisian
Jews, French President Jacques Chirac apologizes
for the help the Vichy government gave the Nazis in deporting 320,000
French Jews to death
camps. (Cf. Miterand?s refusal to apologize in July, 1992.)
August 15, 1995: On the 50th anniversary of Japan?s surrender, Prime Minister
Tomiichi Murayama issues a statement
of "heartfelt apologies" for Japan?s aggression. On the same
date as Murayama?s statement,
the National Diet adopts a "Resolution to Renew the Determination
for Peace on the Basis of Lessons
Learned from History."
August, 1995: The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
issues a report recommending an
apology and reparations for the Australian government?s policy of forcibly
removing mixed-blood children
from aboriginal families between 1910 and 1970.
November, 1995: Queen Elizabeth II approves legislation which "apologizes
unreservedly" to New Zealand Maori
for taking their land in 1863. The legislation included a payment of $112
million and the return of 39,000
acres to the Tainui people.
1995: The International Red Cross apologizes for its "moral failure"
in not denouncing Nazi atrocities in World War
II.
1995: On the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Swiss president
Kaspar Villiger apologizes for Switzerland?s
refusal to accept refugees during the war.
August, 1996: Former South African president F.W. de Klerk apologizes
to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
for the "many unacceptable things that occurred during the government
of his National Party."
September 23, 1996: President Clinton apologizes to seven undecorated,
heroic African-American World War II
soldiers.
December, 1996: Energy Secretary Hazel O?Leary apologizes to the last
survivor and announces a $4.8 million
settlement for the families of 11 other citizens injected with radiation
for experiments on radiation
exposure between 1944 and 1974.
December, 1996: Japanese Prime Minister Ryutara Hashimoto offers a letter
of apology and monetary reparations
to 500 survivors of the 200,000 "comfort women," but only six
accept.
January 15, 1997: Swiss President Jean-Pascal Delamuraz apologizes for
deriding as "blackmailers" the Jewish
organizations seeking compensation for Holocaust survivors whose assets
were held by Swiss banks.
January 22, 1997: In a joint declaration, foreign ministers from Germany
and the Czech Republic apologize to each
other for conflicts in the 1930s and 1940s.
January, 1997: North Korea issues a rare apology to South Korea, "expressing
deep regret" for the lives lost when
its spy submarine ran aground in South Korea in September, 1996 and its
soldiers killed three civilians
while trying to return home before being killed themselves. In response,
South Korea returns the
bodies of the North Korean soldiers.
April, 1997: Imprisoned leaders of the marxist New Jewel Movement (NJM),
which ruled Grenada from 1979 to 1983,
issue a letter apologizing for their regime?s acts, especially the killing
of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.
May 16, 1997: President Clinton holds a White House ceremony to apologize
for the 48-year Tuskegee Syphilis
Study by the U.S. Public Health Service that withheld medical treatment
of the disease. Five of the
eight remaining survivors of the study attended the White House ceremony.
(In 1974, the U.S. government
settled a suit by the survivors for $10 million.)
June, 1997: British Prime Minister Tony Blair expresses regret for English
indifference to the plight of the Irish people
during the Potato Famine of the 1840s.
September 6, 1997: At the conclusion of Senate Finance committee hearings
on Internal Revenue Service abuses,
Acting IRS Commissioner Michael P. Dolan issues a public apology to four
taxpayers (and by extension
to all American taxpayers) for mistreatment at the hands of agency officials.
September 25, 1997: Ehud Barak asks forgiveness from Israelis of Middle-Eastern
and North-African origin and
seeks "their forgiveness" for what the "Labor Party had
done to them" as immigrants to Israel during
the 1950s.
September 30, 1997: The French Roman Catholic Church apologizes for its
role during the Holocaust and its silence
during 1940 Vichy regime.
October 2, 1997: Indonesian President Suharto apologizes for the forest
fires that caused pollution over much
of southeast Asia.
November, 1997: Russian President Boris Yeltsin apologizes for the mistakes
of the Bolshevik Revolution, on its
80th anniversary.
January, 1998: The Canadian government formally apologizes for its historic
mistreatment of indigenous peoples.
January, 1998: French President Jacques Chirac apologizes for the "judicial
error" of the Dreyfus affair on the 100-year
anniversary of Emile Zola?s "J-accuse."
January, 1998: Japanese Prime Minister Ryutara Hashiomoto offers his "heartfelt
apology" to the British government
and expresses "Deep remorse" for Japan?s treatment of British
POWs in World War II.
January, 1998: British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologizes for the 1972
"Bloody Sunday" massacre of 19 civilians
in Northern Ireland.
February 20, 1998: The Anglican Church of Australia apologizes for its
participation in the policy of forcibly removing
aboriginal children from their mothers.
March 16, 1998: The Vatican apologizes for its silence and inaction during
the Holocaust.
March 26, 1998: President Clinton apologizes for inaction during the 1994
Rwanda genocide.
March, 1998: In Uganda, President Clinton says that "European Americans
received the fruits of the slave trade.
And we were wrong in that."
April 22, 1998: South Korean President Kim Dae Woo announces that the
South Korean government will end its
efforts to gain official compensation from the Japanese government for
"comfort women" but will still seek
an official apology and will not prevent individuals from seeking compensation.
April 27, 1998: A Japanese court dismisses claims from Korean "comfort
women" for an official apology and compensation,
saying that even though the women had suffered greatly, the Japanese government
was under no legal
obligation to provide either an apology or compensation.
April 27, 1998: The German Parliament formally apologizes for bombing
the Spanish village of Guernica on behalf
of Gen. Francisco Franco on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.
April, 1998: In the name of all New Yorkers, New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani apologizes to the family of Yankel
Rosenbaum, a Hasidic man killed during the 1991 Crown Heights riots, and
to the Hasidic community
for the allegedly inadequate police response to the riots. In the course
of the apology, Giuliani
also criticizes the family of a child whose death in an automobile sparked
the riots.
May, 1998: Japanese Emperor Akihito apologizes to Britain for World War
II.
July, 1998: British Armed Forces Minister John Reid apologizes in the
House of Commons for the deaths of 306 soldiers
executed for cowardice in World War I. (Cf. 12/24/01.)
August, 1998: The "Real IRA," a splinter group of the Irish
Republican Army opposed to Northern Ireland?s 1998
peace agreement, admits responsibility for a blast in Omagh that killed
28 people and injured 220 others
but not for the casualties, which it blames on authorities that supposedly
did not heed the group?s
warnings.
August, 1998: The Irish Republican Army apologizes for violence and killings
in the course of its struggle for liberty
and pledges to end its 23-year terror campaign. (Cf. July 17, 2002.)
October, 1998: Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi gives visiting South
Korean President Kim Dae Jung a written
statement saying that Japan "expressed deep remorse and extended
a heartfelt apology" for inflicting
"heavy damage and pain" on Koreans.
October, 1998: Argentinian President Carlos Menem expresses regret over
the Falklands War.
November, 1998: The Catholic Priests? Conference of India demands an apology
from the Catholic Church for its
association with colonial forces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
November, 1998: Indonesian armed forces apologize in ads in local newspapers
for killing a dozen demonstrators
earlier in the month.
December 11, 1998:
President Clinton apologizes to the American people for indiscretions
related to the Monica
Lewinsky scandal.
January 7, 1999: A U.S. federal judge approves a June, 1998 settlement
between the U.S. government and Latin
American Japanese World War II internees which will give then an official
apology from President Clinton
and reparations of $5,000 each.
January, 1999: Two former Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan and Nuon
Chea, apologize to the Cambodian
people for the nearly two million people killed from 1975 to 1979. (Cf.
8/18/01.)
March 5, 1999: President Clinton apologizes for deaths at Italian ski
resort caused by a U.S. jet striking a gondola
cable.
March 10, 1999: President Clinton expresses remorse for U.S. support of
right-wing governments in Guatemala
that killed at least tens of thousands of rebels and Mayan Indians.
May 12, 1999: German Cancellor Gerhard Schroder meets with Chinese Foreign
Minister Tang Jiaxuan and expresses
an unconditional apology for NATO?s bombing of China?s Belgrade Embassy,
which killed three
Chinese and journalists and injured 20 others.
March 14, 1999: Former Guatemala rebels apologize for atrocities committed
during their 36-year civil war.
June 16, 1999: State Department Under Secretary Thomas Pickering apologizes
in Beijing for the bombing of the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
July 6, 1999: Iran asks the U.S. for an official apology to the Iranian
government and nation for the July, 1988 downing
of an Iranian passenger jet. (President Reagan expressed regret in 1988.)
July 16, 1999: After a "Reconciliation Walk" across Europe,
several hundred members of a Christian group apologize
to religious leaders in Jerusalem for the mass killings of Muslims, Jews,
and Byzantine Christians
900 years ago during the Crusades.
July 28, 1999: South Africa?s Natal Law Society, the equivalent of the
bar association, apologizes "unconditionally"
for barring Mohandas Gandhi from practicing law in 1894 because of his
race. David Randles,
president of the Natal Law Society, made the apology to "all other
aspirant lawyers whose access
to the profession was restricted in any way on the basis of racial grounds."
August 27, 1999: Australian Prime Minister John Howard apologizes for
past mistreatment of Aborigines. (Cf.
6/23/01.)
August 31, 1999: The Tokyo High Court upholds a lower court?s ruling rejecting
demands from 369 South Koreans
for an official government apology and compensation. (Cf. April 27, 1998
court case.)
September 2, 1999: Pope John Paul II asks forgiveness for the past errors
of the Catholic Church but did not specify
any such errors.
September 3, 1999: Denmark Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen apologizes
for the way his country forced Greenland
Inuits from their homes in 1953 to make room for an expansion of a U.S.
airbase.
September 8, 1999: New York Archbishop John Cardinal O?Connor writes to
his Jewish friends: "I ask this Yom
Kippur that you understand my own abject sorrow for any member of the
Catholic Church, high or low,
including myself, who may have harmed you or your forbears in any way."
September 13, 1999: Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadhafi says Americans
and European powers should apologize
and pay reparations to Africans for slavery.
September 15, 1999: Roman Catholic Church officials in Quebec announce
that they will not apologize to aging
"Duplessis Ophans" who suffered years of abuse while under the
care of the church from the 1930s
through the 1950s.
October 1, 1999: South Korean demonstrators demand that the U.S. apologize
for American soldiers allegedly killing
hundreds of civilians in 1950 at the start of the Korean War. (The U.S.
refused to apologize on September
12, 2000.)
October 4, 1999: In an address to the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak expresses sympathy and regret
for the suffering of the Palestinian people but denies Israeli guilt or
responsibility for the Israel-Palestine
conflict.
November 9, 1999: The British government apologizes to Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe concerning a group
of gay activists who attacked him in London to protest alleged human rights
abuses in his country.
November 12, 1999: The Palestinian Authority apologizes for statements
made by Suha Arafat in Ramallah during
a meeting with U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in Ramallah in which
Ms. Arafat accused Israel
of poisoning the air and polluting the water.
November 29, 1999: Gen. John Keane, the Army vice chief of staff, apologizes
to the family of the late Edward
A. Carter Jr., a World War II veteran, for secretly investigating him
as a suspected communist and
barring him from re-enlisting in 1949. The Army had determined the charges
of disloyalty had no basis
in fact, so the Army Board for Correction of Military Records corrected
all of Carter's military records.
His family is to be presented with three posthumous awards for Carter's
conduct and service in Germany
during World War II.
December 10, 1999: The Swiss government reiterates a 1995 apology over
wrong doings during World War II,
but refuses to offer compensation to Jewish refugees who were turned back
at the Swiss border at that
time.
December 11, 1999: At a hearing with federal officials in Honolulu, Native
Hawaiians demand some form of redress
for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by the U.S.
December 18, 1999: Pope John Paul II apologizes for the execution of religious
reformer Jan Hus in 1415.
January 26, 2000: Leaders of the international Pagan community send a
letter to Pope John Paul II calling for the
inclusion of Pagans in the Vatican's upcoming millennial apology for the
Inquisition.
February 5, 2000: An Oklahoma state commission (the Tulsa Race Riot Commission)
recommends reparations for
survivors of a 1921 race riot in Tulsa. (Cf. 3/1/01.)
February 14, 2000: Austrian politician Joerg Haider apologizes for giving
offense by praising Hitler's employment
policies and former members of the Waffen SS.
February 17, 2000: German President Johannes Rau apologizes before the
Israeli parliament for the Holocaust.
February 28, 2000: A leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah demands that French
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin apologize
for calling guerrilla attacks against Israeli occupation troops as "terrorist"
acts.
March 12, 2000: Pope John Paul II asks forgiveness for the sins of Catholics
throughout the ages. During a public
Mass of Pardon, the Pope says that "Christians...have violated the
rights of ethnic groups and peoples,
and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions..."
March 22, 2000: The Netherlands apologizes to Jews, Gypsies and Indonesians
for a "chilly" official response in
the past to their claims to property seized during and after World War
II. Prime Minister Wim Kok offers
$180 million, in addition to past restitutions, to the Central Jewish
Congress, while Gypsies receive
an extra $13 million, and Indonesians who sided with the Dutch during
Indonesia's fight for independence
in 1949 are offered $110 million.
March, 2000: Aetna Inc. apologizes for profiting from slavery by issuing
insurance policies on slaves in the 1850s.
April 7, 2000: The Austrian government apologizes for having provided
a political haven to former Nazis after World
War II.
April 8, 2000: Belgium asks forgiveness for the international community?s
failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda
in 1994.
April 15, 2000: Bishop John S. Cummins and other leaders of the Diocese
of Oakland publicly apologize to victims
of clergy sexual abuse.
April 18, 2000: The official Vatican newspaper rejects a call by gay-rights
activists for an apology from the Catholic
Church. (Homosexuals were not included in the Pope?s March 12 request
for forgiveness for past
wrongs committed by Catholics.)
May 19 (and also late August), 2000: Thousands of Chinese men sue Japanese
companies for using them as forced
laborers during World War II and demand an apology.
June 25, 2000: Montenegro President Milo Djukanovic asks Croatia to forgive
his countrymen for shelling Dubrovnik
during the Croatian struggle for independence in 1991.
July 4, 2000: The Hartford Courant newspaper apologizes for having published
advertisements for the sale of slaves
in the 18th and 19th centuries.
July 14, 2000: Thomas Foley, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, and Lt.- Gen. Earl
Hailston, the highest ranking American
officer in Japan, apologize to Okinawa Governor Inamine Keiichi for crimes
committed by U.S. military
personnel in Japan.
July 19, 2000: Italy?s potential crown prince, Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia,
offers to apologize for the wrongs committed
by the Savoys, in an effort to circumvent a 1946 law banning male members
from Italy?s former
royal family from entering the country.
July 24, 2000: In an effort to reduce political tension, Indonesian President
Abdurrahman Wahid apologizes for
dismissing two ministers in May.
August 24, 2000: Russian President Vladimir Putin expresses a "great
feeling of guilt and responsibility" for the
Kursk submarine accident, in which all 118 sailors aboard died, essentially
apologizing for the way the
tragedy was handled.
August 25, 2000: Zimbabwe war veterans accept a government apology for
the destruction of their homes in the
course of police raids on illegally occupied property.
August, 2000: Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser calls for
a national apology for the "stolen generations,"
the one in ten Aboriginal children who were removed from their families
between 1920 and
1971 in a government effort to "civilize" them by assimilation
into white society.
September 5, 2000: Canada?s Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and
United churches apologize to Eskimos
and Indians for decades of abuse by white church officials.
September 8, 2000: During a celebration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
175th year anniversary, Interior Department
assistant secretary Kevin Gover apologizes on behalf of the bureau to
American Indians for its
past actions, including the forced relocation of Indians and broken treaties
and promises.
September 8, 2000: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sends a letter
of apology to North Korean Foreign Minister
Paek Nam Sun, expressing America's regret that North Korea's second in
command, Kim Yong Nam,
canceled plans of the 15 member North Korean delegation to attend a summit
of 160 world leaders
in New York after being asked to be searched in the Frankfurt airport.
September 14, 2000: U.S. district Judge James A. Parker apologizes to
Wen Ho Lee, an Chinese-American nuclear
scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who was held for nine
months on suspicion of giving
secrets to China before the government?s controversial case against him
unraveled.
September 16, 2000: Fifteen women announce plans for a class-action lawsuit
against Japan for being forced into
brothels in World War II.
October 15, 2000: At a meeting in Tokyo, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji
says China still feels that Japan has
never properly apologized for its war atrocities but says it is Japan?s
problem to decide whether and
how to atone for its past.
November 6, 2000: China issues a statement saying it will not apologize
to Cambodia for supporting the Khmer
Rouge from 1975 to 1979.
November 7, 2000: Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen of Finland apologizes
to the Jewish community for the extradition
of eight Jews to Germany in 1942.
November 10, 2000: The Movement for Democratic Change, a group opposed
to Zimbabwe President Mugabe,
asks him to publicly apologize to the people of Matabeleland and the Midlands
(and to initiate an
affirmative action program to benefit the two regions) for atrocities
committed by state agents in the 1980s,
when 20,000 civilians were killed in the course of an army crackdown on
armed rebels.
December 9, 2000: The Israeli Army apologizes to American freelance photographer
Yola Monakhov, who was shot
by an Israeli soldier in Bethlehem in November. The army says the shooter
and his commanders will
be punished for violating the army's standing prohibition against using
live ammunition except when facing
immediate mortal danger.
December 15, 2000: Afrikaner academics and professionals, calling themselves
the Group of 63, distance themselves
from the call for South Africa whites to apologize for apartheid. The
group says that while South
Africa needs a political solution to its racial problems, personalizing
the problem by seeking an apology
is not appropriate.
December 22, 2000: The Clinton administration decides not to issue a formal
apology to South Korea regarding
the shooting of civilians at No Gun Ri in the Korean War. (Korean demonstrators
demanded an apology
in October, 1999.)
December, 2000: Harvard University apologizes for dismissing Professor
Raymond Ginger in 1954, when he would
not say whether he was a member of the Communist Party.
February 3, 2001: Armenian President Robert Kocharyan says he wants only
an apology and not necessarily compensation
from Turkey for the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
February 10, 2001: Secretary of State Colin Powell apologizes by telephone
to Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei
Kono after the U.S. submarine Greenville?s collision with a Japanese fishing
boat off Hawaii. (Cf. 4/4/01.)
February 19, 2001: President Robert Mugabe's information and publicity
minister says Zimbabwe owes no one
an apology for deporting two foreign journalists.
February 22, 2001: U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley apologizes to the Emperor
and Empress of Japan for the submarine
Greenville?s collision with a Japanese fishing boat.
February 28, 2001: Admiral William Fallon apologizes for the collision
of the submarine Greenville with a Japanese
fishing boat.
March 1, 2001: The Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riots of
1921 recommends that reparations
be paid to survivors. (Cf. 2/5/00.)
March 19, 2001: Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwait's first
deputy prime minister and foreign minister,
asks Iraq to apologize to Kuwait before the two countries talk about reconciliation.
April 4, 2001: Secretary of State Colin Powell refuses to apologize to
China for the collision of a U.S. spy plane with
a Chinese fighter jet, saying "there is nothing to apologize for."
(Cf. 2/10/01.)
April 4, 2001: Chinese President Jiang Zemin demands that the United States
apologize for the collision between
a U.S. Navy spy jet and a Chinese fighter jet.
April 11, 2001: The U.S. sends China a formal statement of regret over
the midair collision between a US intelligence
plane and a Chinese fighter jet, but the Bush administration insists "there
is no apology."
May 24, 2001: Japan apologizes for forcing lepers to live in isolation
decades after cures were available and agrees
to pay $15 million to plaintiffs who successfully challenged laws that
isolated them.
May 28, 2001: The Roman Catholic Church of Poland apologizes for complicity
in the killing of 1,6000 Jews in Jedwabne
during World War II.
June 7, 2001: The head of Germany?s premier basic research organization,
the Max Planck Society, apologizes
on behalf of its forerunner, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, some of whose
scientists were implicated
in medical experiments at concentration camps during the Nazi era.
June 23, 2001: Australian Prime Minister John Howard says he is personally
sorry for mistreatment of Aborigines
but opposes a formal national apology because it could encourage claims
for compensation. (Cf.
8/27/99.)
July 4, 2001: Russia?s Duma passes a resolution calling on the president
"to apologize on the state's behalf to
ethnic Germans in Russia who, in the years of reprisals, lived in the
USSR territory, met with arbitrariness,
were forcibly resettled and restricted in rights for many years."
July 12, 2001: The Palestinian Authority asks Israel for an apology and
compensation for houses in the southern
Gaza Strip and near Jerusalem that were demolished by Israeli troops.
August 18, 2001: Former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan apologizes for
the loss of life between 1975 and
1979 but denies having knowledge of atrocities, saying "My mistake
was that I was too na?ve and was
out of touch with the real situation." (Cf. January, 1999.)
September 9, 2001: Indonesia president Megawati Sukarnoputri visits the
troubled province of Aceh and says she
is sorry for mistakes by past governments in the region's separatist war
that has left thousands dead.
September 18, 2001: After being criticized by the White House and Pat
Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell apologizes
for saying on Robertson?s television show "The 700 Club" that
God had allowed terrorists to attack
America on September 11 because of civil liberties groups, abortion rights
supporters, and feminists.
September 27, 2001: The leaders of the Myoshin-ji sect of Zen Buddhism
apologize in Japan for their religion?s
past ties to militarism. The leaders acknowledge that their apology is
largely motivated by Brian
Victoria?s 1997 book "Zen at War," which details the relationship
between Zen leaders and the Japanese
military in World War II.
September 22, 2001: South African Xhosa prince Xhanti Sigcawu calls for
direct talks with Queen Elizabeth to clarify
her statements about expressing guilt and/or formally apologizing for
colonizing Africa.
October 3, 2001: Human rights leaders in Nigeria demand a public apology
from former military leaders for intermittently
ousting democratically-elected governments from office.
October 8, 2001: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologizes
and expresses condolences in China for
those Chinese who lost their lives in World War II.
November 22, 2001: Pope John Paul II issues an apology for sex abuse by
priests. (Cf. 4/24/01.)
December 24, 2001: Canada?s House of Commons apologizes for the execution
of 23 Canadian soldiers by allied
firing squads for desertion or cowardice in World War I, saying the punishment
was too harsh. (The
Canadians were among 306 Commonwealth soldiers shot for desertion between
1914 and 1918.) The
apology does not erase their convictions . (Cf. July, 1998.)
January 8, 2002: President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil demands
that the U.S. apologize for remarks by
Treasury Secretary Paul O?Neill, who called Brazilians corrupt.
January 9, 2002: Boston Cardinal Bernard Law offers a public apology "with
heartfelt sorrow" to people abused
by priests as children.
January 18, 2002: Russian Communist leader Gennadi Zyuganov says Moscow
should not bow to Poland's wishes
for an apology over the massacre of Polish officers by Soviet agents at
Katyn during World War II.
February 6, 2002: Belgium apologizes for participating in the 1961 assassination
of Patrice Lumumba, Congo?s
first Prime Minister, and establishes a memorial fund to assist Congolese
youth and democracy.
February 7, 2002: The Hausa community in Idi-Araba, Nigeria, apologizes
to Governor Bola Tinubu for ethnic violence
in which over 100 people were killed.
February 27, 2002: European Union official Chris Patten apologizes to
the people of Zimbabwe for the imposition
of sanctions on February 18.
March 13, 2002: The Malaysian cabinet accepts an apology from U.S. Time
Magazine for an unflattering depiction
of the country in its February 11 edition.
March 29, 2002: As part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by 23 former
altar boys who were molested by a priest,
Oregon Archbishop John Vlazny issues a public apology to victims of sexual
abuse.
April 24, 2002: Pope John Paul II apologizes to victims of sexual abuse
by priests. (Cf. 11/22/01.)
April 29, 2002: Austria apologizes for a clinic at Am Spiegelgrund in
which 789 mentally handicapped children were
subjected to medical experiments and murder during the Nazi regime.
May 23, 2002: Japan?s Foreign Ministry asks the Chinese ambassador to
apologize for Chinese police forcibly removing
five North Korean asylum seekers from Japan?s consulate in northeast China
on May 8.
May 29, 2002: Nigerian President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo apologizes to
Nigerians for years of rights abuses by
previous governments, on the occasion of the country?s third anniversary
of establishing democracy.
May 31, 2002: Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland apologizes
for an inappropriate sexual realtionship
in the 1970?s.
June 5, 2002: Uruguay President Jorge Batlle apologizes to his Argentine
counterpart, Eduardo Duhalde, for calling
Argentina's politicians "a pack of thieves, from the first to the
last."
June 20, 2002: The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) accepts a written apology
from AOL Time Warner Vice Chairman
Ted Turner for his comments in a London newspaper justifying Palestinian
suicide bombers.
June 23, 2002: Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony apologizes to church
members for sexual abuses by priests
and asks for forgiveness.
June 24, 2002: The Quebec National Assembly unanimously votes to ask the
monarchy to admit responsibility for
the deportation of Acadians in the 1750s and 1760s.
July 13, 2002: Iranian President Mohammad Khatami calls on the United
States to apologize to the Iranian people
for its "misdeeds in the past." (Cf. 7/3/88, 7/6/99.)
July 17, 2002: The Irish Republican Army apologizes for civilian deaths
over its thirty year struggle to unite Northern
Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. (Cf. August, 1998.)
August 12, 2002: Kevin Klose, president and chief executive officer of
National Public Radio (NPR), apologizes for
a story suggesting that the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), a conservative
group with 43,000 member
churches, was linked to anthrax-laced letters sent to Senators Tom Daschle
and Patrick Leahy.
August 15, 2002: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expresses regrets
about Japan?s past aggression.
August 21, 2002: The Independent National Electoral Commission demands
an apology from the leadership of the
All Nigeria Peoples Party over the party's allegation that the commission
was responsible for problems
at its convention on July 27, 2002.
September, 2002: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il acknowledges that North
Korean agents kidnapped Japanese
civilians in order to assume their identities and apologizes for the deaths
of eight of the victims.
September 13, 2002: Bishop Charles G. Palmer-Buckle Of Ghana apologizes
on behalf of Africans for the part Africans
themselves played in the slave trade.
September 21, 2002: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder apologizes for
remarks by German Justice Minister
Herta Daubler-Gmelin that compared President George W. Bush's Iraq tactics
to Hitler's tactics.
September 25, 2002: Senate leader Tom Daschle demands that President Bush
apologize for suggesting that Senate
Democrats care more about special interests than national security.
October 7, 2002: The German media company Bertelsmann expresses regret
for its collaboration with the Nazi
regime and notes that it has joined over 6,000 other German companies
that have agreed to pay $4.5
billion to people who performed forced labor under the Nazis.
October 8, 2002: Dublin Archbishop Cardinal Desmond Connell apologizes
to people who were sexually abused
as children by Church officials.
October 14, 2002: The Rev. Jerry Falwell apologizes for calling the Prophet
Muhammad a "terrorist" during a recent
television interview. Muslim leaders welcome the apology.
October 27, 2002: Russian President Vladimir Putin apologizes on television
to the families of dozens of hostages
who died when special forces gassed the theater where they were being
held by Chechen rebels.
October, 2002: A few days after receiving a hundred percent of the vote
in a referendum on his leadership, Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein issues a general pardon, freeing thousands of
political prisoners.
November 8, 2002: After pleading guilty to murder, former members of the
Symbionese Liberation Army apologize
for a 1975 shooting in a California bank. The members were brought to
trial after the victim?s family
pressured prosecutors to proceed based on information in newspaper heiress
Patricia Hearst?s 1982
book on the terrorists.
November 8, 2002: Abu Abbas, the leader of terrorist group responsible
for hijacking the Achille Lauro ship in 1985,
expresses regret but does not apologize for the killing of American Leon
Klinghoffer.
November 16, 2002: A group representing Slovakia?s surviving Jews asks
Germany for compensation for deporting
57,000 Slovak Jews to Nazi death camps in 1942 with one-way tickets that
were paid for with their
own property. Germany refuses, contending that the Slovak state, not Nazi
Germany, deported the
Jews and that the Jews who died did not appoint the current Jewish community
to collect damages.
November 28, 2002: Amer Aziz, a Pakistani surgeon, claims that he received
an apology from the F.B.I. and C.I.A.
after being released from several weeks of secret detention and interrogation
for suspected terrorist
ties in Islamabad, Pakistan.
November 28, 2002: President Bush apologizes, via the U.S. ambassador
in Seuol, for the deaths of two South
Korean girls hit by a U.S. military vehicle in June.
December 7, 2002: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein apologizes for invading
Kuwait in August, 1990.
December 10, 2002: Senator
Trent Lott issues a written apology for a speech the week before, in which
he praised Senator
Strom Thurmond?s 1948 segregationist campaign for U.S. president. Democrats
and others had called
for the apology. Lott repeats his apology several times over the next
several days, repeatedly
appealing for "forbearance and forgiveness." He also expands
his apology to include not only
the remarks in question, but also various instances of past "misbehavior"
and insensitivity with regard
to racial issues.
December 11, 2002: Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage issues another
official apology to South Korean
President Kim Dae Jung for the deaths of two South Korean girls crushed
by an American armored
vehicle in June.
December 14, 2002: Boston archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law resigns, apologizes,
and begs forgiveness for his
mishandling of priests implicated in the Catholic Church sexual abuse
scandal.
December 17, 2002: The Norwegian Parliament votes to compensate the estimated
12,000 children of German
soldiers who occupied the country during World War II for discrimination
they suffered growing up
in Norway after the war.
December 30, 2002: Leaders of a rebel group in Ivory Coast apologize for
firing on French troops near Duekoke.
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