WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Prime Minister Helen Clark offered a formal apology Tuesday for New Zealand’s inept rule of its former South Pacific colony Samoa, as the tiny islands nation celebrated 40 years of independence.
Among disasters to hit Samoa while it was a New Zealand colony were a 1918 influenza epidemic which killed 22 percent of the population, the shooting of nine people during a 1929 independence march and the subsequent exiling of Samoan chiefs.
“It is important to us to acknowledge tragic events which caused great pain and sorrow in Samoa,” Clark said.
“On behalf of the New Zealand government, I wish to offer today a formal apology to the people of Samoa for the injustices arising from New Zealand’s administration of Samoa in its early years, and to express sorrow and regret for those injustices,” she added.
The apology came in a speech at a ceremony at Mulinuu, just outside the Samoan capital, Apia, to mark Samoa’s independence from New Zealand in 1962.
Clark said she had gone to Samoa to deal with “unfinished business” over its past colonial rule of Samoa, which it took over from Germany in 1914.
New Zealand ruled Samoa until 1962 under a mandate from the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations.
Clark said she hoped the apology would allow “an even stronger relationship” to develop between the two countries.
More than 115,000 people among New Zealand’s 3.98 million people identify themselves as Samoans.
Once known as Western Samoa, Samoa has a population of about 164,000. The U.S. territory of American Samoa comprises several islands in the same South Pacific island group.
