(IPS) - feature Aboriginal groups have accused the Australian government of attempting to whitewash the history of the policy of the forced removal of over 50,000 Aboriginal children from their parents.

At a recent protest rally against the construction in Canberra of the US$2.9 million 'reconciliation' monument on Aboriginal Australia, victims of the government policy tearfully told of the devastating consequences of that policy.

Ruth Linow, from the Ngunawal people, told of the sadness of being separated from her mother. ''I feel very sad today. Being an Aboriginal person and put away to be brought up as a white girl was very, very devastating for me. I lost my mother when I was five years of age. I was put in an orphanage and told my mother was dead. In actual fact she wasstill alive,'' she said.

The monument has been dogged by protests since it was discovered that key displays dealing with the policy of forced removal would feature ''images of children at play, in foster homes and at school'' and a recording of children singing.

''I first read about the so-called memorial and I was absolutely devastated,'' said co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee and a member of the stolen generation, Audrey Kinnear.

The policy - which commenced in the 1880's and persisted until 1970 - removed mainly part-Aboriginal children from their parents and sent them to church-run homes or foster parents in the hope they would be assimilated into white Australian society.

Estimates are that between 1910 and 1970 up to 55,000 children were removed from their parents, which during the peak periods in the 1920's and 1950's, accounted for one in three Aboriginal children.

Unwilling to concede

In a submission to a recent Senate Inquiry, the Commonwealth government audaciously submitted ''there never was a stolen generation of Aboriginal people''. They claim that since only 10 percent of Aboriginal people were forcibly removed it was wrong to refer to ''stolen generations''.

Ahead of Saturday's protest, the minister assisting the prime minister on reconciliation, Phillip Ruddock, rejected the need to consult with members of the ''stolen generations''. He said: ''The government believes that to incorporate the specific views of a particular group would only serve to exclude others.''

Kinnear argues Aboriginal people simply want their experience accurately represented and have no interest in censoring other views.

''Why not include everyone? Ruddock could bring together representatives of the stolen generations with others caught up in the removal policies - the missionaries, the church institutions, the foster parents, and the police who removed children. Together they could create a commemoration which helps illuminate this painful chapter of a history from different angles,'' she suggested.

While the government has consulted with veteran groups prior to building nearby military memorials, Ruddock is unwilling to concede the similarity to the reconciliation monument.

''There can be no comparison,'' he said of the military memorials, because they ''commemorate those who died as well as those who served in various theatres of war or in military service.''

Lack of consultation

Kinnear is appalled at the lack of awareness of the consequences of the policy of removing has and continues to have. ''The cost has been immense in terms of broken families, shattered physical and mental health, loss of language, torture in connection to traditional land, loss of parenting skills and death,'' she said.

The concept of the monument was announced after the largest political rallies in Australia's recent history in September 2000 when half a million Australians marched in protest at the refusal of the Liberal Party Prime Minister, John Howard, to issue a formal apology to the ''stolen generations''.

''Reconciliation Place will ... recognise the shared journey between the different people of the Australian nation, and will include a memorial and depiction of the removal of children from their families as part of the very difficult and traumatic experience of the indigenous people of this community,'' Howard said in December 2000.

Last month, former Liberal Prime Minister and Co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee, Malcom Fraser, condemned the failure to consult with members of the stolen generation about the design.

''The lack of consultation on the content and design of this place threatens to make it more a source of division than of reconciliation. Not one of those who were removed has been consulted about the design,'' he said.

In a statement read during a recent rally, the only Aboriginal member of Parliament, Senator Aden Ridgeway, called for a boycott of the proposed Reconciliation Place.

''We not should be led to this place by a revisionist view of history, but rather by the Stolen Generations themselves. Until such time as they sanction this monument to a full and proper account of history, no decent-thinking Australian should violate the sanctity of human emotions by giving support where it is not deserved,'' he said.