For some Greenlanders, sorry isn’t enough.
The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen,
made a special visit Wednesday to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, to apologize in
person for a traumatic chapter in Greenlandic history, when Danish doctors
forced birth control on a whole generation of Indigenous(當地的;本土的，土生土長的) Greenlandic women and girls.
Frederiksen has stepped up(增加（尺寸或數量）；加快（進程）的速度) her efforts to
repair relations with Greenland and address old wounds, ever since President
Donald Trump insisted that the United States take over Greenland, a semiautonomous(半自主的) Danish overseas territory.
But the reception(感受；反應；回應) was mixed.
There were gray-haired Greenlandic women in
the audience who had been victimized and silently weathered(因風吹日曬而褪色的，受到風雨侵蝕的，風化的) the ordeal(磨難；苦難；嚴峻考驗；煎熬) for decades. Some wiped away tears. Others sat stoned-faced(不顯露任何情緒的;面無表情的). One woman painted black
stripes on her face and stood during the speech with her back turned to
Frederiksen, in
protest(以示抗議;反對).
“I know I cannot take away your pain or give
back what you lost,” Frederiksen said. “But I hope it can stand as recognition
that what you went through was wrong, that it was a betrayal, and that the
responsibility no longer lies on you but on us.”
Some people at the event were suspicious(可疑的，引起懷疑的) about the timing,
saying that the Danish government is apologizing only now that Trump had ratcheted(單向加緊，逐步增加／減少) up
pressure over Greenland.
“Why didn’t they say sorry 30 years ago or
20 years ago or even 10 years ago?” asked Qupanuk Olsen, a Greenlandic social
media influencer who recently resigned from Greenland’s parliament. “This story
is being forced on us because they’re so afraid that we will become independent
or a state under the United States.”
The contraception scandal goes back to the
1960s, when the Danish government began a decades-long campaign to control the
growth of Greenland’s population. Danish doctors invited Greenlandic women and
girls for checkups and implanted(（手術中）植入，移植) intrauterine(子宮內的) birth control devices in them.
In many cases, the women and girls were not
told what was being done and found out only years later, when they started
having health complications(併發症). Some of the patients were as young as 12, and some were left infertile for life(終身不孕).
(Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli)
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