Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized on Monday for his country's role in the transatlantic slave trade, making the Netherlands one of few European countries to formally acknowledge its slaveholding past.
"Today, I apologize," Rutte said during a speech in The Hauge. "For centuries under Dutch state authority, human dignity was violated in the most horrific way possible. Successive Dutch governments after 1863 failed to adequately see and acknowledge that our slavery past continued to have negative effects and still does. For that, I offer the apologies of the Dutch government."
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