What happened is a disgrace and should be redressed however late it is now.
What happened was political reality, no different from the dismissal of Conscientious objectors over here by public bodies, not nice BUT existing voters likely required something.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the danger is that everyone ends up apologising for things they never had any control over in the 1st place.
Has UK apologised for allowing Nazi's take Sudentenland and infamous piece of paper ? etc etc.
After a while the catch all of "lets apologise for everything" ends up being a mere sop with little feeling behind it but its a nice media event.