Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) was the butt of the joke after he displayed a placard that used an incorrect Chinese character in his accusation that a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) draft act regarding transitional justice would restore the “Green Taiwan Garrison Command.”
The move was not only a joke, but also ironic and irritating.
It was ironic that a KMT politician would accuse the DPP of installing a Taiwan Garrison Command, because anyone with even a little knowledge of Taiwanese history would know that the command was a product of the KMT’s authoritarian regime from 1945 until martial law was lifted in 1987, a secret police organization imposing tight controls over freedom of expression, assembly and political participation. The command spied on its own people. It was in charge of reviewing books, magazines, newspapers and movies prior to their release. It arrested, tortured and jailed dissidents, or at least those suspected of being dissidents.
How could a KMT politician be so shameless as to accuse the DPP of installing a “green” command when most of the DPP’s founding members were among those persecuted by the KMT’s Taiwan Garrison Command?
It is irritating when the KMT accuses the DPP and the New Power Party of proposing transitional justice to bring about a purge and political repression.
Transitional justice has nothing to do with repression at all.
The KMT should know better than any party what a “political purge” and “political repression” are.
During the nearly four decades of martial law, tens of thousands of people were put behind bars, sent to Green Island (綠島), or executed because they were involved in anti-government activities — which were supposed to be protected as basic rights in the Constitution of the so-called “free China” — or just because they said something the government did not like.
Huang Kuang-hai (黃廣海) was a soldier who retreated to Taiwan with KMT troops in 1950. He was arrested in 1954 and sentenced to life in prison for “spreading rumors to shake public confidence in the government,” having written letters to friends in Hong Kong complaining about the government and saying that he did not believe Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) troops were capable of retaking China.
Huang was released in 1975, having spent 21 years of his life in prison because he said something that — based on today’s standards — is no big deal.
What happened to writer Po Yang (柏楊) was even more ridiculous.
As a newspaper editor in 1967, Po’s translation of a Popeye comic was seen by the government as a satirical criticism of Chiang.
Po was sentenced to 12 years in prison for “being a communist spy” and “criticizing the nation’s leader.”
With so many lives sacrificed during the Martial Law period, it is natural that the people who were affected should see justice done — although nothing could really compensate for the lives lost and time wasted because of the regime’s fear of losing control over Taiwan.
Taiwanese should “move forward” — as the KMT always says — but before they do, the past should be dealt with. The way to do so is to honestly face it, admit the mistakes and compensate those who were affected.
Of course, the nation’s leaders and officials who are responsible for misdeeds should be held accountable, and the KMT should stop making the nonsense excuse that Chiang and his son, former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), did more good than harm.
Only once the KMT honestly faces its ugly past will it be able to bid it farewell.
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