Sixty years after a bloody event that continues to shape Taiwan's society, harsh words and angry exchanges yesterday between top political leaders proved how difficult it is to overcome the past.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) rejected accusations that he was inciting ethnic tensions by blaming dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) for the 228 Incident, a violent uprising and crackdown that began on Feb. 27, 1947, and resulted in the murder of perhaps 20,000 civilians.
"How can there be any truth if the perpetrator is afraid of facing it?" the president asked.
Chen made the remarks while meeting victims and their families at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
He said he has never called the incident an ethnic issue.
The administration will "adjust the special treatment" extended to Chiang by renaming Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and the presidential burial sites, Chen said.
He also called on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to "face the truth" and vowed to take action to assign responsibility.
A victims' group presented a petition to Chen, requesting that the Ministry of Justice investigate the 228 Incident, and that the legislature pass a law establishing a special court to put Chiang and his accomplices on trial.
At another event in Chiayi County, the president formally apologized to the victims on behalf of the government.
Meanwhile, efforts by a former KMT chairman to address the topic have stirred anger among some relatives of victims.
Presidential hopeful Ma Ying-jeou (
Hsiao walked into the room shouting "Stop making political shows, Ma Ying-jeou!"
"Don't politicize the event anymore! I am the real victim!" he said.
Hsiao stormed out of the room, refusing to speak to reporters who approached him, except to say: "I have a lot of resentment, but so what? Nobody really cares."
Another 228 family member later joined Hsiao and urged Ma to admit the party's culpability.
Ma began meeting with 228 victims and family members when he was the mayor of Taipei, but his attempts to engage them have often ended in protests and angry confrontations.
Ma made no remarks in response to Hsiao, merely calling on the president not to use the event as a weapon against rivals.
"It is more crucial to solve the country's economic and social problems, instead of taking advantage of a historical event for election purposes," Ma said after the meeting.
It is still too early to pass judgment on Chiang, he added.
Another KMT heavyweight, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
He said that, no matter how the incident was handled, victims' families should be able to see their loved ones' spirits go to rest.
Wang Jin-pyng made the remarks when he met a delegation of victims and their families -- led by Wang Wen-hung (
Wang Wen-hung called on the legislature to pass a special law to establish a special commission on the investigation of the truth of the 228 Incident.
"What the government has done amounts to 90 [percent], and we need help from the legislature to finish the remaining 10 [percent]," Wang Wen-hung said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun urged the government to stop treating the late dictator as a hero.
After the party's Central Executive Committee meeting, Yu told a press conference that the party would urge the Cabinet to order the Ministry of National Defense to remove the military police guarding Chiang's mausoleum.
"It is clear that Chiang Kai-shek was the prime culprit of not only the 228 Incident, but also the White Terror," Yu said.
He showed reporters copies of official documents in which Chiang ordered several people executed.
A special court should be established to try people involved, DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (
Former premier Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh made the remark before attending an international forum held to mark the 60th anniversary of the massacre.
also see stories:
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - Sixty years on, answers remain elusive
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - Former journalist recalls torture in basement prison
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - Taipei documentary provokes outrage
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - Filmmaker recalls family's misery
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - Minister of education unveils 228 exhibition
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - KMT's 228 regrets are perhaps a step forward
The 228 Incident: Sixty years on - Victim tells of his suffering during White Terror era
Editorial: Historical record is key to justice
Randall Schriver on Taiwan: The 228 Incident and American perceptions
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS