Opposition snubs meeting on 228 bill

A meeting of the legislature's Judiciary Committee that was to review legislation holding family members responsible for the 228 Incident and the White Terror era did not take place yesterday because of insufficient attendance, after legislators from the opposition parties boycotted the meeting.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Sing-nan (王幸男), who, along with caucus whip Wang Tuoh (王拓), Legislator Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅) and 30 other DPP legislators, initiated the legislation, said that the proposal was about clearing up White Terror incidents through judicial processes and learning how officials from the former government had oppressed citizens.

Wang said the proposal stipulates that relatives of those responsible would represent their family members by attending the hearings and that they would enjoy legal rights and be protected from bearing criminal responsibility for the acts of the deceased.

The DPP legislative caucus yesterday held a press conference to make the details of the proposal public.

Wang Tuoh said the facts about the killings would only be learned through investigations and that because many documents related to killings that took place during that period have been classified as confidential, the DPP had no choice but to come up with the proposal to facilitate the investigations.

Wang Tuoh said the relatives of those responsible would attend the hearing and be confronted by victims' families, but would not be expected to assume criminal responsibility.

Wang Tuoh said the proposal would help most Mainlanders clear their names and that of their ancestors as the outcome of the investigations would demonstrate that most of them had nothing to do with government repression.

Approached for comments on the matter, DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday defended the proposed legislation.

Hsieh said the bill was intended to give the subsequent generations of people responsible for the crimes committed during the White Terror era a chance to defend their ancestors rather than to affix blame for past crimes.

"The proposed legislation means well, so please don't misunderstand it," he told reporters in Taoyuan County yesterday.

At a separate setting in Taipei City, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday that while the DPP has every right to enact such a law, the legislation could not be allowed to go too far.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to stop blurring the lines and twisting the DPP's good intentions.

While underscoring the fact that the proposed bill did not seek to implicate families of the now-deceased perpetrators of the 228 Incident, he said that the KMT must nevertheless recognize that it shares a large part of the blame for the imposition of martial law.

"The KMT owes Taiwanese an apology and an explanation about whether a `career student' gathering information for the KMT during the White Terror era is still active and even running for president," he said.

Shieh said that innocent people would not be implicated under the proposed law and that the families of the perpetrators could offer their side of the story to counter any wrongful accusation made against their ancestors.

Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓), director of the DPP's Culture and Information Department, urged the KMT and its presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), to face the truth about the 228 Incident and admit that many Taiwanese were persecuted during the White Terror era.