Hundreds of campaigners marched in Taipei yesterday to commemorate the 228 Incident, calling for the government to officially assign responsibility for the massacre which followed a 1947 protest.
Escalating protests swept Taiwan on Feb. 28, 1947, after Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents confiscated contraband cigarettes from a woman outside Taipei’s Tianma Tea House (天馬茶房) on Nanjing W Road on Feb. 27. When the woman was hit on the head by an officer holding a gun, the crowd surrounded the agents, who responded by fleeing with one agent shooting into the crowd and killing a bystander.
A subsequent bloody crackdown by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime systematically killed many Taiwanese.
Photo: Wang Yi-song, Taipei Times
Only partial documentation of the events and victims has been recovered, with the government-funded 228 Memorial Foundation officially recognizing more than 2,200 victims.
More than 26 groups were represented at yesterday’s march through key historic sites, but no individual banners were raised.
Campaigners solemnly read out the names of those who were killed or went missing in the Incident.
Photo: Wang Yi-song, Taipei Times
“As the victims are gradually forgotten, Feb. 28 has diminished into a holiday lacking emotion,” Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation managing director Cheng Tsing-hua (鄭清華) said. “We are still at the starting line in terms of discovering the truth, because the identities of many victims and perpetrators are unknown.”
He called for the government to hasten passage of transitional justice legislation, which would establish a special committee with powers to investigate the Incident and other injustices under the then-KMT authoritarian rule.
Government discussions over the fate of the National Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) Memorial Hall were “more symbolic than substantial,” he said.
“The victims of the 228 Incident are not just those listed, its greatest victim was Taiwan itself, including the descendants of the perpetrators,” he said. “Without the truth, we do not have the preconditions for forgiveness.”
Cheng is a brother of democracy movement pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), who in 1987 spearheaded a national campaign for Feb. 28 to be designated a national holiday shortly after the lifting of martial law.
Veteran activists Chen Yung-hsing (陳永興) and Lee Sheng-hsiung (李勝雄), who collaborated with Deng, led yesterday’s procession as it wound its way from Nanjing W Road to the Executive Yuan, where troops fired into a crowd of protesters during the massacre. The building served as the headquarters of then-Taiwan Governor Chen Yi (陳儀).
The march also passed the former site of a Tobacco Monopoly Bureau office which was sacked the same day, and a radio station building which was occupied and used to spread word of the protests.
The procession concluded with a prayer and singing while participants scattered satin flower petals over white cloth to symbolize mourning.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
DEFENSE: The first set of three NASAMS that were previously purchased is expected to be delivered by the end of this year and deployed near the capital, sources said Taiwan plans to procure 28 more sets of M-142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as nine additional sets of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), military sources said yesterday. Taiwan had previously purchased 29 HIMARS launchers from the US and received the first 11 last year. Once the planned purchases are completed and delivered, Taiwan would have 57 sets of HIMARS. The army has also increased the number of MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) purchased from 64 to 84, the sources added. Each HIMARS launch pod can carry six Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, capable of
CHINA’s BULLYING: The former British prime minister said that he believes ‘Taiwan can and will’ protect its freedom and democracy, as its people are lovers of liberty Former British prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said Western nations should have the courage to stand with and deepen their economic partnerships with Taiwan in the face of China’s intensified pressure. He made the remarks at the ninth Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prospect Foundation in Taipei. Johnson, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, said he had seen Taiwan’s coastline on a screen on his indoor bicycle, but wanted to learn more about the nation, including its artificial intelligence (AI) development, the key technology of the 21st century. Calling himself an
South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”
RSS