Former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (
The site, where the Yi-Kwang Presbyterian Church now stands, is where his six-year-old twin daughters and 60-year-old mother were murdered on Feb. 28, 1980.
Lin yesterday returned to the site on Hsin-yi Road with friends and church leaders who had gathered with him to commemorate the day.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
"It has been 22 years. I want to express my gratitude for those who have showed concern for us. Without the support from [these friends] we probably could not have continued on this path," Lin said.
Many of those attending the commemoration ceremony cried during Lin's speech.
To return his friends' love, Lin said, he had constantly encouraged his wife and his surviving daughter to lead meaningful and useful lives.
"I have tried very hard to carry on," he said. "To be one's own master and to control one's own destiny are the eternal desires of human beings, and democracy is the most significant system to help us realize this desire."
Under the sponsorship of the Chilin Foundation (
The museum exhibits documents, photos, newspapers, pamphlets, posters and T-shirts related to democracy movements.
Lin said the museum's aim is to generate determination among Taiwanese to consolidate the development of democracy.
Taiwan's history of democratic development has shown that the promotion of democracy is constantly challenged by relentless obstacles, according to Lin, and each conflict and effort to intimidate puts the existence of democracy in peril.
"Only by adhering firmly to democratic beliefs and resolving internal discord through democratic measures can crises be defused," he said.
Lin knows the cost of championing democracy all too well.
His daughters Liang-chun (亮均) and Ting-chun (亭均) and his mother Lin Yu Ah-mei (林游阿妹) were killed by a man, dressed in black, who broke into Lin's home while both Lin and his wife were away.
Lin was in jail -- he had been arrested on Dec. 13, 1979, for participating in a human-rights rally in Kaohsiung three days earlier. His wife, Fang Su-min (方素敏), was attending the public hearing into what was by then already called the Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件).
Lin's eldest daughter, Huan-chun (
The murderer has never been apprehended. However, Lin and many Taiwanese believe that the killings were politically motivated.
The murders -- on the anniversary of the 228 Incident (二二八事件), in which Taiwanese rebelling against KMT rule in 1947 were massacred -- rocked the nation.
The twins and their grandmother were not buried until Lin was released from jail in 1985.
After the murders, Fang and Huan-chun moved to the US to start a new life. Fang returned to Taiwan and ran in the 1983 Legislative Yuan elections in memory of the twins and Lin's mother.
"I don't know if [the murderer] is still alive now," Fang once said.
"But I don't hate him, because love is our best weapon."
Lin is revered by many Tai-wanese for transforming his personal sorrow into strength to struggle for the country's democracy.
The DPP came into power under his leadership, ending the KMT's five-decade-long rule after Chen Shui-bian (
Lin now spends much of his time running the Tzulin Cultural and Education Foundation, a pro-Taiwan political and environmental pressure group.
Huan-chun still lives in the US. She married an American in 1998 and her second child was born four days ago.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS