Academics call on government to release 228 papers

The Taiwan Association of University Professors yesterday appealed to the government to publish all documents on the 228 Incident, including those relating to the order for the crackdown which resulted in Taiwan's bloodiest massacre.

It said that only by so doing could the government fulfill its responsibility to history and return to the people the right to interpret the past.

"Some files and documents relating to this incident have been declassified during recent years, in step with the gradual democratization and liberation of our society. But many of them still remain shrouded in secrecy," said Chen I-shen (陳儀深), vice chairman of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.

"The public remains unclear about what actually happened and it therefore cannot see the event's true historical significance," Chen said.

Members of the association held a seminar to review the 228 Incident and its impact on the growth of Taiwan consciousness. They urged the government to face its responsibilities and learn from the historical event to prevent such incidents from ever happening again.

Chen, a society member and associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica, said that since the government had taken measures to compensate and console victims of the 228 Incident during the last eight years, the "the real truth of this incident" had escaped the public.

"Since former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) formally apologized to victims of the incident for past wrongs on behalf of the central government in 1995 and the Legislative Yuan passed the Regulations for Compensation for Improper Trial Cases of Sedition and Spies during the Martial Law Period (戒嚴時期不當叛亂暨匪諜審判案件補償條例)," Chen said, "many people have come to believe that the incident is settled. Some memorial activities have seemed perfunctory or purely ceremonial as a result."

The association noted that when the Feb. 28 Memorial Monument was erected in Taipei, it had no words engraved upon it, which, they said, indicated that the historical facts were still unclear and the historical responsibility still uncertain. "But all such issues seem to have been forgotten," Chen said.

The academics pointed out that if the historical facts "are not available," then the words "forgiveness and love" are just empty slogans.

The president of Academia Historica, Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), who attended the seminar, said that though more and more information on the 228 Incident has surfaced, there appeared to be uncertainty about the right to interpret the incident.

"The right to interpret the incident should lie in the hands of the people of Taiwan and not be viewed from the perspective of an authoritarian ruler," Chang said.