KMT politicizing SET-TV 228 footage issue: DPP

SET-TV news chief editor Chen Ya-lin, second left, bows yesterday during a press conference to apologize for errors the station made during a special report on the 228 Incident. PHOTO: CNA

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus of politicizing the controversy of SET-TV's use of footage shot in Shanghai in its special report commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 228 Incident.

"Everyone hates fabricated news stories, but SET-TV only used the wrong footage in the special report about the 228 Incident. Using the wrong footage is not the equivalent of fabricating a news story," DPP caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said during a press conference.

"The KMT cannot deny its history of killing people in Taiwan by attacking SET-TV's application of the Shanghai footage in its special report about the 228 Incident," he said.

"The protest by KMT politicians outside the TV station [on Tuesday night] will only lead to the division of ethnic communities in Taiwan," he said.

The 228 Incident refers to the uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947, against the KMT regime.

The KMT crushed the uprising by killing tens of thousands of Taiwanese.

SET-TV broadcast the series of special reports on the 228 Incident from March 3 through March 7. The 13 episodes were part of a program called Formosa Notes anchored by the SET-TV news chief editor Chen Ya-lin (陳雅琳).

The Chinese-language United Daily News on Tuesday said that SET-TV had passed off an image of a KMT officer executing a Chinese Communist Party member in Shanghai in 1948 as that of a Taiwanese being killed by the KMT during the 228 Incident.

At a press conference yesterday, KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said: "There is a saying that when a lie is told 1,000 times, it becomes a truth. This was SET-TV's motive for the special report -- to make people think of the KMT when the brutal image comes to mind."

Meanwhile, a group of KMT lawmakers demanded yesterday that the Government Information Office (GIO) suspend its plan to make copies of the program and release them to schools.

The KMT said that the DPP had likely pushed the GIO to make the special report as SET-TV secured an NT$960,000 contract from the government to make the series.

GIO Director Lin Chin-sheng (林進盛) dismissed the accusation, saying that it was the 228 Memorial Foundation's proposal to make the series and that the GIO had never interfered with SET-TV's after the station took on the project.

In a meeting of People First Party lawmakers, Lin said that the GIO would not payment to SET-TV unless it correct the errors in the special report.

Pan-blue lawmakers' reactions to the series irritated victims of the 228 Incident and their family members, prompting them to call a press conference to voice support for SET-TV.

"We want to thank SET-TV for making the special report on the 228 Incident. While the image was not about 228 Incident, many Taiwanese people were killed in exactly the same way as that shown in the film," Chang Chiu-wu (張秋梧) said.

Director-general of the Taiwan 228 Union Chou Chen-thai (周振才) said: "The massacre of Taiwanese was much more brutal and vicious than that shown in the report."

Chou added that he admired SET-TV for broadcasting the report.