The Presidential Office yesterday urged the family of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (
Presidential Office Spokesman David Lee (
Lee said that in January 2004 Faina Chiang Fang-liang had asked the Ministry of National Defense to arrange for the interment of the two men.
The request was approved by Chen in April that year.
The interment was scheduled for September and the government earmarked NT$39 million (US$1.2 million) for the project.
More than NT$27 million was spent on the construction of a tomb at the Wuchihshan Military Cemetery (
When Nancy Chiang passed away in August 2005, however, the remaining family members could not reach a consensus on the issue.
In December 2005, the Ministry of the Interior decided to keep the appropriation open until last year.
But Lee said the funds could be returned to the treasury if the Chiang family does not tell the government by the end of this month that it wants to proceed with the internment.
If the family decides to go ahead, the money will be released.
The issue of transferring the remains of the two leaders was raised again after Democratic Progressive Party legislators proposed redeploying the guards assigned to the Tzuhu Presidential Burial Place (
The defense ministry said that it would continue to maintain the mausoleum unless Chiang's family made a second request to move the remains.
When Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975, his remains were placed in a temporary mausoleum at Tzuhu until they could be returned to China for burial.
The body of Chiang Ching-kuo, who died in 1988, was placed in a specially built mausoleum in Touliao (
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