Forum told care needed to avoid ethnic tensions

Even though transitional justice is essential to reconciliation between ethnic groups in a post-authoritarian country like Taiwan, it should be achieved carefully to avoid causing new tensions, participants at a forum on the subject said yesterday.

"Reconciliation does not just come with democracy — let's take Switzerland and Belgium for example," Chien Hsi-chieh, executive director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, told the forum.

"Both countries are democratic, however, ethnic issues are still a big concern," Chien said. "In Belgium, conflicts between the French-speaking and the Flemish-speaking populations halted the formation of a government for months after elections."

A similar scenario exists in Taiwan — although it has completed a democratic transition, justice is yet to be done to victims of the decades-long Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) dictatorship.

However mentioning transitional justice risks fanning ethnic tensions since the late dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) is still regarded as a hero by most Mainlanders, he said.

"Many people view Chiang as the savior of the nation, but I only see him as a dictator," said Lin Shih-yu (林世煜), a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Promotion Association.

"Now that the KMT has returned to power, the biggest challenge to the movement for transitional justice — that [president-elect] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has promised to support him — is to deal with differences in how various groups of people view Chiang," he said.

Chien that the government should not try to achieve transitional justice itself.

Instead government should make the initiative, and leave the discussion to civil society, so that the two sides could reach an agreement through continuous dialogue," Chien said.

Former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) supported Chien's view, and pointed out a feasible direction.

"We may start transitional justice by dealing with less controversial and less political issues," Lee said. "A lot of former landlords had their lands confiscated during the Japanese colonial and the KMT authoritarian periods — we could begin by compensating them."

Lee that Ma may consider not paying respects to Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) while president.

"I understand that Ma has a personal emotional attachment to Chiang Ching-kuo since Ma used to work for him and owes his success to him," Lee told the forum. "I'd fully support his decision to pay respects to the Chiangs as an individual — however, he should consider not doing so as a president.