A decision about the fate of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei would be made before early next year, Transitional Justice Commission members said yesterday.
The commission would also consider options for transitioning the Cihu Mausoleum (慈湖陵寢), where Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) is entombed, they told a news conference in Taipei.
The news conference had been called to announce the dates and locations of three public meetings on implementing transitional justice and a human-rights vision for the nation.
Photo: Wang Yi-song, Taipei Times
While legislation can provide recompense for the financial damages and loss to reputation suffered by victims of the White Terror era, such measures in themselves are not enough to meet the demands of justice, commission Deputy Chairman Chang Tien-chin (張天欽) said.
The commission is dedicated to recovering historical truths, removing authoritarian symbols and healing societal trauma, so it is inviting victims of political persecution or their surviving family members to the public meetings so that it can explain its goals and policies, and to hear their opinions, Chang said.
The first public meeting is to be held tomorrow at the Jingmei Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park in Taipei’s Xindian District (新店), the commission said.
The second is scheduled for Sept. 16 at the Taichung Cultural and Creative Industries Park and the third will be at the Kaohsiung Municipal Library on Sept. 30.
The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall would “certainly undergo a transition,” which the Ministry of Culture has been preparing for since last year, commission member Yang Tsui (楊翠) said.
The commission would soon begin talks on the specifics, such as uses for the site and what should be down with Chiang’s statute, she said.
The ministry is drafting amendments to the Organization Act of National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Management Office (國立中正紀念堂管理處組織法), which would lay out the steps regarding those issues, she said.
Asked about commission’s plans for the Cihu Mausoleum, Yang said the mausoleum is “definitely on the commission’s agenda,” but it has not begun discussions about it.
Lan Yun-jo (藍芸若), the daughter of White Terror victim Lan Ming-ku (藍明谷), said it is not right that the persecutors have not been identified or that she had to live with the infamy of being the daughter of an accused communist spy for 70 years.
“My father would have been pleased to visit the memorial parks if they had imprisoned him for a dozen years instead of being shot,” she said. “Many victims are living in the shadow of history and I hope the commission would give us justice.”
Lang Ming-ku, a 32-year-old teacher in Keelung, was arrested in 1951 and executed without trial.
TENSE SITUATION: If the storm does not bring rain, Taiwan might have to wait until next month amid water scarcity in the center and south, an expert said Typhoon Surigae is to bring rain to the nation’s east coast and mountainous areas in central and southern Taiwan from Wednesday to Friday, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 1,170km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip. The radius of the storm was 280km, and it was moving northwest at 9kph, with a maximum wind speed of 198kph. The bureau forecasts that the storm would switch to a northerly direction when approaching the east coast of Luzon Island in the Philippines on Wednesday, CWB forecaster Lin Ding-yi (林定宜) said, adding that Surigae would
SEEKING CLARITY: Some members of the US delegation asked KMT legislators in a meeting to address their party’s position on the so-called ‘1992 consensus,’ sources said A US delegation tasked by US President Joe Biden to reaffirm the country’s commitment to its partnership with Taiwan yesterday wrapped up a three-day visit to Taipei. Former US senator Chris Dodd, former US deputy secretaries of state Richard Armitage and James Steinberg, and US Department of State Office of Taiwan Coordination Director Dan Biers departed at 11:20am on a private jet. The members of the delegation, all friends of Biden, arrived on Wednesday and met with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and other government officials. During the three-day visit, the delegation also met with six members of the Legislative
Taipei’s street names should reflect a “Taiwanese spirit,” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said in an online video released yesterday, in which he asked why many of them are named after locations in China. In a three-minute video uploaded to a Facebook page called “Taiwanese Uncle Ko Wen-je” (台灣阿北柯文哲), the mayor suggested changing the names of Taipei streets. The page’s banner was a photograph of Ko on Jade Mountain’s (玉山) main peak. The page was closed at about noon, about four hours after it was made public. Ko said that street names in the capital named “Ningxia,” “Tibet,” “Beiping” — an old name for
‘AN EXCUSE’: The intent of Beijing’s incursions was ‘intimidation and coercion,’ a senior US official said, adding that China was using the US to justify its actions Chinese carrier drills and stepped-up incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in the past few weeks are meant to send a message to Washington to stand down and back off, security sources in Taipei said. The increased activity — which China, unusually, described as “combat drills” on Wednesday — has raised alarm in both Taipei and Washington, although security officials do not see it as a sign of an imminent attack. Rather, at least some of the exercises are practicing “access denial” maneuvers to prevent foreign forces from coming to Taipei’s defense in a war, one official familiar with Taiwan’s security