Following the freezing of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) assets, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government of trying to kill his party and labeled the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee a “fascist organization.”
This kind of language belongs to the victims of the KMT’s White Terror during the Martial Law era. That it should be adopted today by one of its perpetrators is both ridiculous and laughable, but also very sad.
There are many White Terror victims, but the perpetrators have yet to be confronted. Many of today’s democratically elected politicians are worried that if they speak out, they would be portrayed as trying to exact revenge for past grievances — so that in many cases they dare not even blame the perpetrators.
Without assigning blame, perpetrators are not only incognizant of their guilt, but they also think allowances have been made for their actions. As a result, no sooner the KMT got its hands on political power again, it resorted to its old, oppressive ways.
Ma used state power to persecute former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), and former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the KMT continued the poisonous legacy of his party by persecuting former Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Junior High School music teacher Hsiao Hsiao-ling (蕭曉玲).
Although the perpetrators have lost their power, they have yet to acknowledge their wrongdoings, but instead, like scorpions, they continue to spread poison throughout society. They invent countercharges against those attempting to obtain justice, they subvert the truth, and swear that black is white and white is black.
The Ma regime was the result of Taiwan’s failure to bring perpetrators of past injustices to account. Without transitional justice and a proper inquiry, the perpetrators believe that they are innocent, while victims believe the scales of justice are weighted unfairly against them.
Since the DPP regained power in May, the perpetrators within the KMT have continued to deny all culpability and launched a series of verbal attacks on the victims of their crimes.
During Taiwan’s authoritarian past, Ma was a participant in his party’s autocratic government. He added the following sentence to Article 9 of the National Security Act (國安法): “Decided criminal cases shall not be subject to appeal or resistant announcement.”
This provides a legal basis to reject any attempts to reverse verdicts for Martial Law era cases by barring appeals and counter-appeals. The motive was to cover up the perpetrators’ crimes and wipe the slate clean of their past wrongdoings. It was a move by the perpetrators who were concerned that they would be held accountable for their actions.
Germany places no time limits on the pursuit of justice for crimes perpetrated by Nazis. This is not just to punish the now-elderly perpetrators; it is also to provide a standard from which society can judge the difference between right and wrong. Accomplices to Nazi crimes were clearly in the wrong and wherever they hide — even in the most remote corner of the world — they will be held to account.
Taiwan has not pursued the perpetrators of historic injustices. The DPP must stand up and be counted. It must revise the law so that, in addition to resolving the KMT’s ill-gotten assets issue, perpetrators of White Terror era crimes are forced to confess, recognize the innocence of those that they harmed and issue a public apology.
This would help guard against the perpetrators from getting their hands on power again and issuing nefarious statements to the public.
Liou Uie-liang is a former president of the Taiwan Association in Germany.
Translated by Edward Jones
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