At a democracy forum in Taipei on Sunday last week hosted by the Taiwan Forever Association legal reform group, Transitional Justice Commission Deputy Chairman Sun Pin (孫斌) said that failure to properly implement transitional justice would lead to a regression of democracy.
Sun was largely concerned with the use of terms by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that are designed to confuse people about the efficacy and intended results of Taiwan’s democratic processes with a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidency.
Allegations by KMT lawmakers that the DPP is authoritarian with a patina of democracy are laughable, if not concerning, coming from a party that was responsible for decades of torture and political persecution during the White Terror era.
The KMT, which is reeling from successive defeats in failed referendum drives and recall campaigns, is aware of the shadow cast over it by the White Terror era. This is why it has resorted to unsubstantiated attacks on the DPP, even saying that the current administration is overseeing a “Green terror” era.
The KMT said it backed the four referendum proposals in the public interest and its stance would be validated through the democratic process. When the process invalidated its claims, rather than acknowledging its errors, the party went on the offensive and talked as though the very democratic processes it had been championing were a hustle.
Obviously, the KMT is not deceiving anyone, but that is not its intention. It is incapable of raising itself to the level of its adversary, so it seeks to drag the DPP down to its level.
Referring to the KMT’s criticism, Sun said: “The result is that the meanings of terms such as ‘White Terror’ become muddled, and those guilty of injustices escape responsibility. The public grows distrustful of all government and believes that all parties are equally incorrigible.”
The DPP has made great headway in developing ties with like-minded democracies, while the KMT — dissatisfied with not being the captain of the ship — would rather see it sink. If not, why did it put so much effort into attempts to reimpose or maintain bans on Japanese and US food imports, risking Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and going against the majority opinion of the public? Why did it speak so critically of the diplomatic breakthrough that defined Lithuania’s establishment of a “Taiwan” office?
In the face of challenges to what was in the best interest of Taiwanese, the New Power Party, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and independent lawmakers worked with the DPP during the referendum and recall drives, while the KMT worked against the pan-green coalition and the majority of Taiwanese.
What other schemes might the KMT — which continues to push an unpopular unification agenda — invoke to ensure its survival at the expense of the public it is supposed to represent? If anyone still has doubts about the KMT’s intentions, they need only look at its resistance to efforts by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, which is attempting to return stolen property to its rightful owners.
Anyone old enough to have lived through the Martial Law era or who has relatives who were victims of political persecution under the KMT should be impervious to attempts to malign the DPP or its protection of Taiwan’s democratic institutions.
Younger generations who repeatedly hear terms such as “Green terror” might become confused about how bad the White Terror era was, or whether, as Sun said, any political party is capable of protecting their democratic rights.
The DPP must do all it can to ensure that schools teach about the White Terror era and the workings of democracy as part of their mandatory curricula, in addition to holding events that commemorate injustices.
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