An anti-authoritarianism group on Monday decided not to attend a 228 Incident commemorative event after learning that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had been invited to participate.
The Taiwan Nation Alliance (TNA), which was the co-organizer of this year’s 228 Incident commemoration, made the announcement in a statement.
TNA convener Wu Shu-min (吳樹民) said in the statement that the group was coordinating the program for the event scheduled to take place on Sunday afternoon with the other co-organizer, the Taipei 228 Memorial Museum, when the museum informed the group that Ma had been invited to give a speech.
This development met with strong opposition from TNA members, Wu said.
Families of 228 Incident victims in 2010 filed a court case demanding that then-president Ma, who was also KMT chairman, apologize for the Incident on behalf of his party, but Ma had refused to do so, Wu said.
“This shows that Ma and the KMT have no remorse about the Incident,” he said.
The Incident refers to protesters being shot by security personnel on Feb. 28, 1947, at the Governor-General’s Office in Taipei (now the Executive Yuan).
The protesters were demanding the arrest of those responsible for the indiscriminate killing the previous day of a bystander in an angry crowd outside the Tianma Tea House (天馬茶房) on Nanjing W Road in Taipei.
The crowd had challenged Tobacco Monopoly Bureau officials after one official hit Lin Chiang-mai (林江邁), a woman selling cigarettes illegally, in the head with his pistol after she demanded that the officials return the cigarettes they had confiscated from her.
The events escalated into a series of protests against the KMT regime, resulting in a violent crackdown that left an estimated 5,000 to 28,000 dead.
The government imposed martial law two years later after the KMT lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to Taiwan, and maintained it for nearly four decades, making it a symbol of authoritarianism.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) later on Monday said that the city government is the main organizer of the event, while the TNA and the museum are co-organizers.
He said that the city government had accepted proposals from the TNA and the museum to invite Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and Ma respectively.
Ma attended the event each year during his time as president and had apologized to Incident victims and their families on behalf of the government, Tsai said.
The event is to begin with two representatives of victims’ families giving a speech, followed by Lai, Ma and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the city government said.
The five speakers are to then place flowers in memory of the victims, it said.
Taipei City Government spokeswoman Vicky Chen (陳智菡) said that it was regrettable that the TNA would not be attending the event, but that the city government would remain in contact with the group in the hope it would reverse its decision.
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