In its final months, the Transitional Justice Commission yesterday reported on its progress to the Legislative Yuan, while saying that Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) and Ching-kuo Chi-hai Cultural Park (經國七海文化園區) are authoritarian symbols.
The commission’s acting minister, Yeh Hung-ling (葉虹靈), said that 5,954 guilty verdicts had as of Feb. 28 been dismissed.
The commission has reviewed and officially recognized 42 locations where injustices were committed and has pushed them to be conserved, she added.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The operations of national intelligence and martial courts in the 1970s were reviewed and a report to be presented to the legislature in May is being drafted, Yeh said.
The commission is to disband in May.
New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) asked commission members whether President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had discussed with them her appearance at January’s opening of the Ching-kuo Chi-hai Cultural Park in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area.
Yeh said that the commission had informed the president that it considers Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) to be an authoritarian figure and the park an authoritarian symbol.
“We should not commemorate an authoritarian figure,” Yeh said.
Public money should not be used to commemorate a dictator, Yeh said, adding that the commission has plans — with an announcement to be made next month — to repurpose Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall into a park where people can reflect on Taiwan’s autocratic past.
Separately, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lai Pin-yu (賴品妤) said she is “very dissatisfied” with the commission’s progress on removing statues, busts and portraits of the two Chiangs.
More than 55 percent of the 1,533 locations with commemorations of the two have refused to discuss their removal, Lai said, adding that she is not certain that the Executive Yuan, set to take up the commission’s work in May, can succeed where the commission has fallen short.
There are insufficient legal grounds for removing statues, busts and portraits, Yeh said, adding that most of them are at sites overseen by the Ministry of National Defense, the Veteran’s Affairs Council and the Ministry of Education.
The commission suggests higher agencies step in and make the removals when subordinate agencies cannot agree, Yeh said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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