Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said he cares about the 228 Incident and the city government would not avoid the issue of transitional justice, after the Taiwan National Alliance refused to cohost this year’s 228 Incident memorial event with the city government.
The Taipei City Government’s annual 228 Incident memorial event has for several years been co-organized with the Taipei 228 Incident Association and the Taiwan National Alliance.
However, as Chiang Wan-an is a great-grandson of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), the Taiwan National Alliance said that it would not cohost the event this year, as many family members of victims would not accept the mayor at the event.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The alliance said it would hold its own memorial event at Liberty Square (自由廣場) on Feb. 28.
Chiang Wan-an said he has always cared about the 228 Incident, and that he would face the issue calmly and listen to people’s concerns.
“As for the role of the Taipei City Government, we will do our best to listen to different opinions, and will not avoid the issue,” he said, adding that the Department of Cultural Affairs had arranged for him to meet with a few family members of victims last week to listen to their thoughts and wishes.
Chiang Wan-an said that when he was a legislator, he met with many people to discuss issues of transitional justice, and some family members of victims had said it was important to redress judicial wrongdoings and revoke wrongful convictions.
He said he would continue to listen to people’s wishes so that the historical truth and social harmony can be restored.
The 228 Incident refers to protesters being shot by security personnel at the Governor General’s Office in Taipei following an incident in the city on Feb. 27, 1947.
About 18,000 to 28,000 people, many of them members of the intellectual elite, were killed during the subsequent crackdown launched by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime, which lasted into early May 1947.
The event also marked the beginning of the White Terror era that saw thousands of people arrested, imprisoned or executed.
In 2006, then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) established a truth commission to investigate the 228 Incident, and wrote an investigative report that pointed to Chiang Kai-shek as the main culprit behind the massacre.
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