Transitional justice is not possible while authoritarian-era symbols glorifying former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) remain, many survivors and families of people persecuted in the 228 Incident said.
Today marked the 76th anniversary of the incident, a crackdown launched by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime against civilian demonstrators following the killing of a bystander in a crowd in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947.
Between 18,000 and 28,000 people were killed during the crackdown, which lasted into early May 1947, a government report released in 1992 showed.
Photo copied by Wang Kuan-jen, Taipei Times
It marked the beginning of the White Terror era in Taiwan, during which thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned or executed.
“Chiang Kai-shek was the prime culprit of the 228 Incident. He has massive amounts of blood on his hands,” Taiwan 228 Care Association chairman Wang Wen-hong (王文宏) said.
Despite Chiang Kai-shek’s record of brutality, a large statue of him stands in the chamber of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Wang said, which he described as “condescending.”
Then-governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) on March 2, 1947, agreed to requests from local leaders to establish the 228 Incident Settlement Committee to investigate the Feb. 27 incident.
However, on March 6, hundreds of people heading to a meeting of the committee in Kaohsiung were fired upon, under the orders of the Kaohsiung garrison commander, major-general Peng Meng-chi (彭孟緝).
Wang’s father, Wang Ping-shui (王平水), was among those killed in Kaohsiung, historical records showed.
Wang Wen-hong was 32 days old at the time.
Over the next two decades, he grew up under an authoritarian KMT regime that did not teach children about the 228 Incident, and created an atmosphere of fear to keep people quiet about it.
In a high school essay about his father, Wang Wen-hong wrote that “my father was killed by bad guys in the 228 Incident,” which he learned from hearing relatives talk about it, without understanding what it was.
The essay terrified his mother, he said.
“She quickly threw a banquet for my teachers to apologize for my ‘innocence’ and bought a boat ticket to send me to Brazil,” he said. “She was worried the essay would get me into trouble if I were conscripted into the army.”
In Brazil, he learned that his brother, who was 14 years older than him, and their grandfather found their father’s body among a pile of corpses in a cattle trailer after a long search on the chilly, rainy evening of March 10.
He said they bribed KMT soldiers to bring the body home.
Wang Wen-hong returned to Taiwan after the term “transitional justice” was first codified into law in August 2016.
Wiping out the legacy of authoritarianism was also mandated by the Act for Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), enacted in 2017.
Wang Wen-hong said that transitional justice would not be complete without dealing with the symbols of Taiwan’s authoritarian past, including the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Cihu Mausoleum in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪), where Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo are interred.
Historical archives indicate that Chiang Kai-shek, who was in Nanjing, China, at the time of the 228 Massacre, ordered Chen to respond to the uprisings with a brutal crackdown, and sent troops from the mainland to quell the protests, said Kenneth Wang (王克雄), whose father, Wang Yu-lin (王育霖), was arrested on March 14 and later executed.
Those who opposed the removal of these symbols are unwilling to face history and admit to the mistakes made in the past, Kenneth Wang said.
He said he hopes that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will keep her promises on transitional justice and that the KMT will have the courage to admit what it did so it can apologize with sincerity.
“Only by doing so can the historical trauma be healed and forgiveness and social reconciliation come about,” he said.
Eliminating the symbols could still be difficult. When the ad hoc Transitional Justice Commission was formed, there were about 966 statues of Chiang Kai-shek or Chiang Ching-kuo in public spaces and 580 places named after them nationwide, government data showed.
When the commission was dissolved in May last year, 80 percent of those symbols remained, the data showed.
The Chinese military has built landing bridge ships designed to expand its amphibious options for a potential assault on Taiwan, but their combat effectiveness is limited due to their high vulnerability, a defense expert said in an analysis published on Monday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the deployment of such vessels as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s East Sea Fleet signals a strong focus on Taiwan. However, the ships are highly vulnerable to precision strikes, which means they could be destroyed before they achieve their intended
About 4.2 million tourist arrivals were recorded in the first half of this year, a 10 percent increase from the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The growth continues to be consistent, with the fourth quarter of this year expected to be the peak in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that it plans to promote Taiwan overseas via partnerships and major events. From January to June, 9.14 million international departures were recorded from Taiwan, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, with 3.3 million headed for Japan, 1.52 million for China and 832,962 to South Korea,
SOVEREIGNTY: The rigs show that Beijing ‘rejects Taiwan’s jurisdiction’ by building in areas where Taipei demands permission to build or alter installations Chinese oil rigs have been sighted just 26 nautical miles (42km), from Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島), posing a threat to Taiwan’s sovereignty if left unchallenged, a brief published by the Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday said. Pratas Island, 444km from Kaohsiung, is northeast of the South China Sea and houses a Taiwanese garrison. The brief, titled “Rigging the Game: PRC Oil Structures Encroach on Taiwan’s Pratas Island” — referring to the People’s Republic of China — analyzed photographs and said that Beijing’s tools to pressure Taiwan now include oil rigs. “Oil rigs now constitute part of Beijing’s
The Taiwan Experience Education Program (TEEP) has funded short-term internships in Taiwan for more than 4,500 young people from more than 40 countries since 2015, with the goal of attracting and retaining international talent, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. Fifty-five colleges launched 514 projects this year, including in fields such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, medicine and biotechnology, green energy, and sustainability, it said. The program provides research and practical internships in Taiwan for two to six months, and offers cultural exchange and networking opportunities, the ministry said. For example, National Formosa University’s Embedded System and Autopilot Laboratory developed two solar-powered drones in
RSS