TAUP to mark 228 with silent sit-in

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Thursday, Feb 19, 2009, Page 3
　

The Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP) will commemorate the 228 Incident on Feb. 28 by staging a silent sit-in, association chairman Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) said yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference in Taipei, Chen urged all Taiwanese, regardless of their political leaning, to participate in the activity.

“We hope to reveal the historical truth of the massacre that occurred 62 years ago in a peaceful manner,” said Chen, adding that the 228 Incident was a historical tragedy that has affected all of society.

Chen said that during the “Never Forget the 228 Incident” event at National Taiwan Democracy ­Memorial Hall, 1,246 participants would sit on the ground to form the Chinese characters for “never forget 228.”

Chen said the activity would be peaceful, with no speeches or slogans.

“[At the event] we will only play a pre-recorded tape about the events during the 228 massacre,” Chen said.

He said the historical truth of the 228 Incident has been clouded by political conflict between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), adding that politicians from both parties have used the incident for their own purposes.

“The truth has been distorted because both parties have exploited the incident during election campaigns,” Chen said.

Asked if the vast majority of those who hope to uncover the truth of the 228 Incident are DPP supporters, Chen said that the association would reflect on the matter.

“Despite past stereotypes, we welcome with open arms all Taiwanese who wish to participate in this event, because the 228 Incident is a historical tragedy that has shaken the lives of all Taiwanese regardless of their ancestry or political leaning,” Chen said.

The 228 Incident was an anti-government uprising that began on Feb. 28, 1947, sparked on Feb. 27 when six agents of the Monopoly Bureau beat Lin Chiang-mai (林江邁), who was illegally selling cigarettes. One of the bystanders who tried to protest the agents’ actions was shot and killed by an agent, inflaming public anger, with crowds besieging police stations. On Feb. 28, crowds stormed the Monopoly Bureau and ransacked offices, triggering more protests, shootings and crackdowns.

Estimates of the number killed during the incident and the ensuring violent suppression efforts by the KMT administration in March and April 1947 range from 10,000 to 30,000.

‘Hostile’ forces in China are stirring up jobless: official

REUTERS , BEIJING
Thursday, Feb 19, 2009, Page 5

China must guard against “hostile forces” within and outside the country working to stir up trouble among its masses of newly unemployed workers, a senior trade union official said in comments published yesterday.

The Chinese Communist Party leadership has issued repeated warnings that legions of idle rural workers gathered in the country’s struggling export hubs could pose a threat to civic stability.

Clashes between police and unpaid workers locked out of failed factories have flared up across China in recent months, but the government bans independent trade unions, depriving workers of a key channel for resolving disputes.

Sun Chunlan (孫春蘭), vice-chairman of the state-backed All-China Federation of Trade Unions, said that police taskforces had been “rushed” to all regions to “understand the situation with regional social stability,” the Beijing News paraphrased him as saying during a teleconference with officials.

Authorities needed to rigorously guard against “hostile forces within and outside China using the difficulties of some enterprises to infiltrate and bring trouble to rural migrant workers,” Sun said. He did not elaborate.

About 20 million jobs have been lost in Guangdong Province alone, southern China’s manufacturing hub, an official from China’s top planning agency said on Tuesday.

A senior Guangdong police official on Tuesday warned of a “grim” public security outlook in the province bordering Hong Kong, warning that ranks of jobless workers could be “tempted by crime and become a factor of instability.”

A slap in the face of history

Thursday, Feb 19, 2009, Page 8

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) caused an uproar this week by proposing that 228 Memorial Day no longer be a public holiday. Backtracking in the face of a wave of criticism from families, friends and sympathizers of 228 Massacre victims, Wu announced the following day that he would drop the proposal in the legislature.

While the hubbub appears to have died down, the very fact that Wu thought he could submit such a proposal demonstrates an apparent ignorance of Taiwan’s history and a lack of respect for the country and its people.

No history of Taiwan can be told without references to the 228 Massacre. The calamity could be billed as the darkest days in Taiwan’s post-World War II history. It left a deep imprint on the nation’s psyche and had a profound impact on the country’s development. It ushered in the White Terror, during which tens of thousands of people were imprisoned, tortured and killed, while others lived in fear under the watchful eyes of the notorious Taiwan Garrison Command. To this day, many survivors of the victims live with agony and grief; some still don’t know where the remains of their loved ones were buried.

The government’s designation of Feb. 28 as a national day of mourning was part of the country’s healing process. Sixty-two years have passed and while the wounds may have healed, the scars remain. Wu’s comment that 228 was not worth holiday status ripped open those scars. What was he thinking?

That Wu, whom the media considers a key member of “Ma’s corps,” even pitched the idea shows he and many others like him have not learned their history lessons. But perhaps he was simply seeking his master’s approval.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has met 228 victims’ families many times in recent years and expressed regret over the incident. He also acknowledged the KMT’s “political” responsibility for 228 and promised to continue research into the incident and its aftermath. However, shortly after he took office in May, construction of the planned 228 National Memorial Hall was halted and the budget for the 228 Memorial Foundation was slashed by the KMT-controlled legislature. This latest move by a “Ma corps” member makes one question Ma’s sincerity once again, after his backtracking on promises to return the KMT’s stolen assets and so many other things. What about Ma’s claim to know what it meant to be Taiwanese?

The government’s recent announcement that it would remove the name plaque at National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall and replace it with the original Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall plaque has also done little to assuage the feelings of those injured by the 228 Incident. How will they feel having to once again see the name of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who was singled out by the 2006 academic research report titled 228 Incident: A Report on Responsibility for his role in the matter, in full display and extolled by the Ma administration?

Wu, Ma and their brethren should heed the advice of Holocaust survivor and renowned author Elie Wiesel.

“I have tried to keep the memory alive. I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty ... not to remember would turn us into accomplices of the killers, to remember would turn anyone into a friend of the victims,” Wiesel said in his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

History should be remembered and respected. The 228 Incident is part of what made Taiwan what it is today and that must not be forgotten.