The Memorial Foundation of 228 yesterday released a book on the 288 Incident to mark the 62nd anniversary of the first day of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s military crackdown on the uprising.
Project coordinator Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), a board member of the foundation and an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica, said the truth of the incident must be uncovered, but interviews with survivors and their families were not adequate because some did not want to talk about the trauma, while others did not offer new information.
The 332-page book, On the Side of Chuoshui River: An Oral Account of the 228 Incident, includes interviews with 33 people in Nantou and Yunlin counties.
In contrast with most of the literature on the subject, which focuses on the social elite and government officials, Chen said the book was about ordinary testimony.
On the evening of Feb. 27, 1947, a woman named Lin Chiang-mai (林江邁), who had been selling smuggled cigarettes in Taipei, was beaten by an agent from the Monopoly Bureau.
Lin was left unconscious on the ground and an angry crowd gathered and turned on the agents, who fired their guns into the crowd indiscriminately, killing a man named Chen Wen-hsi (陳文溪).
When monopoly agents were discovered pistol-whipping two children for a similar offense the following day, an angry crowd beat the agents to death. Nationwide anti-KMT protests and riots followed.
KMT troops from China were requested in early March to quell the disturbances and tens of thousands of people were killed.
Since the KMT returned to power in May last year, the KMT-dominated legislature has threatened to freeze the foundation’s funding. A KMT legislator floated the idea of canceling 228 Memorial Day as a public holiday.
Although President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised last Saturday on the 62nd anniversary of the incident to unfreeze the foundation’s budget, Chen Yi-shen said that the administration must do more than offer lip service once a year.
The head of the foundation Chen Chin-huang (陳錦煌), said it was a race against time to discover the truth as the survivors and their families were getting old.
“When the truth is unclear, we cannot talk about transitional justice or coming to terms with the tormenting past,” he said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS