President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that academics are working to include Aboriginal perspectives into the discourse on the 228 Incident, now that discussion of the massacre is no longer taboo.
Tsai made the remarks in a speech at a forum on the 228 Incident and Taiwanese Aborigines at the Academia Historica in Taipei.
The 228 Incident refers to an uprising in 1947 against the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime and the resulting crackdown that left thousands dead and led to nearly four decades of martial law.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Aboriginal groups’ response to the massacre differed by community and region, indicating that the Incident is not a simple case of ethnic conflict, Tsai said.
New research conducted by the Academia Historica has discovered that the crackdown claimed many Aborigines and some Aboriginal leaders had strived to de-escalate the violence, she added.
The diversification of the nation’s historical memory that is inclusive of the experiences of all ethnic groups is part of the process for Taiwan’s reckoning with the 228 Incident and with historical truth, which are necessary to achieve transitional justice, she said.
“Confronting history honestly is the way for Taiwan to stay free and democratic, to never again permit the mistakes of the past to recur and to keep alive the hope for a better future,” Tsai said.
Academia Historica President Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) said that the institute and its local depositories’ work to delve into rediscovered historical material has borne fruit, including the publication of a paper entitled “The 228 Incident in the Countryside” last year.
Evidence of Aboriginal collaboration and resistance can be seen in historical records of the 228 Incident, he said.
While a small minority of Aborigines joined the anti-government resistance in central Taiwan, Aboriginal communities in the south were split between collaboration and resistance, notably in Alishan (阿里山), and those in the east remained neutral, he said.
The Tsai administration has made strides in Aboriginal rights, Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod said, citing the Indigenous Languages Development Act (原住民族語言發展法) and nuclear waste disposal compensation to residents of Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼).
In other news, Vice President William Lai (賴清德) will not attend a 228 Incident event planned by the Taipei City Government, Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) confirmed on Wednesday.
Lai withdrew from the event due to a scheduling conflict and not because the city has also invited former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), he said.
Lai had informed the city government of his decision before Taiwan National Alliance said it would boycott the event to protest Ma’s appearance, he said.
However, alliance chairman Lee Pang-fu (李邦孚) said that Lai withdrew from the event shortly after the group told him of the boycott.
Additional reporting by Su Yong-yao
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS