FEATURE/228 Incident: 78 years on, calls for justice continue

By Sean Lin, CNA Staff reporter

For the families of the Feb. 28 Incident victims, injustice continues to loom. The statue of former dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) still dominates the memorial hall dedicated to him in Taipei, despite continuing calls for it to be torn down.

"That's the biggest ordeal," says Yang Chen-long (楊振隆), whose uncle was killed in the aftermath of the massacre.

The violence began on Feb. 28, 1947, after government investigators brutally beat a tobacco vendor, sparking mass protests against the then-Kuomintang (KMT) regime, widely considered corrupt by the public.

In response, then-leader Chiang Kai-shek approved bloody crackdowns that played out over the following months. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, with some putting the number as high as 20,000.

Among the victims was Yang Kuo-jen (楊國仁), Yang Chen-long's uncle, who was taken by police just over a week later on March 9.

Today, Yang Chen-long is one of many still fighting for justice.

Fighting for justice

Yang Chen-long explained that the police and the military had initially wanted to arrest his grandfather Yang A-shou (楊阿壽), a Keelung city councilor and member of a committee demanding reforms.

However, his grandfather had received a tip-off and gone into hiding, so law enforcement took his father and uncle instead.

His father was later released. But his uncle was not so lucky.

On March 12, "when they pulled his body from Keelung Harbor, it was tied to a slab of rock with wire. Two other bodies were also attached to it," Yang Chen-long explained.

He added that although the government has taken steps to make amends, such as declassifying secret files, he is angry that the huge Chiang Kai-shek statue continues to tower over the public at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in downtown Taipei.

The government has been stalling following calls from civic groups for the statue to be removed and for the memorial hall to be repurposed, Yang Chen-long said.

"They are going to face lots of challenges, so the government is afraid to take action" he said, noting that statues of other dictators, such as Franco and Stalin, have been removed in other countries.

The pain of Chiang's legacy

Amy Lee (李慧生), the granddaughter of another victim, Lee Jui-han (李瑞漢), agrees.

She said that the fact that the memorial hall still houses Chiang's statue and that there are so many others around the country is essentially "bullying 228 victims."

Her grandfather, Lee Jui-han, then head of the Taipei Bar Association, was taken by several police officers on March 10, 1947, days before Chiang sent backup troops to Taiwan.

His family never saw him again.

Lee said the historical documents she had seen pointed to the existence of a "must capture" list of Taiwanese elites and that her grandfather was on it, despite not having engaged in political activities.

Every year, her family gathers to commemorate his life and eat squid porridge - the food the family was eating the night he was taken.

Other groups have in recent years picked up the habit - as a way to remember all those who were killed.

A compromise?

Alongside those calling for the statue to be torn down, others are calling for a different approach.

Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), president of Academia Historica -- the country's most comprehensive archives on Chiang and other past presidents -- said that Chiang should not be judged on his role in the 228 Incident alone.

"Chiang was not a hero beyond reproach, but he was not a good-for-nothing butcher, either," Chen said, citing his role in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the First Taiwan Strait Crisis.

Chen proposed using the memorial hall as a "presidential library" where Chiang, alongside every other Taiwanese president, could be commemorated.

The battle for transitional justice

A motion passed by the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) last month cut the NT$203.33 million (US$6.2 million) Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall management office budget by NT$30 million.

Chen said efforts to transform the hall have a legal basis. The Act on Promoting Transitional Justice states that "symbols appearing in public buildings or places that commemorate or express nostalgia for authoritarian rulers shall be removed, renamed, or dealt with in some other way."

But the KMT caucus said removing certain symbols from the hall, including moving the daily "changing of the guards" ceremony to a plaza in front of it - was "destroying unity and sowing discord among ethnic groups."

Chen, meanwhile, said that the parties and the public should proactively address the issue and come up with a solution they can all back.

"My proposal will not please everyone, but it's a way to settle an issue that has been drawn out for too long," Chen said.

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