Taiwanese independence and unification factions clash as island commemorates 1947 massacre
Fists fly as one group honours late nationalist leader while another tries to tear down his statue
Supporters of Taiwan independence and cross-strait unification clashed on Tuesday at a Taipei hall built in memory of the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, as the island commemorated the 1947 massacre in which the Chiang was blamed for killing thousands of Taiwanese 70 years ago.
Claiming the late Chiang should be held responsible for the massacre, a few hundred pro-independence activists marched to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in an attempt to tear down the bronze statue of Chiang.
“Take down the [statue of the] perpetrator who massacred our people,” shouted the activists. “No more worship of the dictator.”
They encountered a group of pro-unification activists who had occupied part of the memorial in a bid to re-fly a Taiwanese flag lowered to half mast to mark the 70th anniversary of the tragedy known by locals as the “228 incident”.
Fist fights erupted as members from both camps traded barbs over what each viewed as the faults of the other side and whether the late KMT leader was accountable for the massacre 70 years ago. The clash, which left several people injured, was finally ended by police who blocked the two groups from continuing the melee.
While the pro-unification activists hailed Chiang as a hero for “saving Taiwan” and “maintaining the historic link” between the island and the mainland, the pro-independence activists said independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen should remove the last vestiges of Chiang’s memory because he was a “killer”.
“The Tsai Ing-wen government should never have allowed those unification people to rally at the memorial and worship the dictator,” said organiser Tsai Ting-kuey, chairman of the Free Taiwan Party, after the group threw eggs at the memorial and burned a large Taiwanese flag.
As many as 28,000 people, mostly Taiwanese, were killed during a military suppression of an uprising which started on February 28, 1947. Chiang was reported to have decided to send nationalist troops from China to suppress the unrest at the request of the then local KMT government led by Chen Yi.
The unrest, which lasted weeks until it was suppressed, was caused by dissidents frustrated by the high-handed policies of Chen.
Two years later, Chiang’s nationalist forces were defeated by the Chinese communists in a civil war on the mainland and fled to the island in 1949, where he set up an interim government and declared martial law that led to the arrest of a great number of dissidents, including communist members, until the martial law was lifted in 1987.
The facts of the military suppression were concealed for many years during the period of martial law, as families of the victims have stated.
In a commemoration activity in Taipei yesterday, Tsai promised the families that her government would set up an independent agency to locate the perpetrators and to carry out tasks to promote transitional justice.
She said some people thought it was more important to develop the economy than spend time sorting out the past, but she believed social justice was equally important as it could achieve public reconciliation. She was referring to the ideological struggles between the pro-independence and pro-unification camps.
Elsewhere in Taiwan, various activities, including church congregations and concerts, were held to commemorate the incident, but reports of vandalism, such as damaging statues of the Chiang and monuments in memory of the incident, were reported in several local counties, indicating public division over the issue is far from being bridged.
