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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》Chen vows to set up 228 Incident truth commission
Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） vice presidential candidate Chen Chien-jen, left, yesterday attends the establishment of a support group for the DPP ticket organized by relatives of victims of the 228 Incident and the White Terror era. Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
By Chen Hui-ping / Staff reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） would establish an official commission to help victims and families of the 228 Incident and White Terror era seek justice and compensation if it wins the presidential election next year, DPP vice presidential candidate Chen Chien-jen （陳建仁） said yesterday.
Chen made the pledge on behalf of DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） at the inauguration ceremony of a group founded by families of 228 Incident victims to express their solidarity with the DPP candidates.
The 228 Incident refers to the military crackdown by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） regime that began on Feb. 27, 1947. Tens of thousands were killed, the majority of them social elites and intellectuals.
“As a Christian, I often say: ‘We can sympathize with sinners, but their sins must be severely punished,’ and there can only be forgiveness after persecutors whole-heartedly repent and the truth is fully revealed,” Chen said.
Chen said the 228 Incident was a “painful lesson” in which many outstanding Taiwanese gave their lives in unjustified sacrifices.
He said that many of his lecturers at National Taiwan University’s College of Medicine were persecuted in the wake of the incident, when all they did was show compassion for political refugees.
The incident did not just affect Taiwanese, but also mainlanders, Chen said, citing as an example his parents-in-law, who he said arrived in Taiwan from Nanjing in 1945.
He said that when they first arrived in Taiwan, they had no place to live in and could only board at Taiwanese’ homes, but persecution by the KMT government forced them to flee from one house to another.
“It was a bleak era not just for Taiwanese, but for mainlanders alike,” he said.
On the White Terror era ushered in by the 228 Incident, Chen said that many who fought for the rule of law, human rights and freedom sacrificed their lives during this period.
“Only inhuman despots who craved authoritarian rule could have performed such actions, which have inflicted heartbreak and melancholy for so many generations,” he said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
