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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Chiang Kai-shek Memorial must adapt: academic
Chen Yi-shen, right, a key member of the Taiwan Nation Alliance, yesterday speaks at a press conference held in Taipei to mark the 69th anniversary of the 228 Incident. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
By Lee Hsin-fang and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall should be converted into a museum because of Chiang Kai-shek’s （蔣介石） culpability for the 228 Incident, Academia Sinica associate research fellow and 228 Incident historian Chen Yi-shen （陳儀深） said yesterday.
“Situating a massive memorial of Chiang in a prime real-estate district of Taipei is not a respectful way to deal with the historical perspectives of all ethnic groups,” he said.
Chiang bore “primary responsibility” for the 228 Incident, and the government should establish a museum of all the Republic of China （ROC） presidents to replace Chiang’s memorial, Chen said.
The 228 Incident refers to massacres beginning on Feb. 28, 1947 that were carried out by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） government troops to quell a popular uprising. The massacres marked the beginning of the White Terror era. The number of people killed and missing remains unknown, but some historians have put the figure in the tens of thousands.
Chen said president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s （蔡英文） incoming administration is unlikely to want the controversy caused by an attempt to demolish the memorial, after the ferocious opposition the Democratic Progressive Party had to weather in 2007 when then-president Chen Shui-bian （陳水扁） renamed the building the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.
Instead, a compromise could be reached by establishing a museum that would give an account of the ROC’s presidents and be a venue for displaying presidential gifts from foreign heads of state and state archival material, Chen Yi-shen said.
As for the bronze statue of Chiang, Chen said that a decision should be made after public debate.
Chang Chiu-wu （張秋梧）, a family member of whose died in the 228 Incident, said: “The memorial should be razed,” because the organizer of the massacre should not be celebrated and its demolition would end the anger that families of victims continue to experience.
In related news, the Taiwan National Alliance yesterday issued a statement saying that “to implement transitional justice and restore the historical facts about the 228 Incident, textbooks should clearly state where the responsibility for it should fall.”
Chen Yi-shen, a member of the alliance, called on the government to ask the US’ Hoover Institution to return Chiang’s diaries to Taiwan and to make laws that would allow for the diaries’ publication.
The diaries clearly describe the decisionmaking process that led to the 228 Incident, he said.
