TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) emphasized the importance of transitional justice during a DPP Central Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday.
DPP Spokesperson Wu Cheng (吳崢) said Lai stressed that confronting history requires truth, not fear, per CNA. Lai said transitional justice is not rooted in hatred or ideology, but in remembrance and the healing of wounds, adding that the clearer society’s understanding of its own history, the stronger the democratic community will become.
Saturday marks the 79th anniversary of the 228 Massacre. The incident began on Feb. 28, 1947, when a Tobacco Monopoly Bureau officer shot and killed an innocent bystander while trying to confiscate contraband cigarettes from a 40-year-old widow named Lin Jiang-mai (林江邁) in Dadaocheng. Riots against the KMT erupted around Taiwan in the following weeks, and martial law was declared in March.
The period under martial law is known as the White Terror, during which hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned or killed for political reasons by the KMT. Martial law was finally lifted in 1987.
Lai said the tragedy left sorrow in many Taiwanese families. Many people chose to remain silent because of the pain caused by historical events and the suppression by the authoritarian government, he said.
The president said that silence can cause memories to fade, and combined with the authoritarian regime’s rewriting of history, this has created opportunities for those seeking to distort the past. He hoped that the Taiwanese would remain united in safeguarding the nation’s democracy and freedom.
The National Security Bureau fully declassified all 1,369 volumes of political archives from Taiwan’s martial law era last week. To implement transitional justice and promote the opening of political archives, the NSB conducted a comprehensive self-initiated review over the past 16 months and transferred physical and digital records to the National Archives Administration.
The documents cover a wide range of topics, including security and counterintelligence systems, intelligence agency operations, and investigations into “subversive” publications and anonymous letters.
Earlier this month, Academia Historica held a book launch and panel discussion on Saturday for two volumes of the Tainan County Police Bureau archives from the 228 Massacre.
Academia Historica Director Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) said that during former President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration, then-director Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲) began compiling the 228 archives. The latest publication centers on the Tainan County area, Chen said. He noted that “Tainan County” at the time of the 228 Massacre also included what are now Yunlin County and Chiayi County.
Chen said some truths about the 228 Massacre still require further exploration, but many important truths have already been established. What remains, he said, is whether society is willing to face those truths sincerely.
