Fresh ire over 1947 massacre in Taiwan

By DAN BLOCH

TAICHUNG - A Taiwanese historian has criticised the new democratic Government's efforts to reconcile the nation with a massacre by the island's former Chinese nationalist rulers.

It is an event of which most young Taiwanese are only dimly aware. But Professor Lin Tai Sei remembers the bloodiest episode in Taiwan's recent past and bears its scars.

Lin, aged 72, is a retired Taiwanese-born historian from the University of Nagoya, Japan, where he lived for 27 years. A victim of violence in which Chinese soldiers suppressed a nationwide rebellion, he says the Government must complete the compensation process and reveal the truth about the incident known to Taiwanese as "228."

We meet in a drab second-floor office on Chung Shan north road in the capital Taipei, a few metres from the building where the match that ignited a nationwide rebellion was lit. Today it is the seat of the Taiwan Parliament's upper house, the Executive Yuan.

But 54 years ago, the building was a scene of carnage when Chinese soldiers guarding Governor Chen Yi's office opened fire from its rooftop on a group of Taiwanese demonstrators, sparking riots in which tens of thousands died.

In 1947, Lin was a student in Kaohsiung, a port in southwestern Taiwan. The city was the scene of heavy fighting following a Taipei demonstration on February 28. But last month it hosted an exhibition of historical documents covering the 228 massacre - part of a Government initiative to release details of the incident.

"In Kaohsiung train station, 160 people were killed," says Lin. "I escaped after hiding there for almost 14 hours, but I was shot." He lifts his left trouser leg, revealing a large scar.

The incident came soon after Taiwan's 1945 return to Chinese control after 50 years of Japanese rule. Following the Second World War, the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) took control, while fighting communists in China.

It occurred amid mutual distrust between ethnic Taiwanese, perceived by their new masters as pro-Japanese, and the Chinese, considered by their new subjects as corrupt and autocratic.

The demonstration in Taipei was against the provincial government's tobacco and wine monopoly bureau. On February 27, 1947, officials had arrested and beaten an illegal cigarette-seller on the street. When protesters marched to the office of Chen Yi the next day, they were fired upon.

In the next three months, independent estimates say some 30,000 Taiwanese were killed. Lin, who has published two books on the massacre, believes the number was closer to 100,000 .

The KMT Government suppressed discussion of the incident under martial law from 1949 until 1987, before reforming President Lee Teng-hui commissioned a 1992 report into the massacre. He then publicly apologised and established a memorial foundation to compensate victims in 1995.

A law obliging Government offices and the Army to hand over records of the event followed in 1999.

Taiwan's new President, Chen Shui-bian, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) sought to promote human rights in the run-up to his election last March. He then set up the office of national archives to collect and release massacre documents.

But Lin feels the Government should do more for the massacre victims. "We want them to compensate everybody for their lost property, uncover the truth about how the incident happened and construct a 228 museum."

Many of my adult English language students in Taiwan's third city, Taichung, know little about the 228 massacre. Some believe there is no distinction between descendants of native Taiwanese and those born to post-1945 Chinese immigrants.

The DPP is using the massacre to score political points against the KMT, exacerbating racial tension, they say.

"This was an important event," says Lin. "Everybody who is Taiwanese must understand the truth."