Los Angeles Times
Date: DEC 07, 2017
By: Ralph Jennings
Across Taiwan, his image and name are everywhere — on statues and street signs and at
Taiwanese soldiers perform a changing of the guard ceremony before a statues of late President Chiang Kai-shek at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei on Dec. 6, 2017. (David Chang / EPA/Shutterstock )
a lavish memorial hall in the capital. Chiang Kai-shek was long heralded as a national hero who worked to unify China and fought both the Japanese and the communists.
But now many Taiwanese view Chiang as a despot who repressed island culture and unleashed a deadly campaign against dissent. This week, Taiwan’s parliament passed a bill calling for a full investigation into the authoritarian rule of the late strongman while erasing his name and likeness from landmarks across the island.
The parliament dominated by a party that opposes Chiang’s Nationalists approved a “transitional justice” bill late Tuesday to review what became known as the “White Terror,” a period that elders still remember in horror.
“In the normal course of things, we haven’t done enough for justice,” said Yang Chen-lung, 65, executive director of the Memorial Foundation of 228, a nonprofit for victims of the crackdown. “That’s because there was no law that lets us pursue this, so it’s something we’ve looked forward to. Clearly Chiang was the mastermind behind White Terror,” he said. [FULL STORY]
