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March 1st, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, on the 70th anniversary of the 228 Incident, promised that she would uncover the truth about the responsibility for the repression which according to estimates caused the death of more than 18,000. Let the truth about history be known, said Tsai.
The “228 Incident” covers an uprising against the corruption and economic mismanagement of President Chiang Kai-shek’s China-based Kuomintang government in 1947. The truth about the uprising, its suppression by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops and the deadly crackdown and oppression that followed have been taboo issues in Taiwan for decades.
The taboo has had tragic consequences. Self censorship in media is but one. The lack of transparency and access to information has caused bitter disputes and made an evidence-based discussion of history difficult. Families were split, family ties severed, bitter rhetoric served as surrogate for truthfulness and healing.
In her first speech at the annual commemorative event since being sworn in as president, Tsai said she would do her best to resolve the responsibility issue for the massacres and the repression. Tsai recognized that some people say one should not return to the past but move into the future. However, she said:
“If there is no truth, what should be the past will not become the past”. Tsai also referred to the words of the late historian Chang Yen-hsien who expressed that he wished that the situation would change where the 228 Incident “only had victims, but no perpetrators.”
President Tsai said “harmony must be built on truth”. Therefore, she added, government departments would collect all files regarding the event and the subsequent era of “White Terror” to form the base of a research report on transformational justice.
Tsai also made a comparison to Germany and the so-called “Holocaust” as an example for honesty about history. Many would note that this comment was uninformed with Tsai not knowing that numerous lawyers in Germany, like Sylvia Stolz, who defended those who questioned the “post-Nuremberg Tribunal’s official narrative” have ended behind bars. Surely, it is not this kind of transformational justice Tsai envisions.
Tsai expressed her hopes for a butter future saying: “I hope there will be a day that when February 28 comes along, it will be the time when the Taiwanese people stand together the most. … There will be no more taboo, there will be no more person who cannot be mentioned … When that day comes along, we will have transformed into a different country. Taiwan’s democracy will have moved another step forward.” President Tsai Ing-wen closed her address by referring to the cold weather. She told her audience that everyone was hoping in their hearts that a warm spring was coming soon.
CH/L – nsnbc 01.03.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/03/01/taiwans-tsai-ing-wen-promised-to-uncover-truth-about-228-incident-and-death-of-18000/
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