228 massaccre

Taipei Times - archivesFollowing the end of World War II, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government sent Chen Yi (陳儀) to head its occupation of Taiwan. Chen, his underlings and the armed forces under his command plundered Taiwan at will, with no notion of the rule of law.

Then came the Jiangsu-­Zhejiang banking and commercial conglomerate (江浙集團), which unscrupulously took essential goods from Taiwan for sale in Shanghai and Hong Kong. This resulted in shortages of the goods needed for everyday life in Taiwan, and in unprecedented poverty and hardship.

What the Taiwanese could never have expected, however, was that the KMT government in Nanjing would dispatch troops from China to Taiwan to end protests with a massacre, indiscriminately killing many innocent victims from among the nation’s prominent citizens and stifling demands for the rule of law.

The KMT imposed a “White Terror” on Taiwan during 38 years of martial law. Nevertheless, throughout this time countless people struggled bravely for democracy and freedom. Under the presidencies of Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Taiwan’s people at last enjoyed a taste of the rights they craved.