Sixty-five years ago, March 8, 1947, the bloodshed that came to be known as the 228 Massacre began in wholesale numbers as Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops, battle-hardened by years of fighting with the Japanese and then the Chinese Communists, came ashore on the island of Taiwan.
Taiwan, then commonly called Formosa, was the scene of a popular uprising against a harsh occupation by the Republic of China. Chiang’s Chinese Nationalist regime was put in charge of day-to-day administration of the Japanese island by the United States after the end of World War II.
On February 27, 1947, the ROC monopoly police severely beat a female cigarette vendor in Taipei triggering a large demonstration the next day. The protest turned to revolution after the Chinese fired on the crowd. Chiang Kai-shek dispatched troops to the island to quell the uprising.
American diplomat George Kerr was stationed in Taipei and was witness to the mass murder of the civilian population by the Kuomintang soldiers. Kerr told the story in his book Formosa Betrayed.
Kerr wrote about the tragic events of March 8, 1947 in his book: “In mid-afternoon several foreign businessmen at Keelung were startled by the crackle of machine-gun fire near the docks. With growing volume it soon spread into the streets leading back into the city proper.”
That Saturday evening the killing got closer to Kerr: “Nationalist Army trucks rolled slowly along the road before our house, and from them a hail of machine-gun fire was directed at random into the darkness, ripping through windows and walls and ricocheting in the black alleyways.”
“The crackle of rifle-fire and the chatter of machine guns could be heard throughout the night, across the town. The troops had come in from Keelung.” Kerr said, “Dawn on that Sunday opened a week of naked terror for the Formosan people.”
“We saw Formosans bayoneted in the street without provocation. A man was robbed before our eyes—and then cut down and run through. Another ran into the street in pursuit of soldiers dragging a girl away from his house and we saw him, too, cut down.”
Kerr’s account continues: “This sickening spectacle was only the smallest sample of the slaughter then taking place throughout the city, only what could be seen from one window on the upper floor of one rather isolated house. The city was full of troops.”
By Monday, the third day of killing, the island was filled with horrific scenes. Kerr described the carnage, “The roadways, the river banks and the harbor shores were strewn with bodies.”
After four decades of brutal marital law when public discussion of the 228 Massacre was banned in Taiwan by the ROC, the story began to be told. Today the ghosts of the 228 Massacre continue to haunt the beautiful island.
Taiwan remains under control of the now-exiled Republic of China. Self-determination, long promised to the people of Taiwan, has never been granted. The United States opposes independence for the island, the ROC is hostile to surrendering control, and the Communists in the People’s Republic of China lay claim to the island.
In 2009, the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals urged resolution of Taiwan’s unresolved status and declared that Taiwan was trapped in “political purgatory” by American foreign policy.
For further information on Taiwan’s unresolved status click HERE
Source: Michael Richardson - Boston Progressive Examiner
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