Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The government has done too little for victims of the White Terror era and Taiwanese tend to forget about what their forebears had to sacrifice for democracy, academics and former political prisoners said yesterday.

The government should establish a task force to explore, collect and manage information on all political cases during the White Terror era, the group said at a press conference announcing the launch of an online database of political prisoners and victims from 1945 to 1987.

The White Terror era began after the 228 Incident, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government launched a brutal military crackdown against people protesting the administration of then-executive administrator Chen Yi (陳儀). During the White Terror era, the KMT government killed tens of thousands of suspected dissidents, many intellectuals and members of the social elite.

Can people from Taiwan call themselves Taiwanese? The answer appears to be no, judging by the flood of criticism leveled by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign and pan-blue groups at Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) after she recently unveiled the televised campaign slogan: “I am Taiwanese.”

In an immediate response to Tsai’s slogan, Ma campaign office spokesman Yin Wei (殷偉) accused Tsai of resorting to “Taiwanese rhetoric,” an electioneering tactic he said was no different from tactics used by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Afterward, pro-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) media published a slew of articles accusing Tsai’s campaign of “giving people the creeps” and “appealing to people’s shallow sentiments, while depriving them of reason and thought.”