Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The decision to link the belated reopening of a national museum on the February 28th Incident of 1947 with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of China is likely to become a pretext for the sanitation of the role of the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) in the most traumatic event in Taiwan's modern history.

The brutal suppression of a spontaneous uprising to protest the corrupt and incompetent rule of the rightist KMT regime shortly after its takeover of Taiwan in October 1945 after 50 years of Japanese colonialism cost the lives of over 10,000 Taiwanese, including many outstanding intellectual, political, legal and social leaders.

With exactly a month to go before the Dec. 5 three-in-one local government and township elections, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) launched its campaign on Wednesday, calling on voters to punish the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government for its poor performance.

After almost two years in the wilderness following the DPP’s crushing defeats in legislative and presidential elections, and the ongoing struggle to contain the fallout from former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) saga, the DPP seems confident that now is a good time to start its comeback.