Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 24, 1992 TAG: 9202240054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: BEIJING LENGTH: Medium
NATIONALISTS ADMIT MASSACRE IN TAIWAN
The Nationalist government in Taiwan has admitted that its army killed an estimated 18,000 to 28,000 native-born Taiwanese in a 1947 massacre.The killings, which have poisoned Taiwan's politics for the past 45 years, were never a secret to the older generation of Taiwanese. But until publication this weekend of a 400,000-word official document, which was reported by the local news media Sunday, the government never acknowledged the vast scale of the bloodshed.
Until martial law was lifted on the island five years ago, it was dangerous to discuss the massacre with anyone but relatives or trusted friends.
Most mainland Chinese who fled to the island with the Nationalist government in 1949 - and who together with their children make up about 15 percent of the island's population - have never really understood the horror of what happened before their arrival. But Taiwanese residents of the island, descended from immigrants who came from the China coast in previous centuries, could not forget it.
The result was permanent tension between the two groups, which has eased over the decades but still persists. Taiwan's main opposition group, the Democratic Progressive Party, draws much of its strength from resentments that are related to the 1947 killings.
The report represents an attempt by the Nationalist government to finally put the long and painful controversy behind it.
Taiwan's interior minister, Wu Poh-hsiung, was quoted Sunday as declaring that the government was eager "to heal the wounds of history." He said that the government would consider making an official apology and might offer financial compensation to relatives of the victims.
Wu, who himself is a native-born Taiwanese, had an uncle who was killed in the massacre.