228, le Tiananmen de Taiwan

Le parc de la paix est envahi par les écureuils !

Taipei 228 exhibits spark controversy (Taipei Times, Feb 20, 2011). GLOSSING OVER:Critics said the government had demonstrated arrogance with its interpretation of history and had disrespected the incident’s victims and their families. 

The 228 whitewashing continues, By Woody Cheng 鄭梓, Taipei Times, Mar 05, 2011

Extraits :

This clumsy attempt to distort the real train of historical events can easily be foiled by using Chiang’s own words against him. Among the “Dasi archives,” which were made public in 1991, can be found an order penned by Chiang and sent directly to Chen on Feb. 20, 1947, a week before the 228 Incident broke out. The smudged telegram reveals that Chiang delivered two secret orders authorizing military and government personnel in Taiwan to liquidate and suppress any opposition. First, Chiang wrote: “It is reported that [Chinese] Communist Party elements have already infiltrated Taiwan and are starting to play a role. This must be strictly prevented and stopped, so as to prevent another cell from stirring up trouble in future.” Then he wrote: “Conditions in Taiwan Province are different from the interior, so military and government leaders there may handle matters as they find expedient.”

Consequently, as the political situation developed, all forces under Chen, including the military and party intelligence bureaus, military officers who landed in Taiwan and commanders who were already stationed there, eagerly carried out these two orders. Among the lists they drew up of so-called “culprits” are a jumble of supposed “communists” and “traitors” (probably meaning pro-Japanese elements).

Without waiting for further orders, these forces went ahead with the clampdown. Their attitude was, “It’s better to kill a hundred people in error than to let one guilty person escape.”

These forces’ idea of “handling matters expediently” was, without warning, to subject civilians who had no means of defending themselves to widespread and indiscriminate repression, murder and purges that went on for months. What is that, if not a massacre? And the train of events points clearly to the man who started it all — Chiang Kai-shek himself.

Taïwan, d’une colonisation à l’autre, par Françoise Mengin, novembre 2011

Excellent article - Extraits :

• Depuis leur parution en anglais en 1972, les Mémoires de Peng Ming-min (1) faisaient partie du corpus de sources primaires que tout spécialiste de Taïwan se devait d’exploiter.
• loin de se couler dans le statut d’une province chinoise à part entière, Taïwan a aussitôt été brutalement recolonisée par ceux-là mêmes, les nationalistes chinois, qui avaient exigé sa décolonisation.
• [...] Kerr fut ensuite vice-consul à Taïpeh lors du massacre de 1947 perpétré sur l’île par les nationalistes chinois. Celui-ci a décimé l’élite insulaire et donné naissance à l’indépendantisme taïwanais : la chronique des atrocités commises alors par le Guomindang constitue incontestablement le temps fort de ce livre.

Les deux livres à lire absolument, enfin en Français :

• Peng Ming-min, Le Goût de la liberté. Mémoires d’un indépendantiste formosan, éd. René Viénet, Belaye, 2011, 303 pages, 20 euros. 
• George H. Kerr, Formose trahie, éd. René Viénet, 2011, 528 pages, 30 euros.