wfn.org | Taiwanese Presbyterians and Others Come to Terms with "2-28"

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

3-June-1997 
97232 
 
               Taiwanese Presbyterians and Others  
                    Come to Terms with "2-28" 
 
                         by Eva Stimson  
 
TAIPEI, Taiwan--Sun Chi Wang was in grade school when the lay pastor of his 
Presbyterian congregation in southern Taiwan was brutally murdered by 
government soldiers.  His older brother saw it happen. 
 
    "A truck filled with troops came near my brother's school," Wang says. 
"They pushed the pastor and two others out of the truck.  His [the 
pastor's] head was swollen because they had already cut off his ears and 
nose." 
 
    The soldiers ordered their three prisoners to kneel down.  The pastor 
resisted, saying, "I only kneel for God."  A soldier knocked him down with 
his gun barrel, then shot him. 
 
    "After my brother saw that he couldn't eat for a week," Wang recalls. 
 
    The incident occurred in early 1947.  Wang's pastor was one of some 
20,000 artists, intellectuals, religious leaders and other professionals 
systematically rounded up and massacred by troops of Chiang Kai-shek's 
Kuomintang (KMT) government.  The massacre became known as the "2-28 
incident," because it followed widespread rioting on February 28, 1947, by 
unarmed civilians protesting mistreatment by KMT troops. 
 
    Revered in the West as a Chinese Christian and staunch anticommunist 
ally, Chiang Kai-shek proved to be a far-from-benevolent ruler when he 
assumed control of Taiwan after Japan's surrender at the end of World War 
II.  Taiwanese who were alive in the 1940s are just beginning to come to 
terms with the dark side of his rule. 
 
    This year, on the 50th anniversary of the 2-28 incident, a small museum 
commemorating the massacre and its victims opened in downtown Taipei, just 
a few blocks from the city's monumental Chiang Kai-shek memorial. 
 
    Wang, now ordained and employed by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as 
associate for Asian congregational enhancement, visited the museum for the 
first time May 3 with members of a PC(USA) mission study tour.  The 
experience was "very emotional," he said. 
 
    "It really struck me -- why did this happen?" he said.  "We need to 
remember, to prevent this from ever happening again." 
 
    Chiang Kai-shek imposed martial law on Taiwan in 1949, effectively 
blocking any discussion or investigation of the 2-28 incident.  For nearly 
40 years, until martial law was lifted in 1987, this traumatic episode in 
Taiwan's history remained shrouded in secrecy. 
 
    Ed Senner, a recently retired Presbyterian missionary, recalls that 
when he first arrived in Taiwan in 1961 "there was no way to talk about it 
publicly."  He first heard about the government-instigated killings from 
his Taiwanese language teacher, who warned him not to tell anyone about 
their conversation. 
 
    The impact of the massacre is only beginning to be measured, Senner 
says.  "The tragedy was that it changed the character of the Taiwanese 
people -- everybody became suspicious of everybody else." 
 
    He and others with ties to Taiwan welcome the freer political climate 
that finally is allowing the island's people to face this painful incident 
from their past. 
 
    "Being able to talk about it," says William J.K. Lo, associate general 
secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, "is very important for the 
healing of our people." 

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