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Saturday 24 January 2009
Chiang back in favour at hall
Taiwan has decided to restore the name of a memorial hall dedicated to late leader Chiang Kai-shek after it was renamed the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall more than a year ago.
Taiwan has decided to restore the name of a memorial hall dedicated to late leader Chiang Kai-shek after it was renamed the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall more than a year ago.
Under the plan, a tablet bearing the name National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall would be placed at the site before the end of July, in line with a decision of the legislature, Education Vice-Minister Lu Mu-lin said.
The legislature has approved the restoration of the old name and a NT$1 million budget (HK$231,000) for the process following a proposal in August by the government led by President Ma Ying-jeou.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which opened to the public in 1980, was built in 1976 in memory of the nationalist general who ruled the island for 26 years and died in 1975.
But in a bid to erase Chiang’s legacy and cut the island’s historic links with the mainland, then pro-independence president Chen Shui-bian ordered the renaming of the structure in 2007, despite a political standoff with the Kuomintang and Chiang’s supporters. He insisted that it was unnecessary to “continue to treat a dictator and a persecutor of human rights as a deity or a feudalist emperor and worship him”.
At the height of the political standoff in December 2007, supporters of the Chen and the Chiang camps clashed violently. The Chen government placed a new inscription reading Liberty Square at the gate in front of the memorial hall.
The deputy minister said the Ma government would keep the Liberty Square inscription as “the structure has long been a venue of Taiwan’s development of democracy”. The park enclosing the memorial has been a major venue for pro-democracy protesters in the past two decades.
He said the memorial hall would reintroduce ceremonial practices by the military honour guard that were removed by the previous government in December 2007. The hourly exchange of duties by the guards had been a tourist attraction.
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Chiang back in favour at hall
Lawrence Chung in Taipei
23 January 2009
Taiwan has decided to restore the name of a memorial hall dedicated to late leader Chiang Kai-shek after it was renamed the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall more than a year ago.
Under the plan, a tablet bearing the name National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall would be placed at the site before the end of July, in line with a decision of the legislature, Education Vice-Minister Lu Mu-lin said.
The legislature has approved the restoration of the old name and a NT$1 million budget (HK$231,000) for the process following a proposal in August by the government led by President Ma Ying-jeou.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which opened to the public in 1980, was built in 1976 in memory of the nationalist general who ruled the island for 26 years and died in 1975.
But in a bid to erase Chiang’s legacy and cut the island’s historic links with the mainland, then pro-independence president Chen Shui-bian ordered the renaming of the structure in 2007, despite a political standoff with the Kuomintang and Chiang’s supporters. He insisted that it was unnecessary to “continue to treat a dictator and a persecutor of human rights as a deity or a feudalist emperor and worship him”.
At the height of the political standoff in December 2007, supporters of the Chen and the Chiang camps clashed violently. The Chen government placed a new inscription reading Liberty Square at the gate in front of the memorial hall.
The deputy minister said the Ma government would keep the Liberty Square inscription as “the structure has long been a venue of Taiwan’s development of democracy”. The park enclosing the memorial has been a major venue for pro-democracy protesters in the past two decades.
He said the memorial hall would reintroduce ceremonial practices by the military honour guard that were removed by the previous government in December 2007. The hourly exchange of duties by the guards had been a tourist attraction.
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