The ROC government will redouble its efforts in preparation for Taiwan’s first national human rights museum, particularly with regard to research into historical documents and the collection of oral histories, Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai said July 30.
“Time is running against us in this regard, as victims are dying out and memories will soon be lost,” she said during a visit to the Jingmei Human Rights Memorial and Culture Park, the site of a former military court and detention center in New Taipei City’s Xindian District.
Lung met with former political prisoners, their relatives, academics and human rights activists for advice on the establishment of the museum.
A preparatory office was set up in December last year, and the museum will be responsible for running the Jingmei facility as well as another site on Green Island that was used to confine and re-educate political dissidents during the martial law period (1949-1987).
According to the preparatory office, the purpose of the museum is to collect, record and exhibit materials pertinent to events of that era and people victimized under martial law.
Researcher Chen Ming-cheng said that in the race against time, the government should team up with individual researchers, universities and local cultural offices to seek out historical materials and interview survivors, who are now mostly in their 80s.
Other historians pointed out that it has been difficult for researchers and even family members hoping to find out what happened to their relatives to access documents stored at agencies such as the National Archives.
Lung promised to negotiate with the National Archives to facilitate the opening up of documents to researchers and the return of victims’ letters to their families.
“It is excruciating for those who suffered to hear the authorities talking about forgiveness,” Lung said, agreeing that the government must take a more active role in building trust with victims’ families.
Chen Meng-ho, a painter who was imprisoned between 1952 and 1967 on Green Island, took the occasion to donate sketches he made of the prison from memory to the preparatory office. (THN)