Taiwan still searching for transitional justice without help from international communities Part I

“A Pentagon report has found conditions at the Guantanamo prison to be in line with the Geneva Conventions, but called for the isolation of some inmates to be eased by allowing them more social contact and recreation.” For details on this news, read the Taipeitimes’ news.

“Hassan had fled China for Afghanistan after being imprisoned for his religious practice, and was living in an Uighur community at the time of the 2001 US invasion. To escape the bombing, the Uighurs fled to Pakistan, where they say they were picked up by Pakistani police and sold to the US for bounty. The Algerian and the Syrian Kurd also say they were sold for bounty.” For details on this news, read the Christian Science Monitor’s news.

If you read the above two news, you will understand that an Uighur could be at the wrong place at the wrong time to be locked-up in Guantanamo prison and be accused as a Muslim terrorist when in fact he was a refugee who fled imprisonment from China for his religious practice.

If all Guantanamo inmates were treated in line with the Geneva Conventions, why should the Pentagon report now called for the isolation of some inmates for better treatment? This story is an example of the ethics problem facing American foreign policies.

In 1945, under the direction of the US Military Government, the KMT’s Chinese Nationalist troops was the administrator on behalf of the Allied Forces to take control of Formosa from Japan, but not even one and a half year after the takeover, the 228 Incident of 1947 occurred.

The book Formosa Betrayed has vividly recorded the history of Formosa at that time.

Soon after the incident, the Chinese troops landed in Keelung harbor in March of 1947, with no reason the KMT’s Chinese Nationalist troops caught Formosans at random, pierced the palms of their captives, connected them with wires, and pushed them into the water by groups while listening to them screaming for help, the KMT troops then shot the victims to death in order to warn other Formosans not to resist.