Tsai made the remarks yesterday morning during a ceremony attended by senior DPP officials and lawmakers conducted at the city memorial to the 228 Incident, during which over 10,000 Taiwanese were killed by KMT troops to suppress a spontaneous revolt against the government of the late Republic of China president and KMT autocrat Chiang Kai-shek, which took over Taiwan in October 1945 after 50 years of Japanese rule.

For the first time ever, the central commemoration of the Feb. 28th Incident was to be held at 10 am this morning in Kaohsiung City in a square adjacent to the Kaohsiung City Historical Museum next to the port city's Love River.espite the possibility of protests by survivors of the "228" victims or their relatives, President Ma Ying-jeou will attend the ceremony and deliver a 10 minute address.

Kaohsiung City Deputy Mayor Lee Yung-teh told The Taiwan News while the National Security Bureau will be responsible for the president's safety, the DPP city administration will also mobilize nearly 1,000 police to "ensure order."

Lee also told The Taiwan News that the city government had instructed local police to use "soft persuasion" to maintain order and to ensure that "everyone's right to express their views is respected," but urged participants to arrive before 9:30 am due to the need for security checks.

Although Tsai will also attend the Kaohsiung event, she said DPP headquarters held the ceremony at the Taipei memorial "to show that we have not forgotten" the victims of the "228 massacre."

In her remarks, Tsai said that "our generation of Taiwanese cannot forget and must tell the next generation that Taiwan history experienced such a tragedy, which destroyed so many families."

"We must understand that mistaken attitudes or bad decisions by rulers can result in immense pain and harm that can last for generations," she said.

"We can forgive historical mistakes but history cannot be forgotten," said Tsai, who added that "the precondition for the forgiveness of historical mistakes is that the person who committed the errors must sincerely engage in reexamination and acknowledge the mistakes."

Tsai said that the KMT had "fallen far short" of this precondition and added that it was the DPP's "duty" to "inform the ruling KMT that antagonism and division are surfacing in our society and that root of these trends lies in the fact that the people who have made mistakes have not re-examined themselves."

Regarding Ma's acknow-ledgement that Chiang Kai-shek had responsibility for the Feb. 28th Incident, Tsai commented that it was obvious that the late KMT dictator was responsible for the bloody massacre but asked whether Ma and the KMT, as Chiang's political successors, had made any serious attempt to re-examine the late dictator's responsibility in the past 62 years.

Moreover, the DPP chairwoman said Ma and his KMT government have exacerbated the polarization in Taiwan society through "arrogance and ignorance" in decision making and by failing to show any concern for the feelings of the people.

Tsai cited the decision by the KMT-controlled Legislative Yuan to completely axe the NT$300 million budget for the Feb. 28th Memorial Foundation and the National 228 Memorial Museum as "inflicting unbearable harm on the feelings of ?28' victims or their descendants."

The DPP chair commented that, in the wake of the handling of these budgets and statements made by KMT lawmakers and government officials afterward, "we have no choice but to wonder whether the ruling party has any sincerity in examining itself at all."