TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 21 (UPI) -- Taiwan has started to dismantle statues of nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to shed vestiges of an authoriatarian past.
The decision to remove statues of the leader from military bases on the independent island, which is still claimed by China, has sparked an outcry of public anger, the Financial Times reports.
Members of the opposition Kuomintang, the political party that left the Chinese mainland in 1949 after losing a civil war, called the move "evil" on Monday.
Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive party said it was time move beyond Chiang's cult of personality.
An aid of President Chen Shui-bian said "the more mature our democracy gets the less we will see of this."
Chiang's rule on both mainland China prior to the revolution and on Taiwan were marred by political oppression and corruption.
Taiwanese have been peacefully divided in their views of Chiang. Debate on his legacy has been minimal since the Taiwan's democratization more than ten years ago, but a recent government report implicated the leader in the deaths some Taiwanese who were killed in an uprising against his regime.
