MUDAN INCIDENT MONUMENT INSCRIPTION DISAPPEARS|石門古戰場紀念碑 碑文無預警被拆除

Pingtung's Shimen Township's ancient battlefield is one of the site of the 19th century Mudan Incident. On the site since the Japanese occupation is a historic listed monument. However, local indigenous people recently found that the inscription was removed. The county government then clarified, that it did this to verify the age of the monument and it will evaluate whether to put it back or not. Pingtung MudanTownship has an old battlefield monument at Shimen, which originally had an inscription of eight characters. Recently this was found to have disappeared. Local residents informed the township and found out that it had been removed by the Pingtung County Government. ==CHAO WEN-HSIEN, Secretary, Mudan Township Office== For culture and for our own history, is a change like that good for the significance of the old battlefield to indigenous people? The Shimen battlefield is where the Mudan Incident took place in 1871. Survivors from a shipwreck from the Ryukyu Kingdom were killed by indigenous tribes' people and so three years later, the Japanese attacked them. This known as the Mudan Incident. The township representative was dissatisfied that the eight characters covered this piece of history and so it was removed by the county government. However, the county government clarified that the text was being investigated by a committee to ascertain if it was from the Japanese occupation period. ==WU CHIN-FA, Dir., Cultural Affairs Bureau Pingtung County Govt.== The cultural heritage committee's final decision was to test it and see if it was an old monument that had been damaged and if it is original and is really from the time of the Marquis Admiral Saigo Tsugumichi. The indigenous residents have seen the inscription all their lives, which was put up in 1951 by the government when it came to Taiwan. The old inscription was by Japan to commemorate the Mudan Society Incident. The county government said that five years ago, the monument was listed as a historical site. The inscription will be properly looked after, after its removal, but not necessarily re-installed. ==WU CHIN-FA, Dir., Cultural Affairs Bureau Pingtung County Govt.== The monument was erected to commemorate an incident in the Ching dynasty, so to put it together with an inscription opposing communist China, is a mixed message. The county government stressed that the committee did not want to mix inscriptions from the Qing dynasty with those from other eras. Whether the inscription will be put back remains to be discussed. The authorities also are considering putting up a bronze statue to commemorate the indigenous fight against the Japanese. TRANSLATED BY：CLARE LEAR 位在屏東牡丹鄉石門古戰場公園的紀念碑，原本上面應該有「澄清海宇還我河山」八個字，現在卻不見了，當地居民向鄉公所反映，才查明是被屏東縣政府拆除。 ==牡丹鄉公所祕書 邵文賢== 在文化上在自己的歷史上 對原住民這樣的一個 古戰場的意義 做這樣的修改 好不好 石門古戰場是牡丹社事件的遺跡，1871年因為琉球王國的船難者誤闖原住民領地被殺，日方3年後以此為藉口攻打，爆發牡丹社事件，鄉公所不滿背後代表這段重要歷史的碑文，被縣府拆掉，但縣府澄清，是文資委員為了調查日治時期的舊碑文。 ==屏東縣政府文化局長 吳錦發== (文資會)最後的決議就是說 去偵測看看 它那個被破壞的古蹟 底下是不是還有原來的 西鄉都督原來的歷史這些東西 原來居民從小看到大的還我河山碑文，是民國40年，國民政府來台後更改的，舊的則是日本為了紀念牡丹社事件功績，設立的西鄉都督遺蹟紀念碑。縣府表示，紀念碑在5年前已經列為歷史建築，碑文拆下後仍會妥善保存，但不一定會裝回去。 ==屏東縣政府文化局長 吳錦發== 發生在清朝的事件 建一個紀念碑 和一個反攻大陸的時代放在一起 這很清楚的是非觀念是什麼 就是張飛打岳飛 縣府強調，文資委員會傾向不要在清朝事件混入其它時代的標語，但最後碑文怎麼呈現，還要討論，未來也希望設置力抗日軍的頭目銅像，呈現原住民史觀。 記者 王介村 許政俊 屏東報導