TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A steady stream of visitors paid their respects at Taipei's Peace Park on Tuesday, a day before it becomes the focus of observances commemorating the 60th anniversary of an infamous communal massacre.

On Feb. 28, 1947, Chinese Nationalist soldiers beat a local Taiwanese woman for selling contraband cigarettes near the Taipei rail station. The episode set off rioting throughout the island which Nationalist reinforcements put down at the cost of thousands of lives.

Sixty years later the "2-28 Incident" remains a sensitive subject for many Taiwanese, and a source of acrimony between President Chen Shui-bian's ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the Nationalist opposition.