Military Police seize documents without proper search???

Ruined animal pens

Huge controversy this week (Taipei Times) over the military police seizing documents relating to the 2-28 massacre and subsequent White Terror from a private citizen whose consent to the search was coerced...

The command made the remarks amid growing attention to the case implicating Wei, whose daughter is believed to be the author of an article detailing Wei’s situation that was posted on Saturday on the Professional Technology Temple (PTT), the nation’s largest academic online bulletin board.

Wei’s daughter, who goes by the pseudonym “k9t8u5,” said in the article, titled “Military police illegally searched my house and seized items,” that her father owned a collection of White Terror era documents.

“Just a few days before the 69th anniversary of the 228 Incident, several military police came and raided my house, confiscated the documents and used a minivan to drive my father to their interrogation room for questioning,” she said.

She said her father also sold pu-erh tea leaves online and military police posed as potential buyers of tea and asked her father to meet them at an MRT station.

She said her father told her that when he met the military police, they demanded to search his house.

“My dad asked to see a warrant, but they told him it was an easy task to get a warrant and that his refusal to cooperate would end badly for him. That was why my father got in their car and allowed them to search our house without a warrant,” she wrote.

Bob Kao over at Taiwan Law Blog observed that the main issue is not the involvement of the military police -- though that is a deplorable relic of the authoritarian era -- but consent:

Second, the main legal issue here is whether the civilian was coerced. The general story being reported is that the military police arranged for a meeting with the civilian outside under the pretense of buying tea from him, which is perfectly legal. Because they did not have a warrant, the military police asked for the civilian’s consent – which he gave – to enter his home and seize the classified documents after acknowledging the real purpose of the meeting. He was given a receipt by the officers. The main point of contention is whether the consent was valid. Did he voluntarily consent or was he coerced and threatened?

In addition to the legal and political issues, this event also shows another key political structure in Taiwan: the influence of the BBS systems which are the mainstay of communication for Taiwanese university students and academics, and above all, of PTT. These BBS systems are overwhelmingly pro-Taiwan and anti-KMT. The issue only became a public flap after it was posted to PTT...

UPDATED: Today, Mar 8, legislators from both the KMT and DPP slammed the military police and the ministry of justice....

The Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee put aside its scheduled agenda to question officials over the affair, passed resolutions condemning the military police’s actions and demanded the preservation of all documents relating to the White Terror era.
“[The documents] were not classified and had already become historical documents,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said, questioning whether their presence on an online auctioning site was urgent enough to justify military police acting directly instead of referring the case to a public prosecutor.

“Even if investigations are allowed to be conducted without the permission of a prosecutor, personnel from the Ministry of Defense should not have gone with the military police to meet the suspect because they are not ‘judicial police,’” he said, adding that it appeared that the military police had abandoned their neutrality and followed ministry orders.

“The reason this has become such a huge issue is that a judicial and human rights red line has been crossed,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said.

The ministry conducted a “scam operation” by pretending to want to purchase tea to “fish out” the man who posted the documents, Lo said, questioning whether the man had willingly assented to the military police searching his home.

Minister of Defense Kao Kuang-chi (高廣圻) apologized for the fear and controversy caused by the incident in response to demands from DPP Legislator Lu Sun-ling (呂孫綾) that he do so.

Perhaps this will lead to changes in the law that permits the military police to carry out civilian investigations, a relic of the martial law era. This case also highlights how martial law-era laws maintain their malefic influence on Taiwan society...
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A few Harsh Truths, and from Hille

Sometimes when life gives you want you want, you get it from the most unexpected directions. For quite some time I've been complaining that Kathrin Hille of the Financial Times has an unfortunate bias -- intentional or otherwise -- in favor of the KMT. I've also been bitching that there has been no mention at all in the foreign media of how Ma is a product of the KMT party murder-n-loot machine of the 50s-80s, and how the allegations of student spying and his service to the dictator and mass murderer Chiang Ching-kuo have also gone AWOL in the foreign media.

No longer. Dated Nov 2,2007. Byline: Kathrin Hille:

In sharp contrast to Frank Hsieh, his rival from the ruling Democratic Progressive party, and others who began their political life as dissidents and human rights lawyers, the KMT candidate owes his political career to the Chiang dynasty.

While studying law at Harvard, Mr Ma was one of the editors of a rightwing Chinese language publication his critics claim was an instrument to report on government critics. On his return to Taipei, he soon started working as a presidential aide.

The link between [dead gangster] Chen [Ch-li] and the KMT has not escaped the DPP. "If . . . you let such a party rule again, what a disaster! They killed in Taiwan, they killed in China," Mr Hsieh said during a recent election campaign appearance.

President Chen Shui-bian has said the government should probe the KMT's past practice of having Taiwanese students abroad spy on fellow students.

Chang Chun-hsiung, premier in the DPP government, has also called on prosecutors to re-open investigations of other unsolved 1980s murder cases believed to be linked to the KMT.

Not only does this article explicitly link Ma to the culture of political killings, it also discusses the KMT's links to organized crime. You don't often see stuff like this in a major foreign media publication. Some good blog love flowing out to Kathrin Hille this day. Thanks, Ms. Hille, you made my week.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [DPP] [Ma Ying-jeou]

Chen, Suicide, and 2-28

Ma Ying-jeou, indicted embezzler and alleged student spy, said something quite interesting yesterday while attacking President Chen:

While urging the government to focus its efforts on taking care of public livelihood, Ma promised to work on improving the domestic economy and to push for social harmony if elected as president.

"More than 23,00 people commit suicide every year, but the government only cares about tearing down the walls surrounding CKS hall," Ma said while attending a ceremony to celebrate the founding of his group of supporters in Jhonghe City (中和).

As the group vowed to spare no effort in helping Ma win the elections next year, Ma, who declared his candidacy early last month, pledged to demonstrate his determination in pursuing the presidency and seeking a solution to the nation's plight.

Why the mention of suicide? The actual figure, around 4,800, is not really the issue. The claim that Chen's mismanagement of the economy and society has incited Taiwanese to kill themselves is actually a standard KMT propaganda claim. The KMT has a problem: the first two leaders, Chiang Kai-shek and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, were out and out murderers. The Party killed tens of thousands in Taiwan, and millions on the mainland. This is a hard reputation to live down.

Nevertheless, it is trying. How? As Christian Schafferer points out in a recently given paper, during the anti-Chen campaign of last fall, the Hong Kong rag Yazhou Zhoukan ran a cover story that claimed that 16,000 had committed suicide over the years of the Chen Administration, and that this score exceeded the numbers rung up by the KMT during the White Terror years on Taiwan. The suicide claim is not an isolated claim designed to make Chen take the blame for Taiwan's complex economic problems. It is a deeper claim aimed at whitewashing the KMT for its crimes against humanity and stemming the tide of justice for just a little longer.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [DPP] [Hong Kong] [2-28] [suicide] [Chen Shui-bian]

Okinawan Deaths in 2-28

Taiwan News tells the fascinating tale of the killings among the Okinawan community in Taiwan during 2-28.

At that time, traders and fisherman came from Okinawa to Taiwan unaware of the chaos that the February 28th uprising against the then KMT governor general Chen Yi had caused. As a result, many became embroiled in the 228 massacre and lost their lives when KMT troops, dispatched by Republic of China president and autocrat Chiang Kai-shek to suppress the "rebellion," arrived.

At that time, approximately 300 Okinawans lived in a fishing community on Keelung's Sheliao Island (now known as Peace Island).

After the end of the Second World War and the substantive take over of Taiwan after five decades of Japanese rule by the KMT regime under the cover of occupation, this community of Okinawans, as with many Japanese professionals or essential workers, had been "retained for utilization" in Taiwan after the repatriation of most Japanese.

No distinction made

When KMT troops, from of the First Battalion of the 21st Military Police Regiment dispatched by Chiang from China arrived in Keelung harbor, they did not distinguish between persons from Okinawa with Japanese citizenship or Taiwanese and thus Sheliao Island became one of the first settlements to witness the following islandwide massacre and "purification" and at least 30 Okinawans became victims along with thousands of Taiwanese.

After the 228 massacre and the "purification" of dissidents that followed, the flight of the KMT regime to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communist Party's People's Liberation Army led to a deeper and more systematic "White Terror" marked by the (probably illegal) declaration of martial law on May 19, 1949 that lasted for over 38 years until July 15, 1987.

During these four decades of what one international human rights group called a "tortured silence," the story of the 228 victims from Okinawa and their right to know the fate of their loved ones and the truth behind their disappearance was buried along with any hopes for transitional justice.

[Taiwan] [Japan] [Okinawa] [2-28] [KMT] [White Terror]

Brookings Symposium on 2-28

Gerrit van der Wees from FAPA passed this around. Wish I could go!

+++++++++++++

Dear friends in TaiwanFocus,

To commemorate the 60th anniversaty of 228 incident of 1947, FAPA and the Brookings Institution have organized a 228 Symposium titled "Looking Back, Moving Forward"on Thursday, February 22nd, from 2:00 to 5:00 pm.. The Symposium will be held at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Below is a summary of the program.

The main theme of the meeting will be to underline the importance of 228 in the understanding of present-day Taiwan. As you see, we have two excellent Taiwanese speakers -- Prof. Peng Ming-min from Taiwan, and Prof. Lin Tsung-kuang from Iowa -- as well as several excellent and supportive American speakers: Richard Bush (who will discuss The role of George Kerr, author of Formosa Betrayed), Prof. Steve Phillips of Towson University, Randy Schriver (topic: The importance of the 228 for present-day US policymaking), and Mrs. Priscilla Hayner (an expert on transitional justice -- who will speak on Historical memory; possibilities and requirements for reconciliation).

We urge you to attend this important event. Seating is limited, so Brookings is asking everyone who plans to attend to sign up through its website at http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20070222.htm


Taiwan's 228 Incident:

The Political Implications of February 28, 1947

Thursday, February 22, 2007
2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.


The Brookings Institution

Falk Auditorium
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC


On February 28, 1947, the arrest of a cigarette vendor in Taipei led to large-scale protests by the native Taiwanese against the corruption and repression of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalist government, which had come over from China after Japan's defeat by the Allied forces in 1945. Following the protests, troops that Chiang's government secretly sent from mainland China rounded up and executed an entire generation of leading figures, including students, lawyers, and doctors. Scholars estimate that up to 28,000 lost their lives in the turmoil. During the "White Terror" of the subsequent years, the Nationalists ruled Taiwan under martial law, which ended only when democratization set in during the mid-1980s. The "228 Incident" remains a defining event in the political divide that exits in Taiwan today.

On February 22, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies (CNAPS) and the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) will host a discussion with leading experts to examine the importance of the "228 Incident" to the understanding of present-day Taiwan, and the process of reconciliation on the island. Chen-Wen Yen, executive director of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, will moderate the first panel looking back on this historic event. CNAPS Director Richard Bush will moderate a second panel focusing on moving forward. A short clip of a documentary film will be shown between the two panels. An audience question and answer period will follow each discussion.

Panel One: Looking Back

Panelists:
Richard Bush
Senior Fellow and Director, CNAPS
The Brookings Institution

Peng Ming-Min
Advisor to the President
Taiwan

Steven Phillips
Associate Professor of History
Towson University

Panel Two: Moving Forward
Panelists:
Priscilla Hayner
Director, International Policy Unit International Center for Transitional Justice

Tsung-Kuang Lin
Professor of History
Drake University

Randall Schriver
Partner
Armitage International LLC

RSVP: Please call the Brookings Office of Communications, 202/797-6105
or register online at http://onlinepressroom.net/brookings/

[Taiwan] [Democracy] [DPP] [White Terror] [2-28 incident]