Review: Green Island: A Novel

Got a nice chair for you to curl up with this book

Green Island: A Novel
Shawna Yang Ryan
401 pages
Knopf

"Who won the war, Kane?"
"I did."
"You didn't win a thing, Kane. You only survived."
"It means the same thing."
"But there must be more to victory than just survival."
Kane nodded to the fallen as he carried her from the temple. "Ask them now. Ask me in a hundred years."

This book has been watching me.

A few weeks ago the writer's publicist sent me a copy so I could review it. It has sat on my desk, watching me, drumming its fingers on my table, dropping little hints that I was procrastinating.

I was, because this is a deeply personal book for me. I spent a lot of time crying while reading it, and only read it a few pages at a time. I have been listening to the story that Ryan tells since 1989, and especially since 1991, when I began working at the Center for Taiwan International Relations in Washington, DC, which was run by WUFI, one of the more "radical" independence groups. There Taiwanese in their 40s and 50s would tell me stories about Taiwan under martial law, how their parents had spoken Japanese to them and considered themselves Japanese. How they have been arrested, detained, tortured, just like the people in this novel. How they had come to America, run businesses or worked for the government or done science. How they were blacklisted and could never return to Taiwan. How they hated the KMT.

I was young then, and quite stupid. Now I am not young. Those stories were one thing I experienced, but I also experienced another thing in the movement, which I shoved into the past and try not to think about but have carried with me all these years: the bickering, the blithering, blinkered incompetence, the needless amateurishness, the lack of calculation, the short-termism, the constant infighting, the inability to set aside personalities and work together, the ruthless exploitation of fellow beings, the struggle for control, the lies and betrayals, and the demand from people above me that I tell lies and betray. That generation of the Taiwan independence movement in the US was full of... human beings.

All of this is in the book: Shawna Yang Ryan has captured these stories, presenting a kind of universal story of how these human beings in Taiwan lived and loved and endured. Their stories are not about triumph, but betrayal -- the terrible betrayal of 1945 engendered, like Zeus on Leda, a cascade of calamities, all betrayals, of everything from Allied promises, to democracy to friendship to marriage vows, bent and broken under the savage weight of martial law. In the end the Taiwanese, like the people in the story, did not so much triumph as survive.

The narrator of the story is born on March 1, 1947, her mother having gone into labor as the 2-28 revolt was beginning. Two weeks later her father is picked up by the police. The family loses everything. The narrator's life then takes her through the martial law era, the US in the 80s and the Henry Liu murder, and numerous other events that shaped the Taiwanese consciousness of that generation, so different from this one. It is also the tale of the Taiwanese encounter with the US -- from servicemen to American officials, and how that shaped them. If this is a tale of how the Taiwanese endured, it is also -- perhaps truly -- a tale of how the women endured, for each man who fought the regime and was taken into custody, betrayed his family by leaving them in poverty and uncertainty.

Green Island is powerful. The history is chronicled without romance. The prose is lyrical, full of concrete details. The dialogue is perfect -- so very Taiwanese, with more left unsaid than said. The tone is bittersweet. The lives are full to overflowing.

Read it.
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REFS

• Interview with writer Shawna Yang Ryan at New Bloom
• Interview with Ryan at Bookish.Asia
• Ryan talking about the novel and the writing process on Youtube

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

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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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

1985 Diane Sawyer on the Henry Liu killing

This segment discusses the killing of a writer and critic of the Nationalist regime on Taiwan in California in 1984. The incident affected US relations with the KMT, and helped inspire the recent movie Formosa Betrayed. h/t to KL.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Now Online: The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the Advocacy of Local Autonomy, by Christine Louise Lin

Mark from Pinyin News writes to tell me that he has put online Christine Lin's 100 page magnum opus on the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the independence and democracy movement originally published in Sino-Platonic Papers. The file is 8.44 mb, so give it some time. Lots of fascinating detail on language, politics, and culture:

By the end of World War II, Japanese was the primary means of written communication among the educated. However, churchgoers who did not know how to write in Japanese continued to use romanized Taiwanese to communicate with each other. The romanized Taiwanese vernacular was mostly used by Taiwanese Christians and was not a widely used means of mass communication outside of the Presbyterian Church. Although romanization was an easier system for people to learn, the government prohibited non-church publications from using it, and the knowledge of Taiwanese romanization was regarded as a symbol of being Christian. Tainan Theological College promoted literacy in Taiwanese by using romanization for the register used for teaching classes. The College also used romanized Taiwanese script for drafting sermons, reading the Bible, and singing hymns.

...or....

In 1974, copies of a Taiwanese-English dictionary, compiled by a Canadian Presbyterian missionary, Bernard L. M. Embree, under the auspices of the Taipei Language Institute were smuggled into Taiwan after the Nationalist government had banned their circulation on the island. The Nationalists banned the dictionary because it contained romanized Taiwanese. A government official said, "We have no objection to the dictionary being used by foreigners. They could use it in mimeographed form. But we don't want it published as a book and sold publicly because of the Romanization it contains. Chinese should not be learning Chinese through Romanization." The irony of this statement was that the dictionary not only gave the romanized forms of words, but also the Chinese characters. The romanization was present since it allowed for a more accurate pronunciation of the words. However, the government did not fmd any use of romanization tolerable since it believed romanization promoted the Taiwanese language. From the beginning of Nationalist rule in Taiwan, the KMT government limited the use of Taiwanese and implemented a program of "Mandarization," in which they forced schools, the military, and the government to use only Mandarin Chinese. Native Taiwanese, who were much more comfortable with their own language, despised this policy since the government limited television programming in Taiwanese to only one and a half hours per day.

Go thou and read!
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Erasing the Past

The Ma Administration's latest shenanigans with the past have sparked controversy in Taiwan, as the Council on Cultural Affairs has proposed turning a famous political prison and memorial to the democracy and human rights movement into a concert and cultural activities venue....

Several civic groups expressed their objection to the plan yesterday.

“The CCA’s plan to permit artists to freely use the historic rooms — including the former courtroom and prison cells — and allow them to make adjustments will just destroy the place,” Mainlander Taiwanese Association executive director Huang Luo-fei (黃洛斐) told the Taipei Times via telephone.

“Of course we support the idea of attracting more visitors and giving a new life to the old historic space,” Huang said. “But you have to take into consideration why this place was preserved in the first place and don’t take it out of the historical context.”

Chiu E-ling (邱伊翎), director of media and communications at the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, agreed.

“[The former Jingmei military detention center] is an important landmark in Taiwan’s human rights history — you cannot treat it like an abandoned warehouse,” Chiu said, adding that the CCA had never discussed the issue with human rights groups or former political prisoners who were jailed there.

“[President] Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] said that he considers the human rights issue a priority and the government brags about the ratification of two UN human rights convenants,” she said. “But I think we’re taking a step backward in manifesting human rights.”

Former DPP secretary-general Wang Tuoh (王拓), who was detained at the center as a political prisoner, accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of “trying to erase its own ugly history.”

DPP legislators also joined in the chorus of disapproval.

DPP caucus whip Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) told a press conference that Ma’s government renamed the human rights park on Feb. 27.

The old military court will be remodeled into offices for performing arts groups, while the detention house would become display rooms for art or performance rehearsal studios, he said.

The historical value of the site would be destroyed by the project, Lee said.

Not mentioned in the Taipei Times article, but noted by a Liberty Times commentator, (h/t to the Latin lover) is that the upgrade to the 228 Memorial Museum commencing in May eliminates the second floor exhibit showing the resistance to the White Terror:

同樣的事情也發生在台北二二八紀念館，在五月將要更新的常設展規劃中，原有的白色恐怖展區被取消。當我們好 不容易面對那段歷史，為什麼政府要再次的把它遮掩。每個人、每個群體的歷史都該被尊重，白色恐怖受害者、流亡老兵、樂生院民以及外籍配偶，然而掩蓋顯然不 是尊重的表現。請不要再欺瞞我們，讓人民共同面對「光陰的故事」。

The same thing has also occurred in the Taipei 228 Memorial Hall. In the May upgrade of the permanent exhibition plan, what was originally the area of the White Terror Exhibit has been eliminated. After all the difficulties in facing this part of history, why does the Government have to hide it again.

Exactly. Why does the government have to hide it again?

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Daily links:
Taichung-based music promoter needs help to pay off massive debts for baby. Far Eastern Sweet Potato on Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's talk at TFCC. David Reid's recording of talk given by Director of the KMT's International Affairs department to NCCU students.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

White Terror Documents and Human Body Parts Found Abandoned

Yuan said he wanted to remind all Taiwanese that the CCP regime is “a group of criminals who have committed crimes against humanity, the biggest group of corrupted officials in human history and a political mafia that rips the most fundamental rights off the Chinese people and practices state terrorism to the extreme.” -- A Chinese dissident warns Taiwan

The Taipei Times reported on the tale of documents from the martial law era, including interrogations of independence activists, were simply dumped to rot in an abandoned government building....

Former victims of political persecution and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday slammed the government for neglecting evidence relating to the White Terror period after interrogation records were found at an abandoned Ministry of Justice building.

Yesterday’s Chinese-language Apple Daily reported that the documents, along with body parts in jars, had been left scattered at the Investigation Bureau’s abandoned Ankeng Guesthouse in Taipei County.

The guesthouse, once used as an office by the notorious Taiwan Garrison Command, was used to question dissidents and criminal suspects during the Martial Law era.

The Taiwan Garrison Command was a military state security agency during the Martial Law era from 1949 to 1992.

The newspaper printed photos taken inside the building of human body parts in glass jars. Both the newspaper and the government said the body parts belonged to homicide victims and were unrelated to politics.

The newspaper’s reporters were able to enter the derelict office and take photos of the documents and human remains.

Among the documents found inside were records of the interrogations of late DPP chairman Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介); the late writer, human rights activist and one-time political prisoner Bo Yang (柏楊); and former national policy adviser Hsieh Tsung-min (謝聰敏), who was also once a political prisoner.

The DPP slammed the government for failing to preserve and disclose the documents.

“How can important documents that hold vital information about the White Terror era be discarded this way? We think someone should take responsibility for this,” DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) told a press conference.

At a separate setting, DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said the National Archives Administration under the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission had asked the bureau to collect and clear all archives of documents from the White Terror era, but the bureau had clearly not complied.

“The Investigation Bureau violated the National Archives Act (國家檔案法) and its officials should be investigated,” Cheng said.

Hsieh said: “They [Taiwan Garrison Command officials] told me they conducted human experiments on a mountain in Jingmei [景美], but few people knew where it was. Most people were taken to the place blindfolded and few of them came back.”

Kudos to the newspaper for bringing to light this important story. Apple Daily has pictures of the jars here. I have no picture at the top of this post, because nothing I have is appropriate for this story. Taiwan News reported the other day:

Opposition lawmakers and human rights activists yesterday slammed the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau for dumping confidential files and body parts of deceased political prisoners incarcerated during the authoritarian period of Kuomintang rule in an abandoned building and demanded that the materials be promptly transferred to the National Archives Administration.
Acting on information from local residents, reporters for the vernacular "Apple Daily" found files on about 500 former detainees tossed like garbage in the abandoned Ankang Reception Center in Hsintien, Taipei County Tuesday evening.

Built in 1973, the innocently named "reception center" was initially controlled by the now defunct Taiwan Garrison Command's Military Law Department Ankang Detention Center and served as a location for the detention and joint interrogation, including torture, of "seditionists" by TGC military court prosecutors and the Investigation Bureau until the lifting of martial law in July 1987.

Taiwan News observed in one of its hard-hitting editorials:

.....MJIB officials attempted to excuse their negligence and blatant violation of the 2002 National Archives Administration Law, which required the transfer of such documents to the National Archives Administration, by claiming that the data was "merely administrative."

Such excuses are self-serving nonsense that only displays the contempt with which the MJIB views the efforts by the Taiwan people to rediscover the history of the victimization of tens of thousands of citizens, including many new immigrants from the China mainland, for actual or alleged "sedition" under the authoritarian KMT regime.

During its eight years in office, the DPP administration under former president Chen Shui-bian had been able to secure the declassification and transfer to the National Archives of considerable secret documentation on martial law cases held by the plethora of secret police, security and intelligence organizations under the KMT martial law regime, including the feared and now defunct Taiwan Garrison Command and the Investigation Bureau itself.

Much of this material included military court judgments against alleged "bandit communist agents," Taiwan independence advocates, liberal intellectuals, journalists or even errant MJIB or TGC agents or victims of internal KMT power struggles as well as extensive materials on the Feb. 28 massacre of 1947 and the KMT regime's crackdown on the "Formosa" democratic movement after the Kaohsiung Incident on Dec. 10, 1979.

However, such efforts were both inadequate and frustrated by the refusal of government agencies and the KMT itself to turn over "white terror" related files to the NAA for historical research or legal examination.

The exposure of the MJIB's tossing of such files as so much garbage into an abandoned interrogation center is stark proof of such deliberate obstruction.

Moreover, the MJIB's files also hint at the mountain of documentation and information on the "front-end" of the process of political persecution and human rights violations, namely surveillance, arrest and interrogation, including the use of torture to extract "confessions" that would be creatively rewritten by prosecutors into "the facts of the crimes" to be used for martial law judges to pass sentences of death or long imprisonment.

As Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation Chairman Wu Nai-teh observed Wednesday, "Taiwan's modern history cannot be properly written" without the release of all such secret files still hoarded by the MJIB, the Ministry of National defense and many other government ministries and agencies and, last but not least, the KMT itself.

Even more urgent is our society's need to discover the victimizers as well as the victims and ensure that the persons who ordered wrongful arrests and executions and torture and other violations of human right and even crimes against humanity committed during the KMT authoritarian rule bear legal and moral responsibility.

"Transitional justice" is not a luxury or a process of vengeance but an essential process to face and heal past wounds and divisions in our society and to prevent the sowing of the seeds for further violations by state authorities of basic human rights by allowing those who ordered such actions to escape responsibility with impunity.

In sum, the acquisition of such files and the recovery of the full history of the "white terror" in Taiwan is vitally important for each and every Taiwan citizen because the process of truth and reconciliation is the best guarantee that no one, no matter what their political beliefs, will not become future victims of state violence or human rights violations.

Hence, we strongly urge President Ma Ying-jeou to demonstrate the political courage and will to order all government agencies and the KMT itself to turn over "228" or "white terror" related files from the martial law era to turn such documentation to the National Archives and an impartial investigation committee or, preferably, a legally grounded "truth and reconciliation" commission for the martial law period.

The exercise of leadership by the KMT government in transitional justice can help heal Taiwan's deep political divisions and assist the KMT improve its own image.

Otherwise, President Ma should explain to Taiwan's 23 million people why he and the KMT are unwilling or unable to fulfill this task.

This week we had two uncomfortable reminders of mainlander power in Taiwan -- the Kuo Kuan-ying case, where a GIO official publicly revealed what many mainlanders feel privately -- that the Taiwanese are an inferior race -- and now this, this inept and unwitting time capsule into the torture-murder regime run by the Taiwan Garrison Command during the martial law era. Make no mistake -- martial law legitimated by the KMT regime's Return to Zion China religion simply actualized the ideals encoded in the writings of Kuo's alleged blogger alter ego. They are two aspects of the same mentality, the obverse and reverse of the same counterfeit coin.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Strawberry Fils Forever

The Wild Strawberries student movement, still ongoing, has three demands -- an apology from President Ma, resignations of the police and security chiefs, and amending of the Assembly and Parade Law. The first two are highly unlikely to occur, but the third was a possibility. A few days ago the KMT had a caucus which they billed as an "open forum" at which some "NGOs" appeared...

Although they agreed that the pre-approval system has its defects and should be replaced with a pre-notice system, many KMT lawmakers were still worried the change could bring social chaos.

“The pre-approval system could be changed to the pre-notice system, but there should still be some kind of application and check process,” KMT Legislator Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) told the public hearing. “For the sake of social stability, adequate restrictions should still be implemented, otherwise [demonstrations] may lead to anarchic situations. It’s very dangerous.”

The chairwoman of the Taipei International Cultural Exchange Association for Professional Women, Ling Yu-ying (凌瑜英), expressed strong opposition to amending the Assembly and Parade Law.

With "social opinions" like this, you can imagine the results, reported by the Wild Strawberries in their press release of Nov 18:

The Executive Yuan has raised the issue of revisions to the Assembly and Parade Law recently. However, the new version adopts a “compulsory notification system” whose content preserves restrictions including “assembling without notification is illegal”, “establishing forbidden areas”, “police have the right to alter the time, place, and form of the parade”, “the police can command dissolution of the parade without explicit standards”, and “the criminal and administrative sanctions relating to assembly”. Namely, the revision contains no practical improvements, only the change of name from “permission” to “notification”.

I am reminded of the period right after martial law was lifted, when the KMT passed a new national security law that was martial law in all but name. Hopefully the DPP and concerned KMT lawmakers can move to make meaningful revisions to the law.

Meanwhile the Strawberries, numbers dwindling, are planning to build a "strawberry tower." I stopped by the NCKU protests on Monday and was told that parents are putting lots of pressure on the students in the university not to participate. "Concerned parents" are also bombarding the counseling center with demands that the counselors do something about the "mentally ill "students demonstrating. I do know a few students whose parents encouraged them to get out and do something. Public support has been overwhelming, with many stopping by to leave donations of food and equipment. The students have become a cause of "chaos" and like any cause of distortion in the social order, the pressure gradient to conform becomes steeper as time passes. One of the many bizarre bits of fallout from the definition of order in Chinese society is that peaceful student demonstrators are a cause of "social disorder", but mad drivers and construction vehicles blocking streets are of no concern...

[Taiwan]

On the Blogs today...

A couple of things on blogs I'd like to point to today. First, Taoyuan Nights, has an analysis of the idiotic voucher plan in Let’s hand out free money, and other stupid ideas. I was going to blog on this, but his is so much better. Don't miss his distinction between taxpayers and voters. All I can say is that thank heaven our financial system is being run by elite experts with years of training at the best universities in the world, otherwise we'd probably be having a global financial crisis or something.

Meanwhile, Melinda Liu on the Newsweek blog China Calling has an excellent rundown of the Chen Yunlin protests and everyone's fear of where we might be heading with the recent spate of arrests. A taste:

These events have left a society long used to fragmentation - where most academics, analysts and media organisations are on one side or the other of the political divide – still reeling at the increase in political tension under President Ma: “Chen Shui-bian was a very divisive figure,” says Frank Muyard of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. “People hoped Ma would be more conciliatory – they saw him as a gentle, well-educated, nice person who would help Taiwan come together and do something for reconciliation. But he hasn’t done that. Now many people see him as partisan, too eager to please China – they don’t trust him to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty.”

For the mainland government, which has reported the opening of cross-strait links with great fanfare as a ‘win-win’ situation for both sides, there’s a clear degree of satisfaction in seeing Chen Shui-bian under arrest. Beijing despised him for his background in Taiwan’s pro-independence movement of the 1970s and 80s. “Chen Shui-bian in handcuffs” was the banner headline in the popular nationalist tabloid newspaper the Global Times on Wednesday. And for months China’s state-run media has revelled in reporting every detail of the various allegations of corruption against Mr Chen, his wife and associates (in marked contrast to the minimal amount of detail it gave in the corruption case of another Chen, former Communist Party Secretary of Shanghai Chen Liangyu, who was jailed for eighteen years in April.)

Ma Ying-jeou’s popularity with China’s leaders, on the other hand, is clearly at an all-time high: as well as agreeing to direct links and the One China principle, he has also relaxed restrictions which prevented Taiwanese companies from investing more than 40% of their assets in the mainland, further boosting economic ties. Yet recent events suggest his actions may also risk provoking a deeper anti-mainland backlash, at the very moment when physical links between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have become closer than ever.

Hopefully we'll have a formal article from Newsweek on these issues.


[Taiwan]

Presbyterian Church in Taiwan on Recent Events

For those of you who do not know, during the martial law era, when many mainstream Churches were in bed with the regime, the Presbyterian Church fought hard for human rights in Taiwan. This is a powerful voice with a deep and glorious history. They are passing around a "prayer letter" on the recent events.

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台 灣 10647 台 北 市 羅 斯 福 路 三 段 269 巷 3 號
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN TAIWAN

3, Lane 269, Roosevelt Road Sec. 3, Taipei 10647 TAIWAN
General Secretary: Rev. Andrew T. C. Chang


11 November 2008


AN APPEAL BY PCT TO THE GLOBAL CHURCH FAMILY FOR PRAYERS CONCERNING THE ABUSE OF JUSTICE AND VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN TAIWAN

On behalf of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT) and out of unyielding concern for the dignity and selfhood of the 23 million people of our nation, as well as for peace in the Asia region, we sincerely appeal to you our sisters and brothers in Christ to join us in expressing concern and offering prayers for Taiwan.

Ever since the Legislative Elections of January 2008 when the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang KMT) garnered the overwhelming majority of seats and later the KMT candidate, Ma Ying-Jeou, won the Presidential Election on 20 May 2008, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT), along with many others in our land, have held deep concerns and reservations for the future of democracy and human rights in our country Taiwan.

Sadly, the performance of President Ma and his KMT administration the past six months has time and again underscored our fears. We in particular express our grave concern for recent events:

1) the detentions of both present and former government officials of the opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) accused of corruption. We understand one or two detainees have been charged but several accused are still held without being charged and incommunicado, this is a basic violation of due process of justice and rule of law. Furthermore, we are concerned the prosecutor’s office is seemingly leaking information to the press while the accused are unable to defend themselves. This “trial by press” also violates justice and the norm that any accused should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Since only members of the DPP opposition party are targeted this action implies the KMT is “using” the justice system to retaliate the former government under Chen’s administration.

2) the visit to Taiwan (3-7 Nov 2008) of Mr. Chen Yun-Lin, Chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) from China; and the signing of the four cross-strait accords between the ARATS chairman Chen and the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) represented by its Chairman, Chiang Pin-Kung. This action to develop direct aviation, shipping, market trade and economic relations with China accelerated fears that the methods used by the Ma Administration are costly in terms of the legal process, Taiwan’s dignity and sovereignty as well as being a real threat to democracy in Taiwan.

3) the violation of human rights, freedom of speech and expression, undergirded by the government’s action to deploy more than 10,000 police including riot police officers, to Taipei city to “guard” the visiting dignitary Chen and the sixty people who accompanied him. These measures to “guard and protect” the visiting envoy from China were excessive and disturbingly reminiscent of the dark years under Martial Law.

With this letter we add a brief overview of some of the events of last week that hopefully will help you further understand the reason for our concerns.

On behalf of the PCT and Taiwan, thank you for your support and we ask that you kindly share this prayer request with your church members.

Sincerely yours, in grace and peace

Rev. Chang Te-Chien (Andrew)

General Secretary

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The money paragraph:

Furthermore, we are concerned the prosecutor’s office is seemingly leaking information to the press while the accused are unable to defend themselves. This “trial by press” also violates justice and the norm that any accused should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Since only members of the DPP opposition party are targeted this action implies the KMT is “using” the justice system to retaliate the former government under Chen’s administration.

The way that the Ma government is moving is usually described as regressing backwards towards authoritarianism, but actually they are moving forward...... in the direction of Singapore.

[Taiwan]

Chen Shui-bian Held [UPDATE: DETAINED]

Jon Adams in the CS Monitor has the call with a very fair article on the issue....

Chen's own legal woes began with allegations that he embezzled money from a special fund designated for Taiwan's diplomacy. But as a president he was immune from prosecution.

He was named as a suspect on May 20, the day he stepped down from office. The probe led to allegations of far more serious graft, involving millions of dollars moved through a complicated array of foreign accounts and shell companies. Prosecutors have focused on possible kickbacks or bribes during the government-led privatization of some of Taiwan's state-run banks, which sparked fierce competition among prospective buyers.

The legal push against him has stirred criticism of Taiwan's legal system – particularly prosecutors' right to hold suspects for up to four months without charge. Nine pro-independence party figures are currently in such detention, according to local press reports, which has fueled charges of a political witch-hunt.

Mr. Chiang say the detentions point to the need for legal reform in Taiwan. "Our rule of law still has a long way to go," says Chiang. "The legal process is not well respected in some cases."

The Ma government insists it is not interfering with judicial proceedings, and prosecutors argue the detentions are necessary to prevent collusion between suspects.

Under the law Chen can be detained for 60 days, and then, with re-application, for 60 more. If you like the idea of detaining people without charges for long periods of time, you can apply for a job at Guantanamo. No evidence? Just put them in detention indefinitely, and sooner or later "confessions" will result.

Adams nicely contextualizes the Chen arrest by putting in the context of other arrests over the last couple of weeks of DPP politicians. The prosecutors claim that detentions are necessary to prevent collusion between the defendents, but not everyone detained is involved in the Chen case. Detainee Su Chih-fen is on a hunger strike right now to protest her detention, and she has nothing to do with Chen.

Chen has, as of last night and early this morning, not actually been formally detained. He is being held while prosecutors ask the court for permission to formally detain him, according to the Taipei Times. There were reports that he was roughed up, which both pro-Blue TVBS and pro-Blue ETTV said were basically true according to what I heard, and he went to the hospital last night to be checked. UPDATE: Prosecutors received permission to detain him this morning, he sustained only a minor muscle tear, according to AP. UPDATE 2: After reviewing information in comments and on various websites, it appears that Chen was basically being bombastic again, and nothing very serious occurred.

I know everyone despises that hopeless miscreant, and frankly, the thought that we might go months without hearing any of his bombastic twitticisms is relieving. I know you must also be delighted to see him get his comeuppance, for the way he totally betrayed Taiwan, his party, and its longstanding ideals. If his were the only case that had been pursued recently, I'd be overjoyed. Let the bastard rot. As Antonio Chiang, Chen's former National Security Council and current Apple Daily editor in chief said in the CSM article:

"He's intentionally distorting and twisting everything, trying desperately to get support from some diehards at the expense of the DPP [the pro-independence party]," says Antonio Chiang, former head of the National Security Council in Chen's government. "He's destroyed the value of democracy and the significance of the Taiwan independence movement, and destroyed the dream of Taiwan for Taiwanese."

Chiang exaggerates, but it captures the way many of us felt when Chen admitted he broke the law.

But unfortunately, the fact that Chen is a confessed tax evader and may well have taken bribes as well, does not mean that this is not a political prosecution. No KMT politicians are being investigated and none of the local gangsters in the DPP are being investigated. This is aimed at DPP higher-ups. Nine DPP politicians have been detained or indicted recently, by a government that has repeatedly said it looks to Singapore as a model.

Let him who has ears, hear.

[Taiwan]

President Chen Taken Into Custody

Student protesters at NCKU.

Former President Chen Shui-bian was taken into custody by the Special Investigations Unit today, as many had predicted. More details tomorrow as the story is clarified.

[Taiwan]

Interviewing the Student Protesters in Tainan

Students chant during the student protests across campuses nationwide. This video was taken at NCKU on the afternoon of Nov 10, 2008.

I stopped by the student protest in front of the gate of NCKU on Da Shue Rd in Tainan and spoke to a spokesperson for the protesters:

How long are you going to be out here?

"We are going to stay until tuesday. If the government hasn't given us a response by then, we'll probably continue. But we'll vote on that. If everyone decides to continue, then we'll continue."

Has the government contacted you yet?

They've talked to the people in Taipei, but not directly to us. But we are in contact with Taipei and Taichung, where we are carrying out this activity as well. If they get a response in Taipei we'll hear about it.

So what do you call yourselves? The Wild Strawberries? Why that?

Because people say -- in Taiwan many of the media organizations say -- that young people are just like strawberries [weak and easily bruised --mt]. We think we're not like that, and we wanted to show that we could do something.

So you didn't want to recall the "White Lily" student movement of the late 1980s?

We didn't really hope to do that. Many of those people have gone on to enter political parties, and we didn't want people to see us as supporting or connected to one party or the other.

What are these three goals?

First, we hope that President Ma and Premier Liu will apologize for the recent police violence. Our second goal is that the heads of the National Police Administration and the National Security Administration step down. Third, we hope that the Assembly and Parade Law will be revised. We ask that it be revised in four directions. First, we'd like to change the application for a parade permit to a notification system, just like in the US, where you just notify the police that you will march, instead of asking permission to hold a march. That way the police will not be saying who can protest and who can't. The second thing we want changed is the Police Administrative Judgment authority. At present the police can decide when they will go arrest people and when they won't. [drowned out by traffic and crowd noises.] The third change we want is that at present violations of the Assembly and Parade Law are criminal acts under the law and determined under criminal law, so you can be sent to jail for a year or two years, for example. We believe that this is against the freedom of the people. We want that changed so that violations fall under the administrative laws and only fines are handed out for violations of the Assembly and Parade Law, so you won't get a year or two for violations of the law. Finally, we want them to lift the restrictions on places where assemblies and parades can be held. These restrictions are a violation of the basic rights and freedoms laid out in the Constitution. Now [the Assembly and Parade] law is clearly of lower status than the Constitution, but it has [unintelligible] the Constitution. So we think it should be revised.

NOTES: The interview was conducted in Chinese and recorded on my Canon Powershot IS S5 with the permission of the speaker. This is a translation, with some of the more informal and repetitive language paraphrased. Between the passers-by, the protesters chanting, and the traffic, a few parts are not clear.

UPDATE: ETaiwan News' excellent article on the Wild Strawberry protests.

[Taiwan]

"Painful to live in fear, isn't it?"

Now Fear has come again
To live with us
In poisoned intimacy like pus...

I struggled all week on how to write on the Chen Yunlin visit. I struggled not because I did not know what to say, but because I did not want to speak. And so I will let others summarize the events of this week: the detentions, the arrival of Chen Yunlin, the agreements, and the meaning of the protests, and above all, the creeping fear that so many of us now feel as we watch what is happening.

JOHN MANTHORPE, VANCOUVER SUN: At least seven senior members of the Democratic Progressive Party administration of former president Chen Shui-bian are being held under draconian "investigative detention" laws that allow prosecutors to hold suspects for up to four months without charge.

Prosecutors claim they believe the detained officials have been involved in corruption and might destroy evidence if not imprisoned.

But DPP leaders and other observers accuse the new Kuomintang administration of using the judicial system to purge the political stage of its opponents, smearing the reputations of the detained DPP officials by leaking unsupported allegations to the media, and using the detentions to try to extract confessions.

Those detained include a former senior official in Chen's office, the former interior minister Yu Cheng-hsien, former deputy prime minister Chiou I-jen, the former deputy environment minister Dr. James Lee, two DPP municipal officials and a county magistrate.

TING-YI TSAI, ASIAN WSJ: "Chen Yunlin will act like Santa Claus," said Wu Yu-shan, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science in Taipei. "But the problem is whether the gifts could create obvious benefit to the economy under the current difficult economic environment."

Mr. Ma took office five months ago, promising a new era of peace and economic normalization with China, after years of contentious relations under his predecessor Chen Shui-bian. But his approval ratings have plummeted since, and he has faced growing challenges within Taiwan to his accommodating stance toward Beijing. According to a poll conducted by the Global Views survey center, Mr. Ma's support rate has slipped to 23.6% from 60.5% in April.

JON ADAMS, CSMONITOR: Tuesday's agreements scrap cross-strait barriers erected in 1949 by rival Chinese regimes that refused to recognize each other's existence. The deals extend cross-strait passenger flights and shorten travel times. Before, all flights had to go through Hong Kong airspace.

Direct cargo flights will make it easier for Taiwan businesses to ship equipment and components to the mainland. Direct shipping links will remove the previously needed stop at Hong Kong or another intermediate port. "It's going to save a lot of transportation costs for Taiwan businesses," says Wu Chung-shu, dean of the college of management at Taiwan's National Dong Hwa University. "They're happy to see the government have a more open attitude."

Still, cross-strait links may not much blunt the global downturn's impact on Taiwan's export-dependent economy. "Improving cross-strait links will not totally insulate Taiwan from the current downside risks of a US recession," wrote Standard Chartered's Taiwan economist Tony Phoo in a report earlier this year. "Taiwan remains one of the most exposed in the region to a US-led global slowdown."

Realtime protest broadcasts
Tainan:
http://live.yahoo.com/tainandirect
It started already. (1 pm, Nov, 8th, 2008, Saturday)

Taichung:
http://1106.ezyou.cc/Home/tai-zhong-chang-ci
This one will start 2 pm, Nov, 9th, 2008, Sunday

TAIWAN NEWS: However, Tsai, who was MAC chairman from 2000-2004, stated that what the Ma government had gained in the SEF-ARATS agreements "were what we almost gained but they did not gain any more and at the cost of accepting political conditions including agreeing to Beijing's 'one China principle' and defining Taiwan as a 'region' and not a state."

Tsai stated that the four agreements would tie Taiwan closer to the PRC economy and expose Taiwan to the "increasing risks and uncertainties of the China market" and predicted that only a relatively small portion of Taiwan society will benefit from the new pacts.

The DPP chairwoman warned that if the Ma government does not effectively adopt complementary measures, Taiwan's domestic-market oriented industries, small businesses, middle and lower classes and farmers "will be harmed, incomes and wages will become stagnant and only unemployment will rise."

"This is the reason why the DPP was cautious in handling China policy as we supported liberalization but also believed we had to adopt complementary measures to reduce the negative impact on ordinary citizens and to accelerate industrial restructuring," Tsai said.

Former DPP MAC chairman Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said the Ma government had failed to gain access to cross-strait shipping for foreign flag carriers or ships flying "flags of convenience" in the cross-strait marine transportation agreement, which he described as "vague" and operationally defined cross-strait shipping as Chinese "domestic" routes.

Chen Ming-tong also noted the air passenger agreement damaged Taiwan's national security by re-routing "northern line" flights from Taiwan to Shanghai and other locations to avoid monitoring by the Japan air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and by excessively shortening air warning times and by effectively defining cross-strait routes as "domestic" by allowing PRC airlines to fly directly to domestic Taiwan airports instead of landing first at the international airports of Taoyuan and Kaohsiung.

FAPA STATEMENT ON CHEN YUNLIN VISIT: The Ma administration knows that the majority of the Taiwanese people do not support a rapid pro-China policy. Yet his administration decided to go ahead with hosting the meeting between Chen and Taiwan’s SEF chief Chiang Pin-kung. This decision is to deliberately provoke the Taiwanese people, divide the Taiwanese society and attack Taiwan’s fragile and hard-fought democracy. We strongly condemn the KMT government’s China policies and protest the government for denying Taiwan’s sovereignty and ignoring Taiwan’s human rights, freedom and democracy.

TAIWAN NEWS: Although Ma and other KMT leaders denounced the "violence" of these unarmed citizens, it is in fact the KMT's monopolization of secret cross-strait negotiations without legislative, media or citizen oversight and its obstruction of the peaceful expression of dissent that forced the people to the streets to protest the KMT's use of state violence.

JOHNNY NEIHU: Now, alas, my buddies in uniform are being sent to clean up a political mess. But it can’t be cleaned up this way for too long, or we will have a police state.

As if in preparation, senior DPP identities are being arrested and locked up in a Singapore-style purge-by-judiciary. Not just the Chen Shui-bian gang, but also sitting elected representatives. Like Singapore, there is just enough legal process to satisfy ignorant foreign media, but way too much for local newspapers and TV stations to be bothered with.

After I turned off the TV, I had a sense of foreboding because I now know how it’s going to play out. Every step of what parachute-packing foreign correspondents call “cross-strait detente” or “rapprochement” or “easing of tensions” will, by necessity, include encroachment on domestic civil liberties — and therefore political liberties — at the reluctant hands of Taiwan’s finest. I also know that there are a lot of people who will fight to stop this from happening.

We’re on our way, dear reader. Will you join me on this journey?

[Taiwan]

Joint Statement on Detentions in Taiwan

A Joint Statement from international scholars and analysts concerned with the apparent politicization of the prosecutorial arm in Taiwan. UPDATE: Names are still being added, so contact gerrit@fapa.org if you want to add yours. UPDATE 2: Document is permanently hosted at Taiwan Documents.org

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

November 4, 2008

JOINT STATEMENT

US, European and Australian scholars and writers express concern about prosecutions in Taiwan

The undersigned, scholars and writers from the US, Europe and Australia wish to express their deep concern about the recent series of detentions in Taiwan of present and former DPP government officials. To date there have been at least seven such cases (See list below).

以下聯署的國際學者對於近日台灣政府一連串拘留卸任與現任民進黨政府官員的行動，深表憂慮。直至今日，據我們瞭解共有七件類似案件。

It is obvious that there have been cases of corruption in Taiwan, but these have occurred in both political camps. The political neutrality of the judicial system is an essential element in a democracy. It is also essential that any accused are considered innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.

很明顯的，貪污這個問題在台灣依然存在，但是這樣的案例在兩大政黨裡均曾發生。司法系統維持政治中立是民主的基本要素。堅持任何被指控者在裁定有罪前均是無罪的法律理念也是必要的。

We also believe that the procedures followed by the prosecutor's offices are severely flawed: while one or two of the accused have been formally charged, the majority is being held incommunicado without being charged. This is a severe contravention of the writ of habeas corpus and a basic violation of due process, justice and the rule of law.

我們認為檢察官所採取的法律程序有著嚴重的缺失：雖然當一、兩位被指控者已被正式起訴時，大多數被指控者卻在未被正式起訴情況之下就遭到收押禁見。這嚴重違反了人身保護令以及正當法律程序、公義與法治。

In the meantime, the prosecutor's offices evidently leak detrimental information to the press. This kind of "trial by press" is a violation of the basic standards of judicial procedures. It also gives the distinct impression that the Kuomintang authorities are using the judicial system to get even with members of the former DPP government. In addition, the people who are being held incommunicado are of course unable to defend themselves against the misreporting and the leaks in the news media.

在此同時，檢察官辦公室很明顯地將相關不利消息透露給媒體。這種「透過媒體辦案」的方式違反司法程序的基本標準；也讓外界認為國民黨政府利用司法系統來報復已下台的民進黨政府。此外，被收押禁見的人，在與外界斷絕聯繫的情況下，無法澄清外界不實報導與媒體洩密。

We do firmly believe that any alleged wrongdoings must be dealt with in a fair and open manner in an impartial court. Justice through the rule of law is essential to Taiwan's efforts to consolidate democracy and protect fundamental human rights.

我們深信任何宣稱的犯罪行為應該以公正與公開的方式，在中立的法庭裡審判。透過法治落實司法，才能強化台灣民主與保障基本人權。

We do not want to see Taiwan's hard-earned democracy jeopardized in this manner. Taiwan can justifiably be proud of its transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It would be sad for Taiwan and detrimental to its international image if the progress which was made during the past 20 years would be erased. Taiwan needs to move forward, not backwards to the unfair and unjust procedures as practiced during the dark days of Martial Law (1947-87).

我們不願見到台灣辛苦得來的民主陷入如此困境。台灣因為在八零年代後期與九零年早期成功轉型為民主國家，而引以為傲。如果過去二十年來的民主進展從此抺煞，這不僅將令人難過，台灣的國際形象也將受到嚴害傷害。台灣必須向前邁進，而不應是開倒車回到過去戒嚴黑暗時代的不公與不義。

Signed:

簽署人：

Nat Bellocchi, former Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan 　
Julian Baum, former Taiwan Bureau Chief, Far Eastern Economic Review
Coen Blaauw, Formosan Association for Public Affairs, Washington DC
David Prager Branner, Director at Large (East Asia), American Oriental Society
Gordon G. Chang, author, "The Coming Collapse of China."
June Teufel Dreyer, Professor of Political Science, University of Miami, Florida
Edward Friedman, Professor of Political Science and East Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Bruce Jacobs, Professor of Asian Languages and Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Richard C. Kagan, Professor Emeritus of History, Hamline University, St. Paul Minnesota
Jerome F. Keating, Associate Professor, National Taipei University (Ret.). Author, "Island in the Stream, a quick case study of Taiwan's complex history" and other works on Taiwan
Daniel Lynch, Associate Professor, School of International Relations, University of Southern California
Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Pennsylvania
Donald Rodgers, Associate Professor of Political Science, Austin College, Texas
Terence Russell, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Manitoba
Scott Simon, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa
John J. Tkacik Jr., Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, Washington DC
Gerrit van der Wees, Editor Taiwan Communiqué, Washington DC
Vincent Wei-cheng Wang, Professor of Political Science, University of Richmond, Virginia
Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania
Stephen Yates, President of DC Asia Advisory and former Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs
---------------------------------------------------------------

Specific cases of concern:
-- The arrest and detention on October 15th of former Interior minister Yu Cheng-hsien;

-- The arrest and detention on October 27th of former Hsinchu Science Park Director and Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection Dr. James Lee;

-- The arrest and detention on October 29th of DPP Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen;

-- The indictment on October 30th of DPP Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu;

-- The arrest and detention on October 31st of former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general and Deputy Prime Minister Chiou I-jen;

-- The questioning of former Foreign Minister Dr. Mark Chen on November 3rd and insinuations in the press that he might be charged and arrested.

-- The arrest and detention on November 4th of DPP Yunlin County Magistrate Ms. Su Chih-fen.

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

Ma Yung-cheng, another presidential office official in the Chen Administration, was taken into custody on embezzlement charges yesterday. Note how the wave of arrests has coincided with the publicity push over the Chen Yunlin visit.

Can we see some action in the international media on this? It would be a good way to put into perspective the lack of access to the Chen Yunlin visit that the media were complaining about.

[Taiwan]

Formosa Betrayed Movie Website

Just a quickie in between errands -- Marc in Taipei flipped me this link to the official website of the new movie Formosa Betrayed. Now in pre-production, the movie is based on the murder of a Carnegie-Mellon Professor, Chen Wen-chen, in 1981 in Taiwan, apparently by KMT security forces. The Taipei Times has some more here on the case. Jerome has reporter Tina Chou's article on getting kicked out of Taiwan for using the world "autopsy" in connection with the case.

I'm really looking forward to this movie -- it will be a great profile raiser and sympathy generator for Taiwan.

[Taiwan]

AFP Again *Sigh*

Yesterday, as I was watching the mess over at the Memorial Formerly Known as CKS Memorial on TV in the school cafeteria, I thought to myself that this was certain to trigger a flood of really bad articles in the foreign media about Taiwan. Already AFP is ahead of the curve on that one....

Note how the anti-DPP framing begins with the headline:

Taiwan leader defends move to downplay Chiang legacy

Imagine an article written about getting rid of the memorials of Soviet colonialism in Eastern Europe entitled Polish Leader defends move to downplay Communist legacy. No one would regard "downplaying" the authoritarian past as a move that required a "defense." This is just another demonstration of the double standards that infest the discourse on democratic change in this part of the world -- the world press cheered the removal of statues in Eastern Europe, but it doesn't appear able to present the same forthright position on Taiwan. Just read this BBC article on a very similar situation in Estonia, which I'll be getting back to.

From the opening frame of the article, it is very clear where the writer's sympathies lie.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian Thursday defended a move to take the name of Chiang Kai-shek off a memorial gate, calling the late leader a "dictator" who should not be honoured.

"This is the question of whether we should worship a dictator, an authoritative ruler who had suppressed human rights, as a god or a feudal emperor," said Chen, of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in a letter posted on his website.

Chiang, who died in 1975, is remembered by many as the leader who laid the foundation of Taiwan's economic prosperity and safeguarded the island from Chinese invasion.

He led the Kuomintang (KMT) party, which ruled Taiwan for 51 years until 2000 when it lost power to the DPP.

It's quite blatant here -- the accusation of being a dictator -- which is a historical fact -- is placed on the lips of the DPP President (by contrast, AFP has no trouble calling Stalin a dictator. Double standards, anyone?). The reporter then writes the counterargument from the narrator's own perspective, where it carries more weight than it would if it had been placed in the mouth of some KMT spokesperson. Note the soft language as well -- Chiang safeguarded Taiwan (that was actually the US Navy) and the KMT ruled Taiwan -- no mention of martial law in association with the KMT, never mind the political killings. The KMT argument repeated here by AFP is the functional equivalent of Russia's claim that its army saved Estonia from Nazism, and omitting mention of the Communist Party's authoritarian rule. Note below that the BBC has no trouble referring to Soviet control of Estonia as "occupation" but the parallel term martial law is AWOL in the AFP article -- with one telling exception. Because AFP omits key historical facts, no reader can understand what is going on unless they already know.

By contrast, consider the BBC article on Estonia:

The president of Estonia has signed into law a bill allowing the removal of a controversial Soviet war memorial from the centre of the capital Tallinn.

The bronze statue of a Soviet soldier, erected in 1947, is regarded by many as a symbol of Soviet occupation.

However, the large ethnic-Russian population in Estonia see it as a symbol of liberation from the Nazis.

The decision has angered Russia too. The Russian parliament is expected to adopt a statement denouncing the law.

The BBC reports the respective positions, and more importantly, who they are associated with. The AFP article does not mention that the pro-Chiang position is held largely by "ethnic" mainlanders. Imagine if AFP had written:

The large memorial in downtown Taipei, the final manifestation of the personality cult the KMT fostered around the dictator, is regarded by many as a symbol of the martial law era in Taiwan, and an anachronism in the new democratic era.

The AFP piece continues in this vein:

However, the DPP holds Chiang responsible for a February 28, 1947 massacre in which thousands of local people were killed by nationalist troops during riots.

I've highlighted the slant -- it is not history but the DPP that claims Chiang was responsible for 2-28 -- and again, no mention of martial law. Observe that so far in this article, the position held by mainstream scholars and historians is depicted as the DPP position, but the opposite position is not connected to any party. It is the position of 'many.' The reporter also softens the KMT-228 connection in another, subtle way -- while in this sentence it is the nationalist troops who do the killings, the term nationalist is never used elsewhere in the article in conjunction with the KMT.

After describing the situation, AFP then brings up the KMT -- late in the article:

The opposition KMT denounced the name change, calling it a campaign ploy by the DPP to appease supporters ahead of January parliamentary polls and a March 22 presidential vote.

"Any people with a conscience will not accept such a move. Closing the memorial hall is no different from imposing martial law to crack down on Taipei," said KMT lawmaker John Chiang, grandson of the late leader.

Finally, the term martial law appears in the piece -- and in what context? An accusation against the DPP!

Great work, AFP.

UPDATE: Enjoy this AP article, where a photo is captioned:

Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian last month pushed for the removal of late leader's name from the memorial in hopes of downplaying his legacy in Taiwan, where many remember him as a dictator during his rule.

UPDATE II: Don't miss Taiwan Echo's fantastic post at Taiwan Matters on the visual material AFP provided for this highly biased piece. There's something seriously wrong with AFP.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [DPP] [media]

Martial Laws and Marred Reporting

UPDATE: Now updated with massively awesome Taiwan News editorial on the law....see bottom. Lately their editorials have been fantastic....

First all, I had a letter to the editor in the Taipei Times today in which I stated that the term "martial law" should never have crossed Chen Shui-bian's lips. I was wrong; it hadn't. My bad, because I didn't fact-check enough. What actually happened is that several people had made several suggestions, including martial law, to deal with the KMT's refusal to implement CEC-mandated election regulations. Chen merely said he was considering all alternatives, which the media immediately blew up into a claim that Chen had said he was thinking of using martial law. It was not as dumb as I thought, but still not wise. So disregard everything I wrote on my blog.

Plenty of other action went on with martial law recently. What's the new draft bill on the 2-28 compensation that the DPP has going? It's the end of the world, according to the pro-KMT China Post:

Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers are all set to start the first reading of a bill on compensation for victims of the Feb. 28 Incident of 1947 and the reign of the white terror that followed.

They may face a boycott by their Kuomintang colleagues when they begin acting this morning on the bill they have often proposed but failed to get on the agenda.

If passed, the bill requires relatives of the dead persecutors to stand trial for the crimes they know nothing of.

No law in the world compels relatives to be litigated for the crimes committed by the dead.

That's why the bill, sponsored by Wang Hsing-nan and endorsed by his 33 colleagues, has never gotten a chance to be acted on.

The irony of Wang Hsing-nan, former letter bomber, leading a charge for compensation, was not lost on the KMT, as the Post indignantly reported:

"If you have your way," [KMT legislator] Hsieh told Wang Hsing-nan, "you may be sued by Hsieh Meng-hsiung." Hsieh Meng-hsiung, a well-known gynecologist, is the son of Hsieh Tung-min, a former governor of Taiwan and vice president under Chiang Ching-kuo.

The ex-governor had one hand blasted off by a letter bomb Wang Hsing-nan mailed from the United States in October 1976.

"If you excuse yourself, shouldn't your wife appear in court to defend you?" Hsieh asked.

In fact, three packages, each containing a Chinese dictionary hollowed out for explosives, were sent from the United States. The two other recipients were Lee Huan, a top Kuomintang official, and Huang Chieh, minister of defense.

Lee had fingers burnt. Huang was spared.

For the terrorist attacks, Wang was finally induced to come back to Taiwan to stand trial. Police had detained Wang's relatives in Taiwan to force him to return.

In one respect Wang is totally different from all the people who murdered for the KMT: he went to jail. Meanwhile the pro-Green Taipei Times gave a completely different take:

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Sing-nan (王幸男), who, along with caucus whip Wang Tuoh (王拓), Legislator Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅) and 30 other DPP legislators, initiated the legislation, said that the proposal was about clearing up White Terror incidents through judicial processes and learning how officials from the former government had oppressed citizens.

Wang said the proposal stipulates that relatives of those responsible would represent their family members by attending the hearings and that they would enjoy legal rights and be protected from bearing criminal responsibility for the acts of the deceased.

The DPP legislative caucus yesterday held a press conference to make the details of the proposal public.

Wang Tuoh said the facts about the killings would only be learned through investigations and that because many documents related to killings that took place during that period have been classified as confidential, the DPP had no choice but to come up with the proposal to facilitate the investigations.

Wang Tuoh said the relatives of those responsible would attend the hearing and be confronted by victims' families, but would not be expected to assume criminal responsibility.

Any way you slice it, someone is misrepresenting. The China Post reported on why the bill was permitted to come up for a reading -- and gave a little insight into why Ma cannot move toward Taiwan's pro-independence mainstream -- remember, this is published in the pro-KMT paper:

Kuomintang leaders think the DPP move is going to backfire.

In fact, they believe the bill will help them recover the support of hardcore unification supporters, most of them mainlanders, who had been disenchanted by the Kuomintang's call for a referendum on Taiwan's return to the United Nations as the Republic of China.

The DPP wants a referendum on Taiwan's admission to the United Nations as Taiwan. Both referendums will take place alongside the presidential election, scheduled for March 22.

These disenchanted Kuomintang supporters are likely to boycott the election, because they think Ma is moving closer to the DPP policy line of creeping independence for Taiwan.

Perhaps that is the reason why the Kuomintang let the Wang bill get on the agenda of yesterday's sabotaged judicial committee meeting.

Wang introduced the bill on Oct. 5. It was turned down. A week later, on Oct. 12, it was introduced again.

Knowing it won't be passed by any chance, the Kuomintang let Wang get the bill on the agenda in his second try.

"We purposely let Wang win the other day," claimed a Kuomintang heavyweight, who declined to be named.

Whose reporting is correct? I have no idea, without the text of the draft bill.

UPDATE: The KMT distortion machine has been really busy with this one. Taiwan News with another kickass editorial:


EDITORIAL

'State crimes' bill merits support

Taiwan News
Page 5
2007-12-04 02:55 AM

We urge all political parties to support passage of a draft special law that would provide a legal channel to expedite the determination of legal responsibility of state crimes committed during the decades of "white terror" under the KMT authoritarian regime.

Besides the estimated more than 10,000 persons who were slaughtered by KMT forces during the suppression of the February 28 Incident of 1947, there were close to 29,000 cases of political imprisonment under the KMT martial law regime in which 140,000 persons suffered, of whom up to 4,000 were executed, according to the official "Foundation for the Compensation of Improper Verdicts of Sedition and Communist Espionage."

Despite progress in opening official files and securing compensation for victims or their survivors, Taiwan's history remains one in which there are tens of thousands of victims but not one identified victimizer.

Introduced earlier this year by the Democratic Progressive Party's legislative caucus, the draft "Special Law on the Determination of Responsibility for Government Illegalities during the February 28th Incident (of 1947) and the Martial Law Period" was slated to be reviewed in the Legislative Yuan's Committee on Judicial Affairs yesterday, but met with a passive boycott by KMT lawmakers and a concerted campaign of distortion by KMT leaders and by pro-KMT print and electronic media.

On Sunday, the KMT legislators offered a number of excuses to justify their plan not to allow the committee meeting to be held, including claims that the former ruling party "has already shown the greatest sincerity and made the greatest efforts to compensate" victims and charges that the draft DPP bill aimed to "execute nine generations of paternal and maternal relatives" for the alleged actions of perpetrators of the KMT "white terror."

One KMT lawmaker even declared that the "green terror" allegedly imposed under the seven and half years of DPP governance has been "over 10 times worse" than the four decades of KMT "white terror."

KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou, who has a doctorate in law from Harvard University and served as justice minister, said the draft bill was a "manifestation of hatred" that "violated the spirit of reconciliation and coexistence" promoted by his DPP counterpart, former Premier and human rights lawyer Frank Hsieh.

Regretfully, few of the KMT leaders, legislators or media "mouths" who have claimed that this bill aimed to launch a "liquidation" campaign, stir up ethnic hatred or "manipulate '228'" bothered to look at what the draft special law actually states.

Truth, responsibility, forgiveness

Essentially, the draft special law aims to realize the aspirations of thousands of surviving victims or their relatives and Taiwan's human rights community for the formation of a legally grounded "truth commission" to clarify the history of state repression, determine responsibility and open the door for reconciliation.

The draft bill clearly defines the use of state power to "illegally arrest, persecute, sentence, abuse, torture or murder" citizens as a special type of "government illegality" that requires special procedures that target the clarification of truth and the determination of criminal responsibility.

In keeping with the realization that ordinary legal concepts cannot be effectively applied to the crimes of a dictatorship, Article Four would set aside the maximum 20-year statute of limitations on criminal offenses embodied in the criminal code and expunge the ban incorporated into Article 9 Section Two of the draconian National Security Law of July 1, 1987 that has blocked the filing of appeals by victims or their survivors to martial law era military court judgments.

The same article mandates that trials of persons indicted for committing such crimes will not be halted if the defendant has died, but states that the court should instead "order the defendant's spouse, descendent or third-level family members" to "continue the proceedings and substitute for the defendants in executing their rights under the Law of Criminal Procedure."

Although this clause is now the focus of controversy, it is obvious that its purpose is to provide descendants or close relatives of deceased, alleged victims, such as the late KMT dictator Chiang Kai-shek himself, the chance to defend the innocence and reputation of the defendant in court and is absolutely not intended to subject the descendants of alleged victimizers to the same type of discriminatory treatment or persecution suffered by survivors of martial law victims.

The draft law would allow the two foundations that have provided "compensation" or "reparations" for "228" and white terror "improper verdicts" to file suit for reparations from guilty parties, but does not state that direct descendants or other family members will be held responsible for such obligations.

If passed, the law would require the Executive Yuan to form an independent task force under the supreme public prosecutor to pursue legal responsibility for government crimes committed during the "228" Incident or the "white terror" and mandate that the Judicial Yuan establish a special court to hear cases arising from indictments filed by the new task force.

The draft law would also set aside restrictions imposed by the national secrets law or the archives law on the access to prosecutors of historical files or documents held by any government office.

The draft law implicitly would also provide full justification for prosecutors to file for court warrants to secure access to related documents in the KMT party archives, the opening of which is essential for both the clarification of truth and identification of responsibility.

In our view, the DPP should be chided for not introducing this legislation long ago, but we also believe that the bill cannot be justly accused of "manifesting hatred."

Instead, the draft bill has the potential to provide a legally-grounded path to promote reconciliation and ethnic harmony by allowing the judicial system to clarify the fact that most Taiwan citizens of mainlander ancestry or "new immigrants" were not responsible for the commission of crimes by the party-state which were directed and carried out by relatively few of the KMT leaders under the orders of Chiang and his son, Ching-kuo.

Even if Ma cannot grasp the importance of this bill, we hope that KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung can show the political wisdom to support a draft law that can finally allow him to realize justice for his uncle, Taiwan High Court Justice Wu Hung-lin, who was butchered by KMT troops in the 228 Incident.

[Taiwan]

Hong Kong Movie Star Contracted to Whack Hsu Hsin-liang?

The Taipei Times came out with an interesting report that a Hong Kong movie star, Jimmy Wang (Wang Yu), has claimed that he was contacted about a murder for hire by the KMT. The intended victim was Hsu Hsin-liang, the former democracy activist and DPP Chairman, who switched sides at the end of the 1990s and now works against the DPP.

In an interview published on Monday, Wang told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) that the KMT had asked him to assassinate Hsu, who was living in the US at the time.

Hsu fled to the US in 1979 during a security crackdown on Taiwanese independence advocates and lived there for 10 years.

It might seem weird to some readers that the KMT would use a movie star for a contract killing. Oddly, for some reason the Taipei Times did not report the all-important back story. The fact is that Jimmy Wang is reputedly a notorious gangster with longstanding connections to the Taiwan gangs, and the period in which he says he was contacted was the period in which the KMT was using gangsters to carry out hits overseas, like the killing of Henry Liu in 1984. The Taiwan News has a much richer presentation:

Hsu, whose life is full of twists and legends, was a front-runner in initiating a series of democratic movements in Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s. Wang [MT: they mean Hsu, it's a typo] joined the KMT when he studied at National Cheng Chi University. But the former KMT authority later regarded him [Hsu] as a political dissident after he insisted on running for Taoyuan County magistrate in 1977, which later triggered the Chungli Incident. Hsu was forced into a 10-year-exile in the U.S. since 1979, but he continued to push for Taiwan's democracy and anti-Kuomintang ideology by launching a weekly paper in the U.S.

Wang came into the media spotlight after his involvement in a bloody gang fight in the 1980s.

According to the Liberty Time report, Hsu's assistant on Sunday denied that he ever heard the story of the KMT giving orders to assassinate him during his stay in the U.S. But Hsu's brother, Hsu Kuo-tai, a former legislator, told local cable news station TVBS yesterday that he knew about the assassination mission. "We all knew that the KMT put Hsu Hsin-liang as the top target when he was in exile. But after the Chiang Nan murder case in 1984, the assassination mission of Hsu was canceled," Hsu Kuo-tai told TVBS.

The "Chiang Nan Murder Case," involved the political assassination of Liu Yi-liang, [MT -- Henry Liu] pen name "Chiang Nan," who published his thesis topic "The Biography of Chiang Ching-kuo" for his doctoral degree at Washington University. The publication immediately drew attention from the Military Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of Defense in Taiwan.

The bureau then came to Chen Chi-li, head of the Bamboo Union gang, and asked him to murder Liu, saying that the mission was a patriotic act. However, the KMT regime later betrayed Chen and sentenced him to life in prison after Chen successfully carried out the assassination mission.

Chen escaped to Cambodia to avoid life imprisonment and stayed there for 11 years. He never returned to Taiwan after the Chiang Nan murder case and died of cancer at the age of 66 in Hong Kong earlier this month.

Wang was quoted in the report as saying that the reason he disclosed the KMT's assassination of Hsu Hsin-liang to the media was because he owed Chen a debt of gratitude. Chen had helped Wang solve the bloody gang fight case during the early '80s.

Chen Chi-li died recently (ESWN discusses Chen's death -- scroll down to 009), and his body was returned to Taiwan amidst much gangster fanfare. Although it might seem odd that Chen Chi-li ran off to Cambodia, the country is in fact a site of operations for the Bamboo Union gang, the notorious pro-KMT gang that Chen Chi-li once headed.

[Taiwan]