On the night of Feb. 28 at the Jen-Ai Hospital, when I finally learned that auntie and the twins had been murdered, several people said it was the security agencies who had murdered Lin’s family.
I responded: “It’s impossible. They couldn’t be so stupid.”
At that time, the Chen and the Chiang Nan (江南) murder cases still had not taken place. Only with the full investigation of many US detectives did we learn of the involvement of Taiwan’s security agencies in Chiang Nan’s murder on Oct. 15, 1984.
Even today, one can see evidence of how flippantly this evidence was viewed in Taiwan at the time. Admiral Wang Hsi-ling (汪希苓), one of the most involved people in the Chiang Nan case, had a beautiful house built for him at the Ching-mei military prison and court. He even had an additional outdoor room so he could meet his girlfriends. In 2007, many of Taiwan’s former elite participated at Wang’s 80th birthday celebration.
In 1980, I thought either a Chinese Communist agent had come into Taiwan to murder the Lin family and create social disorder or that a crazy person — incited by the media that stirred hate against the Kaohsiung defendants — had killed auntie and the girls. Now, I believe that in order to examine the record properly, the files of the many security agencies need a complete re-examination. Only then can Taiwan begin the genuine Truth and Reconciliation process necessary to heal the wounds from the past.
Bruce Jacobs is professor of Asian Languages and Studies and director of the Taiwan Research Unit at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
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