On Dec. 10, 1979, the publishers of Formosa Magazine, a dissident monthly of which only four issues had been published, held a public meeting in Kaohsiung to mark Human Rights Day. The rally ended with clashes between the public and police and military personnel, in which dozens of people were injured. Two days later, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government arrested dissidents in a mass roundup.
Independent legislator and Formosa Magazine publisher Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介) and others were tried for sedition, convicted and sentenced to long jail terms. This event came to be known as the Kaohsiung Incident. This month, 30 years after the incident, the Kaohsiung City Government and civic groups have been holding activities to commemorate this key event in the history of Taiwan’s democratic development.
The crises and opportunities highlighted by the incident have important implications for today’s Taiwan, where democracy is on the retreat and national sovereignty is being whittled away. People in Taiwan should look back at what happened and, as was stressed at a commemorative evening held at Kaohsiung’s Dagangpu Circle (大港埔圓環), the scene of the original events, we should strive for democracy, solidarity and love for Taiwan.
The Kaohsiung Incident took place at a time when political, economic and military powers were all concentrated in the hands of the KMT. Taiwanese were not allowed to set up their own political parties, so all dissidents were known as dangwai (黨外) or “outside the party.” Their demands — the right to form parties, abolition of martial law and freedom of speech — were simply basic civil rights that people desired following Taiwan’s economic take-off.
After it was launched in August 1979, Formosa Magazine stirred up a lot of interest precisely because it reflected the will of the people. However, the KMT regime, still reeling from the shock of the US government’s decision to break off diplomatic relations at the beginning of that year, was determined to maintain its rule.
Instead of responding positively to the public’s wishes for quick progress toward democracy and freedom, the authorities tried to use the incident to root out the cream of the dangwai opposition and consolidate its hold on power.
It can therefore be said that the way events unfolded was planned by the KMT authorities. The incident itself happened on the evening of Dec. 10. The next day, every newspaper carried reports of clashes in which soldiers, police officers and members of the public were injured.
One day later, as the KMT and the state cranked up its propaganda machine, almost every media outlet changed its tune, stressing only injuries to soldiers and police officers, with no further mention of members of the crowd having been beaten. Newspaper editorials proclaimed “handling extremists who provoke a riot is not against democratic principles.” Papers carried “special reports” that vilified opposition activists as “people with shady backgrounds and acting as if possessed.”
Speaking on TV, hack political commentator Ting Chung-chiang (丁中江) claimed that the dangwai had not had their fill. Portraying himself as a modern version of legendary Qing Dynasty official Wu Feng (吳鳳), Ting offered to go to the gates of the opposition so that they could kill him.
Ting was by no means the only media figure who collaborated with the authorities’ efforts to turn public opinion against the dissidents by screaming blue murder and fabricating all kinds of accusations. In the early hours of Dec. 13, the authorities took the next step with a wave of arrests, netting almost all the main dangwai figures in one fell swoop. Even former Provincial Assembly member Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), who had not been at the scene of the incident, was not picked up.
Clearly, the charges of rioting and rebellion leveled by the authorities were baseless. The reality is that the KMT regime laid a trap for the opposition by provoking a bloody incident.
All of a sudden, Taiwan was thrown into the darkest days of state terror since the 228 Incident of 1947. Luckily, pressure from the US forced then president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) to promise that those arrested would be tried in public and that no death sentences would be imposed.
While the trial was underway, Lin’s mother and two of his daughters were murdered in cold blood in their home. This crime provoked public outrage and was strongly condemned at home and abroad. It opened the eyes of Taiwanese to the violent nature of the KMT party-state apparatus.
More importantly, the trial allowed the public to hear the defense presented by the accused. For many people, this was a profound initiation in democratic ideas. Minds that had been sleeping in seclusion were now awakened.
Finally, Chiang had no choice but to give in to public opinion by speeding up the pace of democratic reform. Within the next 10 years, the ban on forming political parties was abolished, martial law was lifted, the ban on unapproved newspapers and magazines came to an end and general elections were held for all seats in the National Assembly.
The reward won through the sacrifices and hard work of the victims of the Kaohsiung Incident was that Taiwan broke free of the shackles of authoritarian rule and started out on the road to a new climate of democracy and freedom.
Taiwan today, however, is a society that has not completed the process of transitional justice. People in general still do not know how to delve into the truth about major events of the post-war decades and seek redress for them.
The 228 Incident occurred more than 60 years ago, but even the number of victims and the circumstances of their deaths remain unclear. The murders of Lin’s mother and two of his daughters remain unsolved.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who in the wake of the Kaohsiung Incident used his position as editor of the Free Chinese Monthly to slander the dangwai, has never apologized for it.
The KMT, which ordered the clampdown, has no genuine intention of facing up to its history and repenting. Many former accomplices of the dictatorship are still in positions of influence, which they use to prevent a full revelation of what happened. Painting a distorted picture of historical events, they seek to manipulate public debate and blur collective memories.
This is precisely why the KMT was able to restore itself to power. The difference now is that, whereas the Kaohsiung Incident eventually led to advances in freedom and democracy, today freedom is on the wane in Taiwan and democratic gains are being reversed. The police are going back to their old habit of intimidating people.
At least the authoritarian regime of 30 years ago was clear about the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party and drew a line between friends and enemies. Today the successors of that regime have abandoned this clarity and adopted policies of surrender.
Looking back 30 years to the Kaohsiung Incident, the most important thing for Taiwanese is to revive the spirit of the time. In the darkest days of state terror, citizens, through their actions, force the country’s rulers to change direction. Turning crisis into opportunity, they created a whole new outlook for Taiwan and changed the fates of future generations.
That is the spirit Taiwan needs again today, if it is not to perish.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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