The Kaohsiung Incident remembered

Twenty years ago today, Taiwan's democratic evolution was kick-started by an event that took place in its second-biggest city that came to be known as the Kaohsiung Incident.

Originally meant to be a march in commemoration of International Human Rights Day, the event devolved into a violent confrontation when members of the crowd unknown to the organizers began attacking police.

Perhaps more significant than the event itself, however, was its aftermath. A large-scale crackdown on political dissidents ensued, which resulted in the trial of the so-called Kaohsiung Eight. The trial, conducted in an open martial court (Taiwan was under martial law at the time), received intense media coverage, which was used by the defendants and their lawyers to spread their mission -- the end of one-party rule,martial law and political censorship of the media and the instiutution of free elections -- to an islandwide audience.

The result was the building of public pressure on the government to end martial law, and democratize the political system.

The fruits that Taiwan has reaped in the past 20 years, in other words, had their seeds sown on that day in Kaohsiung.

Back in time

Although the rally had originally been planned as simply a show of support for internationally respected principles of human rights, it took on a much stronger political tone thanks to the result of growing tensions between police and the event's organizers from Formosa magazine.

The magazine was a front for a broad alliance of the tang wai (黨外) movement -- literally "outside the (KMT) party." Its senior executives were all political dissidents, several of whom had been jailed previously for opposition activities. The magazine, which published strident anti-government articles, had become a focal point for a growing public awareness of the need for reform within Taiwan's political system.

The day before the rally, two employees of the magazine were beaten up and arrested by the police while publicizing the coming event.

The beatings prompted Shih Ming-teh (施明德), the magazine's editor-in-chief, to add a protest element to the rally which, like many events organized by the tang wai, had had its application rejected by the Taiwan Garrison Command.

It came as little surprise, therefore, to Huang Shin-chieh (黃信介), the late former DPP chairman and then a tang wai legislator who was the magazine's publisher, that he was "greeted" upon his arrival that evening at the Kaohsiung train station by Chang Chi-hisu (常持琇), South District Commander of the Taiwan Garrison Command -- the body responsible for administering martial law.

Chang reportedly asked Huang to have his team of organizers cancel the march and not allow anyone to carry torches, in return for being allowed to conduct a series of public lectures in one designated place. Huang agreed.

According to Huang's account of events, when he arrived at the magazine's Kaohsiung branch, he was informed that Chang had not kept his word. The designated rally place, the Rotary Club Park, had been occupied by riot police accompanied by several riot-control trucks. Traffic had been prevented from entering the area for several hours already.

This account matches that provided by Kao Ming-hui (高明輝), then the director of the Kaohsiung Investigation Bureau. Kao said that about a week earlier, senior officials of the South District of the Garrison Command had held a meeting in Kaohsiung to discuss how they would cope with the rally, and had reached two conclusions.