President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday requested government agencies to make efforts to declassify more government documents relating to the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件) as the National Archives made public some of the declassified documents for the very first time.
"While about one fifth of the official documents regarding the incident are still confidential, I hope the National Security Bureau, Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, Armed Forces Police Command, and Reserve Forces Command will do their best to declassify as many and as soon as possible, in accordance with the law," Chen said.
Chen added that the Presidential Office should take the lead so other government agencies would follow suit.
In response, Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (
Chen made the request during the opening ceremony of an exhibition featuring some of the declassified officials documents regarding the incident at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
The exhibition will run from March 1 to March 12 in Taipei and between April 4 and April 13 in Kaohsiung.
The information is also available on-line at the National Archives Web site (www.archives.gov.tw/formosa).
Chen also called on the public to forgive and tolerate the mistakes the KMT government made 24 years ago.
"In addition to expressing my utmost respect for those suffering in the incident, I hope the public will forgive the perpetrators and learn a valuable lesson from it," he said.
The Kaohsiung Incident, also known as the Formosa Incident, was an anti-government demonstration organized by Formosa Magazine on Dec. 10, 1979.
The magazine was a front for a broad alliance of tang wai (meaning outside the KMT) activists.
Originally meant to be a march in commemoration of International Human Rights Day, the event turned into a violent confrontation when members of the crowd unknown to the organizers -- and widely believed to have been agents provocateurs -- began attacking police.
Regardless of who was at fault, the ruling KMT court martialed and jailed eight people, who became known as the Kaohsiung Eight.
They were Control Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), former DPP chairman Shih Ming-te (
Despite the DPP-led government's efforts, Shih, who withdrew from the party in January 2001, said that he was personally not impressed.
"The exhibition doesn't show the real truth of the incident because the confessions were extracted through torture," he said.
Shih also called on the public to pay more attention to those risking their lives to shelter him rather than those who reported him to the police which led to his arrest in January 1980.
"It's not important who betrayed me. What matters is those who stuck to their beliefs till the very end," he said.
Shih was the last of the Kaohsiung Eight to be jailed. He was a fugitive for 26 days before the police acted on a tip-off to arrest him. The two informers were later rewarded with NT$5 million each.
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