A former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman and political prisoner arrested after the Formosa Incident in 1979 yesterday claimed that several DPP politicians, including former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and former premiers Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), were Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spies in the democracy movement at the time.
“Undercover KMT secret agents were everywhere at the time, so it wouldn’t be surprising that there were KMT spies among us,” Shih Ming-teh (施明德) told a press conference yesterday to release his new book on the historic event and military trial of opposition leaders.
Also known as the Kaohsiung Incident, the Formosa Incident referred to a mass demonstration organized by Formosa Magazine (美麗島雜誌) for International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, 1979, in Kaohsiung City that ended in violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
Formosa Magazine was one of the major magazines run by the opposition. It published articles critical of the authoritarian KMT regime and organized lectures to discuss issues related to freedom, democracy and human rights.
After clashes that day, the government began to chase down opposition leaders — including Shih; Lin I-hsiung (林義雄); Chen Chu (陳菊), the current Kaohsiung City mayor, and Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who went on to become vice president — and charged them with sedition.
Despite pressure from the then-KMT government, several lawyers — including Chen, Hsieh, Su and Chang — stood up to form a team of attorneys to defend the arrested political dissidents.
The Formosa Incident is considered one of the most important events in Taiwan’s struggle for democracy because in the years following the incident, pressure grew on the then-KMT government to lift martial law and its bans on the establishment of new political parties and newspapers, leading to the country’s democratization.
Shih yesterday said he published the book because he wanted to expose as many facts about the Formosa Incident as possible. He said ultimately the government would make public all the files that are held behind sealed doors.
The press conference was held at the Jingmei Human Rights and Cultural Park in Taipei, which was formerly the site of a military prison and courthouse where many political prisoners — including Shih himself — were once tried and jailed.
“I never thought that I would revisit the trial scene alive,” said Shih, who was jailed for 10 years after being convicted of sedition for the Formosa Incident.
Shih said he “reasonably suspects” that more than one of the attorneys who defended the political prisoners in court was a KMT spy.
“I’ve said earlier that Hsieh was a KMT spy, and now I suspect that Chen, Su and Chang were also undercover KMT agents because the DPP did not make public all the state files about the incident, and could not provide me with information about the incident when I asked for it,” Shih said.
Shih said he was convinced spies were involved, not only because several former intelligence officers had said so, but also because Hsieh did not seem very eager to defend his name.
“If you [Hsieh] were a mercenary working for a foreign regime in its repression of the opposition at the time, then you are a traitor to Taiwan,” Shih said.
“I’ve said it openly before and it’s a very serious accusation against you, Mr Frank Hsieh, so you should have filed a [slander] lawsuit [against me],” he said.
Rebutting Shih’s claim, DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) at a separate setting yesterday called for respect for the lawyers who “risked their lives and put their families in danger” to defend the defendants in the Formosa Incident.
“Please stop mistrusting each other,” Tien said in a message to Shih.
Tien was an assistant to Lin at the time and helped families of the defendants organize a group of 15 defense attorneys.
She said Shih “didn’t know how the group of defense attorneys was organized” because he was in jail at the time and his wife at the time, Linda Arrigo, was forced by the KMT regime to leave the country.
“Finding attorneys [to agree to take the case] was not as easy as Shih said,” Tien said.
“I accompanied many families of the defendants to talk to lawyers and we were turned down many times by many lawyers,” Tien said, adding that it took great courage to step forward and defend the defendants at that time.
“The wives of the defense attorneys lived in fear 24 hours a day, worrying about the safety of their husbands and children,” she said.
Tien said that Chang Cheng-hsiung (張政雄) — who defended Lin in the case — invited Chen to join the group.
“We hoped to find two lawyers for each defendant, but we could not find [late DPP chairman] Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介) a second lawyer,” Tien said. “Chang used the name list in an attorney book to find someone and suggested trying Chen, who he said was young, but excellent.”
Tien said Shih should ask the opinions of other defense lawyers at the time for their view on Chen, Hsieh and Su’s loyalty toward the pro-democracy camp.
“If [the DPP heavyweights] had really been spies for the KMT regime, these other defense lawyers would have found out because in the group, everyone was closely scrutinized by each other,” she said.
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