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Legislators seek blacklist papers

DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim, right -- accompanied by a group of people who were once on the government's blacklist -- holds a press conference yesterday in Taipei to push for measures to declassify documents on those who were blacklisted. PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES

Two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday pushed for the declassification of official documents on people blacklisted by the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime.

"The draft Statute Governing Declassification of Blacklist Documents (黑名單檔案解密條例) was presented today to honor Human Rights Day. We hope that the bill, when passed, will reveal the truth of our history," said DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) yesterday.

"The statute was drafted after consulting a law formulated in Germany after unification. It gave people the right to look up confidential documents filed by the East German intelligence agency during the illegal surveillance of its people," Hsiao told a news conference.

The KMT's illegal surveillance and prevention of political dissidents from re-entering the country during and after the martial law era not only violated the Constitution's protection of individual freedom of movement, it also caused tragedy for many families here, Hsiao said.

She added that the documents awaiting declassification should be publicly displayed to educate people and remind democratically elected governments to be vigilant in upholding the rule of law.

The KMT government drew up the blacklist during the martial law era to prevent political dissidents, mostly Taiwanese studying overseas, from returning to the country.

Hsiao and fellow DPP Legislator Chen Tang-shan (陳唐山) developed the draft, which would instruct the National Archives Administration to set up a task force charged with collecting and declassifying papers containing the backgrounds and indictments of people that fell foul of the KMT authorities.

DPP lawmakers said these documents were currently dispersed among different organs, including the Bureau of Immigration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, overseas embassies and the KMT's party history archive.

A list of 440 victims of the KMT regime's blacklist was presented by Hsiao, many of whom had been prevented from coming home for decades. The total number of blacklist victims could be more than 10,000, according to researchers who have presented papers at conferences on the subject.

Presidential advisor Alice King (金美齡), World United Formosans for Independence Chairman Ng Chiau-tong (黃昭堂), former Taiwan Independence Party Chairman Hsu Shih-kai (許世楷), DPP deputy secretary general Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) and Legislator Trong Chai (蔡同榮) also attended yesterday's press conference.

"The call to declassify the documents ... signals that the country realizes the principle of governance must rely on a complete system of democracy and law," Chai said.

He added that further progress in declassification would prove that party-state regimes with a perverted sense of power that used intelligence agents to control their people would eventually fall and become the ashes of history.

Endorsing the draft, Ng Chiau-tong said he looked forward to seeing the statute passed "so that I can find out how terrible and brutal I have really been in describing KMT agents."
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