Professional students and informants were the products of Taiwan's past authoritarian era. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) used to accuse the opposition's young cadres of being professional students for the Chinese Communist Party or the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The KMT also accused the young supporters of the opposition movement of disguising revolution with student status, or carrying out such activities by using schools as bases.
During the student movement in the 1980s, both student leaders and supporters like myself were labeled as professional students by school administrations.
Informants, for their part, were spies placed by the KMT within the opposition camp to "push them in, pull them out." They were feared, worried over and hated by opposition activists. Through this fear of informants, the KMT aroused mutual suspicion among activists in order to create internal conflict.
Such authoritarian products did not completely disappear following Taiwan's superficial democratization. They have, in fact, turned into tools of the pan-blue and plan-green camps to influence elections. The former opposition camp repaid the KMT in kind by labeling presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Which begs the question: If being an informant is a sin, then how can the government or a party that created informants justify itself and its activities? If the KMT is basically politically and morally upright, what's wrong with being one of its informants?
The issue of professional students and informants has turned the election campaign into a mud-slinging war. More serious issues, such as the control of government violence and promotion of human rights, have not appeared on the parties' to-do list. Certainly, Ma and Hsieh's pasts should be exposed. But even if they really were professional students or informants, the whole thing is merely a selective exposure of the political darkness that characterized the nation's past. From the public's perspective, none of them should avoid the following questions.
For the KMT: If being an informant should be condemned, why does the party avoid discussing the past crimes committed by the intelligence service? Shouldn't the great number of files in the KMT cabinets be made public? Since the KMT claims to be "establishing links to Taiwan," why doesn't it link itself to historical responsibility as well?
The DPP, on the other hand, has always used "transitional justice" and the KMT's dark history as electoral tools. Yet, in its eight years in office, the party never released the intelligence service's records of public surveillance and human rights abuses. A reform of the intelligence apparatus has yet to be made, and government-sponsored violence continues.
To the Ma and Hsieh camps, we could ask whether they are ready to pledge to work with the rival camp no matter who is elected president, if they are prepared to uncover the human rights abuses during the authoritarian era, review past mistakes and seek reconciliation with society through dialogue.
Today, the perpetrators of past crimes have done nothing more than deflect accusations onto others. Some are enjoying great wealth and high positions in the DPP government
Our leaders have not only taken historical tragedies as cheap tools for power struggle, but have also gone down the same road as the KMT by abusing national power, threatening antagonists with media control or even hinting at the imposition of martial law.
Yang Wei-chung is spokesman for the Third Society Party.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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