Sat, Oct 21, 2017 page1

• Army admonished for White Terror-era rights abuses

  • By Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNA
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  The Control Yuan yesterday issued the Ministry of National Defense a correction for lawless conduct and human rights violations committed by the Republic of China Army 65 years ago during a counterinsurgency campaign in Luku Village (鹿窟) in northern Taiwan.

  The Luku Incident, which took place on Dec. 28, 1952, during the White Terror era, saw the army’s Counterintelligence Bureau round up residents to clear the area of suspected communists.

  The correction included an investigative report that cited oral history documented by late Academia Historica president Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲), and never before published declassified documents and interviews by the Control Yuan.

  

  Li Shih-Cheng, a victim of the Luku Incident, on Feb. 16, 2015 stands in front of Kuang Ming Temple in New Taipei City, where more than 200 villages were incarcerated and interrogated in the 1950s.

  Photo: Weng Yu-huang, Taipei Times

  The operation led to about 900 people being detained, 200 of whom were eventually tried, with 93 convicted of crimes against the state. Of those, 28 were executed, Control Yuan member Kao Feng-hsien (高鳳仙) said.

  Kao initiated the 18-month probe of the Luku Incident.

  Kao said Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member Tsai Hsiao-chien (蔡孝乾) came to Taiwan in 1946 to establish the Taiwan Provincial Work Committee.

  In 1949, Tsai’s subordinates created a Luku-based militia called the Northern Region Armed Committee that coerced local villagers into joining its ranks. One year later, Tsai was arrested and the militia was renamed the People’s Armed Guard, she said.

  In 1952, the bureau laid siege to Luku and subsequently executed 28 people, with another 19 people sentenced to “re-education” as then-bureau officer Ku Cheng-wen’s (谷正文) slaves, Kao said.

  The Luku Incident is considered the largest crackdown of the White Terror era, she said.

  The military tribunals contravened due process stipulated by the Code of Criminal Procedures, and grave human rights violations were committed in detaining, interrogating and trying the villagers, Kao said.

  “The defendants’ arguments were ignored out of hand and none of the accused were able to confront witnesses. The verdicts and judgements were marked by undue haste. Several people were detained and executed without their family ever being informed,” Kao said.

  In the 1990s, the government paid the victims more than NT$500 million (US$16.53 million at the current exchange rate) in compensation, Kao said.

  The compensation was authorized by the Act Governing the Recovery of Damage of Individual Rights during the Period of Martial Law (戒嚴時期人民受損權利回復條例) and the Compensation Act for Wrongful Trials on Charges of Sedition and Espionage During the Martial Law Period (戒嚴時期不當叛亂暨匪諜審判案件補償條例), she added.

  However, only those who were convicted by Ku’s personal testimony and the 19 people he enslaved were eligible for compensation, she said.

  “A number of people were tortured before their release and there is no record of their suffering and therefore no recompense. Those people include the child of Luku’s village head, who was severely beaten and later released on account of being too young to stand trial,” Kao said.
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