Newly available Taiwan Garrison Command wiretapping files have revealed new information about the case of Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), a Carnegie Mellon University assistant professor who was killed in July 1981 during a visit to Taiwan, the Transitional Justice Commission said on Wednesday.
Wiretapping conducted as part of the command’s Project Rainbow monitored individuals affiliated, or believed to be affiliated, with the dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) movement, referring to people critical of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration during the White Terror era.
Many of the files available for the first time proved that the command had been monitoring Chen’s family, interfering with investigations and preventing Chen’s family from speaking out after his death, the commission said in Facebook post.
Chen’s body was found outside the library on the campus of National Taiwan University in Taipei on the morning of July 3, 1981, after he had been taken in for questioning by three Taiwan Garrison Command agents the day before.
The command’s statements on the incident were unclear until its then-commander, Wang Ching-hsu (汪敬煦), on July 8, 1981, confirmed that the questioning of Chen was connected to Formosa Magazine.
Despite Wang’s comments, the wiretapping transcripts were not part of the official investigation into Chen’s death.
The commission obtained them in the sixth allotment of archived files from the National Archives Administration.
The first recording involving Chen was of a conversation between him and democracy activist Shih Ming-te (施明德) on Sept 30, 1979, in which the command called him “Mr Chen in Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania],” as it did not know who he was, the commission said.
Chen told Shih about plans to start a foundation in the US, as well as a pledge of US$1,500 per month to Formosa Magazine, which would be delivered through contacts in Cincinnati, Ohio, the transcripts showed.
Shih said that he had not yet received the funds, and explained that the magazine was establishing more offices in Taiwan as well as how its first issue was selling, the commission said.
The command determined Chen’s identity after monitoring a later conversation between him and his father, the commission said.
Although that conversation was mostly innocuous, the command decided, based on his call with Shih, that Chen was “an evident traitor.”
The report eventually reached Wang, showing that the command knew of Chen’s return to Taiwan in May 1981 with his wife and young son, and that it had asked the Bureau of Entry and Exit to delay issuing a departure clearance for him in July, the commission said.
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