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.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS