Control Yuan member Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) and a group of people believed to be relatives of about 20 Vietnamese refugees killed by the Taiwanese military in outlying Kinmen County in 1987 called for a reinvestigation into the massacre.
At a news conference in Taipei on Friday, Tran Quoc Dung, whose brother was purportedly one of the victims in what has become known as the “March 7 Incident,” or Donggang Incident, said he “did not come here to condemn Taiwan’s government.”
Instead, Tran said hopes that the government would “take concrete action to console the family members” of those killed 37 years ago by re-examining “a historic mistake” and returning the victims’ belongings to their families.
Photo courtesy of Amnesty International Taiwan.
Kao, who published an investigation report on the incident two years ago based on interviews with about 20 soldiers involved and government archives, also called on the Ministry of National Defense to “restart an internal investigation” and reveal “the whole truth about the incident.”
The Control Yuan member said while he had managed to solve most of the mysteries surrounding the massacre, he struggled to obtain what he believed would serve as “important information” from the ministry during his investigation.
Kao made a similar appeal when the Control Yuan issued the report, but there has been little progress in the past two years.
In response, the ministry in a statement said that it “fully cooperated” with the Control Yuan’s probe and additional inquiries into those involved “may not yield any breakthroughs in the case.”
The killings on Lieyu Island (烈嶼) were “regrettable,” the ministry said, but maintained that the soldiers were carrying out their duties.
Tran, his wife and two others, both surnamed Vu, arrived in Taiwan earlier this week with the help of Kao and Amnesty International’s Taiwan office.
Kao said the four people would travel to Kinmen’s Lieyu Island, the site of the March 7, 1987, massacre, later the same day to pay tribute to their deceased relatives during the upcoming Zhongyuan Festival ceremony at the island’s only shrine.
He said that, after hearing Tran’s account, he was “fairly certain” Tran’s brother, Tran Quoc Hung, was among those killed in the massacre.
About 20 Vietnamese refugees, including a pregnant woman and several children, were shot dead by Taiwanese soldiers from the army’s 158th division, which was responsible for the defense of Kinmen at that time, the Control Yuan report said.
Those refugees, all of whom were of ethnic Chinese descent, were either immediately killed after coming ashore on Lieyu Island or later on a vessel stranded off the island, the report said.
They were believed to be part of an exodus of largely ethnic Chinese Vietnamese nationals who had fled by boat in the aftermath of the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War, it said.
At that time, there was also a prolonged military standoff between China and Taiwan, even though economic and people-to-people ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait began warming in the 1980s.
The ministry did not investigate the incident until the killings were disclosed by soldiers who returned to Taiwan proper from Kinmen and later attracted attention from international human rights groups, the report said.
Four people — a colonel, a major, a captain and a first lieutenant — were sentenced to 20 to 22 months in prison in December 1988 after being found guilty of killing the refugees, it said.
However, all four of them had their sentences suspended, with the court saying they took action “out of duty and responsibility,” and that their conduct was in line with military rules, it added.
Tran, who had settled in Norway, told the news conference that he learned what might have happened to his brother after reading media reports on the Control Yuan’s findings in July 2022.
The report matched the rumors that had been circulating among Vietnamese refugees who were fleeing for their lives on fishing vessels in the region at that time, Tran said.
While the revelation was “heartbreaking,” it also prompted him to reach out to Kao to know more and later plan a visit to Taiwan, Tran added.
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