‘Kaohsiung Incident’ documentary to be released

The protest against martial law, known as the “Kaohsiung Incident”, is a milestone in Taiwan’s modern history — but paradoxically many Taiwanese are not familiar with it.

“We hope that from an objective viewpoint we can help the nation’s people understand the real events and give a historic record of the most important event in Taiwan’s democratization,” said ETTV president Wang Lin-ling.

The protest challenged the harsh one party dictatorship first imposed on the island by the Kuomintang’s Chiang Kai-shek after his forces fled from China and Mao Zedong’s Communists in 1949.

“The Kaohsiung Incident ... started Taiwan’s politics moving from one party rule towards a multiparty (system)

“It was a turning point in the process of Taiwan’s democracy with a vast influence,” Wang said.

For a long time the clash was shrouded in ignorance as martial law was not lifted until eight years after the event, newspapers for years exercised self-censorship and, until very recently, there were no plans to put it in official school text books.

The crackdown on the protest organized by opposition political leaders and the underground Formosa magazine to commemorate Human Rights Day on the evening of December 10, 1979 saw eight protest leaders jailed for their ideals and a further 33 tried in military courts.

Wang said the protesters experience of fighting for democracy against the odds was a lesson all Taiwanese could learn from.

“It will allow the younger generation to learn from Taiwan’s past and deeply reflect on Taiwan’s future,” Wang said. The crackdown lead to the formation of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party seven years later, with many of the leaders of the historic protest now the nation’s political luminaries.

Vice President Annette Lu, who delivered a 20-minute speech at the historical rally, was jailed by the regime until 1985. President Chen Shui-bian, as a young lawyer, also defended leaders in the protest movement.

ETTV played parts of the 100-minute documentary at a press conference yesterday attended by Lu, surrounded by over a score of security guards, and other former protest leaders, including former Democratic Progressive Party chairman, now independent legislative candidate Hsu Hsin-liang, Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen and DPP legislator Chang Chun-hong.

“The Kaohsiung Incident gave the people of Taiwan an everlasting dream,” Lu said.

In the parts of the documentary played to journalists, young activists wearing flared jeans could be seen on old black-and-white footage surrounded by scores of riot police with enormous shields.

Wang said ETTV journalists spent five years making the documentary, interviewing former police and security agents, 30 of the protesters, and other eyewitnesses and journalists.

Some of the former police and security agents responsible for the crackdown covered their faces as they spoke to the documentary’s journalists, not wishing to be identified.

The government this year has made plans to put the incident into high school history textbooks for the first time, with Wang saying he hoped the documentary could be used at schools as supplementary teaching material.

Yao said one of the goals of the early protest movement was Taiwanization.

The release of the documentary yesterday just before the coming legislative elections sparked controversy.

The KMT — now the opposition party in contemporary Taiwan — has said the ruling DPP may use the incident to drum up sympathy for its legislative candidates and create ethnic divisions in Taiwan.

One of the Kaohsiung Incident’s key leaders, legislative candidate Shih Ming-teh, who was jailed by the Chiang regime for altogether 25 years, staged a boycott of the press conference.

In a statement faxed to the media, Shih, who supports reconciling ethnic Taiwanese with the mainland immigrants descended from Chiang’s KMT forces, thanked ETTV for inviting him to attend.

However, he said he did not want to debase the Kaohsiung Incident by confusing it with his legislative campaign.

Hsu, who holds similar views, also was critical.

“Taiwan’s democracy is completed but it has also been lost,” he told reporters.

“I really hope people involved in the Kaohsiung Incident will not use it as a political tool,” he said.

Hsu said the spirit of the movement involved freedom and democracy and should be there for all people in Taiwan.

ETTV’s “S” channel will play the first half of the documentary on Friday 10 p.m. and the second half on Saturday 10 p.m.

It will be replayed in full December 12.

ETTV spokesman Chen Jeng-yi said an English language version will be broadcast in over 30 foreign countries, including the U.S, Hong Kong and Macau — but not in Taiwan.

However, he said interested organizations were welcome to get in touch with ETTV if they were interested in seeing the English language version.

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