US embassy cable - 04TAIPEI3920

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TAIPEI 003920 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/RSP/TC 
DEPT PASS AIT/W 
/ 
FROM AIT KAOHSIUNG BRANCH OFFICE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, TW 
SUBJECT: 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE "KAOHSIUNG INCIDENT" AND 
THE LY ELECTION 
 
REF: 99 TAIPEI 3700 (AIT/K) 
 
Classified By: ROBERT W. FORDEN, AIT KAOHSIUNG PRINCIPAL OFFICER. 
REASON:  1.5(d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
1.  (SBU) December 10, on the eve of Taiwan's legislative 
elections, marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most 
important political events in Taiwan's democratic history. 
On December 10, 1979, a group of demonstrators supporting the 
"Dang Wai" (non-KMT) magazine "Meilidao" (Formosa) marched to 
a downtown Kaohsiung park to commemorate International Human 
Rights Day.  The marchers encountered a phalanx of police and 
hundreds of local hoodlums recruited to act as agents 
provocateurs.  In the melee that ensued a number of 
demonstrators and police were injured.  The incident led to a 
crackdown in which many who would become leaders of the dang 
wai's successor, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), were 
arrested and incarcerated for lengthy periods.  Taiwan Vice 
President Lu and former DPP Chairmen Shih Ming-teh and Hsu 
Hsin-liang (both now independent LY candidates) were among 
those incarcerated.  President Chen and the two DPP leaders 
most rumored to be his likeliest successor, Presidential 
Office Secretary General Su Tseng-chang and Kaohsiung Mayor 
Frank Hsieh, all served as defense lawyers for the Meilidao 
defendants.  People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong 
headed the Government Information Office during the incident 
and was accused by critics of playing a key role in the 
suppression.  In the eyes of many, the Kaohsiung Incident was 
the turning point in Taiwan's eventual democratic 
transformation.  At a minimum, it was directly responsible 
for launching the political careers of some of Taiwan's most 
influential leaders. 
 
2.  (SBU) It remains unclear to what extent the 25th 
anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident (alternatively known as 
the "Formosa Incident" or the "Meilidao Incident") will be 
publicly marked in Taiwan and how it will be exploited by the 
Pan-Green parties in their political campaigns.  Pan-Green 
political rallies are expected to be held on December 10 and 
will undoubtedly include mention of the anniversary. 
However, the Pan Green parties have to date remained silent 
on whether the anniversary will be a central theme in their 
election-eve rallies.  They may be waiting to assess election 
prospects and whether the raising of the profile of the 
anniversary would benefit or harm their candidates' 
campaigns.  End Summary. 
 
The Kaohsiung Incident -- Historical Background 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
(The following background is repeated from reftel, issued by 
AIT/K on the 20th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident. 
Current positions indicated for participants are as of 2004.) 
 
3.  (SBU) Formosa Magazine's first issue appeared on August 
29, 1979, and sold more than 110,000 copies.  Circulation 
quickly increased and by the third issue had reached nearly 
four hundred thousand copies.  The magazine's Kaohsiung 
office opened on September 28.  The magazine's exploding 
circulation and its focus on democracy and Taiwanese identity 
unnerved a KMT leadership already shaken by the United 
States' December 1978 decision to switch diplomatic relations 
from the ROC to the PRC.  Against this background, the 
decision by the magazine's staff to organize a march and 
rally to coincide with International Human Rights Day on 
December 10 led to the violent confrontation with police and 
troops from the Taiwan Garrison Command, and to the 
subsequent crackdown.  These events launched the careers of 
many of today's DPP leaders. 
 
December 9: The Kushan Incident 
------------------------------- 
 
4.  (SBU) The event which helped spark the violence of 
December 10 was the arrest and beating of several of the 
magazine's staff who were publicizing the next day's march 
and rally.  Shortly after dark on December 9, several 
volunteers on the staff, including current Vice Minister of 
Agriculture and former DPP legislator Tai Chen-yao, set off 
in speaker trucks for Kaohsiung's Kushan District.  As the 
drivers entered a narrow street, they encountered several 
local police officers who attempted to stop the trucks by 
lying down across the road.  After a brief stand-off the 
magazine staff bodily removed the police from the road and 
continued on their route.  A short distance on, the road was 
blocked fore and aft by police vehicles and police officers 
who broke one truck's windshield and beat the driver. 
 
5.  (SBU) In the fight that followed, two of the magazine 
staff were arrested and taken to Kushan police station.  When 
word of the arrests spread, a crowd of some sixty people 
including former DPP Chairman Shih Ming-teh (then the 
magazine's general manager), surrounded the station and 
demanded the release of the prisoners.  The mood of the crowd 
turned violent when it was learned that the prisoners had 
been dragged upstairs by the feet and that one had suffered a 
concussion.  According to Tai, police armed with rifles and 
bayonets surrounded the crowd, which had refused orders to 
move on.  The two were eventually released at about 2:00 am 
and the crowd dispersed.  Though there were no serious 
confrontations with police at the station, the incident 
increased tensions and set a confrontational tone for the 
following day. 
 
December 10: The Kaohsiung Riot 
------------------------------- 
 
6.  (SBU) The December 10 march was to have begun and ended 
at Kaohsiung Rotary Park, taking a circular route past the 
Hsin Hseng Police Station.  Approximately six hundred 
marchers set off.  Only two hundred meters into the march, 
the demonstrators encountered a solid wall of riot police 
while the road on both sides was occupied by approximately 
200 "liumang" (hoodlums) allegedly recruited by then 
Kaohsiung Mayor Wu Yu-yun.  According to several AIT/K 
interlocutors, the two leaders of the gangster elements were 
Tsai Sung-hsiung (current Deputy Speaker of the Kaohsiung 
 
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City Council) and Chang Hsing-wu, who is also a Kaohsiung 
City Councilman.  (Note:  Wu Yu-yun has consistently denied 
any involvement in recruiting gangsters to disrupt the march. 
 End note.) 
 
7.  (SBU) While the ensuing sequence of events is not 
entirely clear, witnesses and participants agreed that the 
gangsters acted as agents provocateurs, attacking both police 
and marchers with bamboo poles and iron rods.  In the melee 
that ensued, the police used tear-gas and riot sticks to 
break up the march.  Reports of injuries range from the 
hundreds to more than one thousand with one demonstrator 
later dying of his injuries.  Over the next month, more than 
one hundred and fifty participants and sympathizers were 
rounded up.  Shih Ming-teh and six others were tried in 
military courts and sentenced to prison terms of between 
twelve years and life.  Several interviewees told AIT/K that 
only pressure from US congressmen and international human 
rights groups prevented Shih Ming-teh from being sentenced to 
death.  Thirty-four others were tried in civilian courts and 
sentenced to terms of four to six years.  The arrests 
effectively silenced the opposition until its leaders were 
paroled in 1987. 
 
Kaohsiung Incident Launches DPP Careers 
--------------------------------------- 
 
8.  (SBU) The political significance of the Kaohsiung 
Incident is that it was the crucible in which the careers of 
today's ruling party leaders were forged.  The list of those 
arrested and jailed is a who's who of Pan-Green politics. 
Among them are Vice President Annette Lu (Hsiu-lien); former 
DPP Chairman, party co-founder and current independent LY 
candidate Shih Ming-teh; former DPP Chairman Lin Yi-Hsiung; 
DPP founding father Huang Hsin-chieh; Vice Minister of 
Agriculture and former LY member Tai Chen-yao; Examination 
Yuan President Yao Cha-wen; National Security Council Senior 
Advisor for Cross-Strait Affairs Chen Chung-hsin; and 
National Policy Advisor Chou Ping-te.  Others, including 
President Chen Shui-bien, Presidential Office Secretary 
General Su Tseng-chang, DPP Secretary General Chang 
Chun-hsiung, and Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (Chang-Ting), 
got their political start as attorneys defending the arrested 
activists.  One commentator said that he believes that 
pressure from the United States on KMT-ruled Taiwan to 
democratize increased after 1979 and led directly to the end 
of martial law, the end of the ban on political party 
formation and the end of restrictions on the press. 
 
9.  (SBU) Most in the Pan Green see the Kaohsiung Incident as 
a turning point in Taiwan's democratization.  The 
ideologically fractured "dang wai" was transformed into a 
coherent political party capable of forming a viable 
opposition.  The incident and the open trial of the accused 
raised political consciousness in Taiwan and brought home the 
value of democracy.  This in turn led the electorate to 
support the activists, their families and their defense team 
at the ballot box, enabling many of them to become elected 
officials at all levels.  Taiwanese overseas organized 
independence movements while scores of Taiwan graduate 
students abandoned their studies in the US, Europe, and Japan 
to return home and join the political process.  Thus were set 
in motion the forces which have made Taiwan a vibrant, 
multiparty democracy, laying the groundwork for the DPP to 
challenge the KMT and become Taiwan's ruling party. 
 
(END of Background from Reftel.) 
 
James Soong's Role 
------------------ 
 
10.  (SBU) Members of the Pan-Green are not the only current 
political figures associated with the Kaohsiung Incident. 
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong, then a member 
of the KMT, served as the Director-General of the Government 
Information Office (GIO) from 1979 until 1984.  His critics 
say that as GIO chief he favored heavy-handed censorship of 
opposition publications, aggressively using libel laws and 
prison sentences to silence critics.  Then and now, many 
suggest that he might have played a major role in the 
Kaohsiung Incident.  In its aftermath, he defended the 
suppression and condemned the protesters, calling Shih 
Ming-teh the "King of Bandits." 
 
Comment -- Will the Pan-Green Use the Anniversary? 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
11.  (C) Earlier this fall, when Taiwan's Central Election 
Commission (CEC) was deciding the date of the LY election, 
Pan-Blue party officials were vehemently opposed to having 
the LY election set for the day following the anniversary of 
the Kaohsiung Incident (in the past, LY elections have been 
held on the first Saturday of December).  There was 
tremendous concern that the Pan Green parties would exploit 
the anniversary to smear the Pan-Blue parties as "oppressors 
of human rights."  The CEC, however, ignored their pleas, 
asserting that it was moving the election date to the second 
Saturday as part of its plans to shift the regular LY 
election closer to the actual formation of a new LY at the 
beginning of February. 
 
12.  (C) Since then, we have been waiting to see how the 
Pan-Green campaigns would use the Kaohsiung Incident 
anniversary, but the issue has been almost completely absent 
from the campaign trail.  In response to our queries as to 
whether there would be a political rally or Kaohsiung 
Incident anniversary event in Kaohsiung or elsewhere on 
December 10, all our interlocutors asserted that there was no 
plan "yet".  That remained the answer even just a few days 
before the December 10 anniversary. 
 
13.  (C) It may be that the Pan-Green camp is waiting to use 
the anniversary as an election-eve surprise to cap their 
campaigns, holding back in order to maximize the impact on 
the electorate the day before the election in a surprise 
rally.  Or, it may be that the Pan-Green parties have 
determined that the Kaohsiung Incident anniversary could play 
both ways.  After all, there are many now in the DPP and TSU 
whose political histories are not with the "dang wai," but 
were with the then ruling KMT.  Former President Lee 
Teng-hui, the primary sponsor of the Pan-Green Taiwan 
Solidarity Union (TSU), was a prominent KMT leader at the 
time of the Kaohsiung Incident.  Other local DPP and TSU 
figures, no doubt including some currently standing as DPP or 
TSU LY candidates, may also have been on the "wrong" side of 
 
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the incident.  Nevertheless, we do expect the Pan-Green to 
use the 25th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident in its 
election-eve rallies as a final rallying cry to its core 
supporters to get out and vote on December 11.  On the eve of 
the anniversary the DPP released a book and VCD commemorating 
the incident at a commemoration event led by Vice President 
Lu, and we expect more to follow at rallies on the actual 
anniversary. 
 
Forden 
PAAL