25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE "KAOHSIUNG INCIDENT" AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TAIPEI 003920

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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