The Kaohsiung Incident 23
Chapter 2 The Kaohsiung Incident, the Arrests, the Indictment and the Murder of Lin I-hsiung’s Family
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted and pro- claimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since then, December 10 has become Human Rights Day throughout the world. In order to commemo- rate Human Rights Day, the Formosa Magazine planned a demonstration in Kaohsiung on Monday, December 10, 1979.1 As we shall see, the Kaohsiung Incident had some violence, mostly from the government and security agencies. This violence was used as an excuse by the government to arrest, imprison and try the dangwai leaders. This process of arrest, imprisonment and trial made the Kaohsiung Incident important in Taiwan’s human rights history. Even before the actual events of December 10, 1979, tension had arisen in and around Kaohsiung. The Formosa Magazine office in Kaohsiung had been attacked with furniture destroyed and windows broken on November 6 and November 29. On November 29, the Taipei residence of Huang Hsin-chieh was
1 In preparing this chapter, I have relied on many interviews conducted with participants in the Kaohsiung Incident during January-April 1980. In addition I have used an English translation of a tape made of the Kaohsiung Incident, The Kaohsiung Tapes (Seattle: International Committee for Human Rights in Taiwan, February 1981). This book can be obtained at
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004315921_003 24 Chapter 2 also attacked.2 On December 7, the night before the Pingtung Office of Formosa Magazine was to be opened, six youths attacked the office with axes, destroy- ing furniture and wounding employees.3 The severe police beating of two Formosa Magazine volunteers during the night of December 9, the so-called Kushan Incident 鼓山事件, also raised tension. Yao Kuo-chien 姚國建, a Mainlander Village Head from a village inhabited by the military and their dependents, could not even speak a sen- tence of Hokkien.4 He had been out with Chiu Sheng-hsiung 邱勝雄 in trucks announcing the next day’s rally. Near the Kushan police station, they were arrested and both were severely beaten. They were then taken to the Southern District Taiwan Garrison Command Headquarters. When Su Chih-fen 蘇治芬, daughter of political prisoner Su Tung-chi 蘇東啓 and later County Executive of Yunlin County, saw Yao and Chiu, she said, “Their faces had been so beaten that they had changed shape and swollen up. I almost could not tell which was Yao Kuo-chien and which was Chiu Sheng-hsiung.”5 The police beating angered the Formosa Magazine workers and made the demonstration the next day a certainty.6 The Formosa Magazine had filed several applications in November to get permission to have an indoor rally in Kaohsiung on December 10. These were repeatedly rejected. On December 3, Huang Hsin-chieh applied to hold the rally in Kaohsiung’s Rotary Park, one long block south of the Formosa Magazine’s Kaohsiung Office.7 Again, the application was rejected, but on the basis of previous experience the Formosa Magazine expected that last minute permission would be given.8 When the dangwai leaders began to arrive in Kaohsiung during the after- noon of December 10, they were met with a message from the Commander of the Southern District Taiwan Garrison Command, General Chang Chih-hsiu 常
2 The Kaohsiung Tapes, pp. 5–6. Zhang Fuzhong 張富忠 and Qiu Wanxing 邱萬興, Lüse nian- dai I, I, p. 91. 3 Zhang Fuzhong 張富忠 and Qiu Wanxing 邱萬興, Lüse niandai I, I, p. 91. Pingtung is the county directly south of Kaohsiung. 4 Ibid., p. 92. 5 Ibid., p. 93. A detailed account was given during the demonstration on the night of December 10 by Chou Ping-teh 周平德, The Kaohsiung Tapes, pp. 11–14. 6 Zhang Fuzhong 張富忠 and Qiu Wanxing 邱萬興, Lüse niandai I, I, p. 93. 7 A clear map appears in Zhang Yanxian 張炎憲 and Chen Chaohai 陳朝海, Meilidao shijian 30 zhounian, p. 55. 8 The Kaohsiung Tapes, p. 6.