Former political prisoners, historians and pro-independence activists yesterday gathered at a conference to commemorate the 39th anniversary of an uprising against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime at Taiyuan Prison in Taitung County.
“We all knew it was impossible [to overthrow the old KMT regime], but we still had to tell the world what we Taiwanese wanted and hopefully others would follow our call for action,” former political prisoner Tsai Kuan-yu (蔡寬裕) recounted at the conference. “We expected to sacrifice ourselves.”
Tsai was one of the political prisoners jailed at Taiyuan Prison in 1970 who took part in planning the uprising. At the time, about a dozen pro-independence political prisoners — many former soldiers in the Japanese or Republic of China (ROC) military — thought it was time to overthrow the KMT government to make way for a sovereign and independent Republic of Taiwan.
Tsai said it had become clear in 1970 that it was only a matter of time before the ROC would be expelled from the UN.
“We were worried that China may quickly take over Taiwan as soon as the KMT regime lost international recognition and support,” he said.
Dictator Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) denial then that there was any call for independence in Taiwan and the successful escape of independence leader Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) — who was under house arrest by the KMT regime for five years — that same year, persuaded Taiyuan political prisoners to take action, Tsai said.
He said according to the plan, six prisoners would grab weapons and ammunition from prison guards, take control of the prison, free all prisoners, occupy a nearby radio station and power plant then broadcast a pre-written declaration of independence.
Things did not go smoothly when the day came.
On Feb. 8, 1970, the six prisoners attacked prison guards and captured their guns. However, a military officer Hsieh Chin-sheng (謝金聲), who was an ethnic Taiwanese, stopped them.
“[One of the prisoners] Cheng Chin-ho [鄭金河] asked Hsieh to join, but Hsieh refused,” recounted Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), a historian who has researched the uprising. “Since Hsieh was an ethnic Taiwanese, Cheng didn’t want to kill him, and for the same reason, Hsieh let the six prisoners escape instead of arresting them.”
All six were captured in the weeks after the failed uprising. Five of them — Cheng Chin-ho, Chiang Ping-hsing (江炳興), Chen Liang (陳良), Hsieh Tung-jung (謝東榮) and Chan Tien-tseng (詹天增) — were executed on May 30, 1970, while Cheng Cheng-cheng (鄭正成) was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Although hundreds of other prisoners were involved in the planning and later actions, the six shouldered all responsibility and refused to betray others.
“They were tortured and even lost their lives, but they loved their comrades and this country more than they loved their own lives,” said Kao Chin-lang (高金郎), another former political prisoner who was involved in the uprising. “I admire them, they’re true martyrs.”
The Taiyuan Uprising and an assassination attempt on Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in New York later that year, forced the KMT to open up a little, Kao said.
“After the two incidents, the KMT realized it risked being overthrown in a large-scale uprising, hence it started allowing ethnic Taiwanese to take Cabinet positions, held small-scale legislative elections and reduced jail time for some political prisoners” he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS