Claims that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) cofounder Chiang Peng-chien (江鵬堅) was once an informant for the government during the Martial Law era were not enough to incriminate Chiang, Transitional Justice Commission member Frank Wang (王增勇) said on Friday.
The accusation was made by former DPP chairman Shih Ming-te (施明德), who on Wednesday said that Chiang was trained by and worked as an undercover agent of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, which was one of the “eight agencies of secret police and intelligence gathering” during the Martial Law era.
Chiang was the DPP’s first chairperson upon its founding in 1986, and later served as a legislator and member of the Control Yuan. He died in December 2000 from pancreatic cancer.
Wang on Friday said that while Shih’s claim served as an oral record, it was not enough to determine whether Chiang should posthumously be considered guilty of any crimes.
Wang said that the public should be cautious about engaging in a “witch hunt.”
“Under the authoritarian government of the past, people were stripped of their right to a fair trial. In today’s democracy, we cannot allow anyone to be found guilty by the court of public opinion,” Wang said.
Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was among a number of DPP politicians who disputed Shih’s accusation.
“Chiang has passed away ... People must not try to humiliate him,” Hsieh said in a statement on Wednesday. "No one should tarnish Chiang based on claims made by some people. The accusations could damage Chiang and his place in history. Taking up such hearsay is not respectful to Chiang and his family."
The accusation came after DPP Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) last week said that he would leave the party and not seek re-election, after confirming that he was a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) informant in his student days who spied on DPP figures for three years after the party’s founding.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said on Friday that while Taiwanese were able to break free from dictatorship through their wisdom and courage, the “the remnants of the poison of authoritarianism remained in every corner” of the country.
“Basically, even those who were informants might be victims of the era ... they were on the periphery of the system. Who we should be denouncing are those who were at the top,” Su said.
It is imperative for the commission to conduct independent investigations to discover the facts of historical crimes committed against members of the public and to restore justice to those victims and their families, he said.
Additional reporting by Chien Hui-ju
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