Beautiful Island, dark past...

Across the engraving of Human Rights Memorial (人權紀念碑), a scar seemed to be carved into the rock. Indeed, Green Island has, besides its volcanic rock formations, a dark, dark face.

During the Martial Law era of the Kuomingtang (KMT) regime, political prisoners, other prisoners of conscience were held in the infamous Green Island Prison. The prison is ‘elegantly’ named ‘Green Estuary Mountain Villa’ (綠洲山莊). But nothing in it was pleasant. Today, the prison has been converted into a museum, documenting the bloodshed, the terrible tortures and executions that took place, and picturing the silent struggles in the 1980s and 1990s which laid the foundations of this young democracy. How times have changed!

Propaganda wall paintings adorned the walls of the prison. Now, they have faded. Today, they are ghosts from a past long forgotten. The Chinese Nationalists took possession of Taiwan with an army of 2million, from 1945-1949. Martial Law was imposed on May 20, 1949, and the so-called White Terror （白色恐怖） era began. The KMT tyranny beheaded many of influentials in the political and business communities. Any form of dissent, any criticism of the regime and its ‘great leader Chian Kai-Shek, any protest, any call for independence of Taiwan was dealt with a harsh iron fist. It is not known how many were imprisoned here and elsewhere. Estimates put the number executed at around 100,000.

1979, the year when Chiang Kai-Shek and his cronies lost international support, marked the beginning of an underground resistance. The Presbyterian Church, labour groups, social groups took to the streets. The Formosa Incident （美麗島事件）in the southern city of Kaoshiung, in which an underground pro-independence publication was closed down, marked a height of confrontation between civil society and the regime. It was also then that many of the founding members of the Democratic Progressive Party gathered strength, going to form an opposition in 1986. A dark page of Taiwanese history was turned when mass bloodless street protests, international pressure from, among others Amnesty International and overseas Taiwanese, forced the regime to lift Martial Law in 1987.

Since then, the pace of democratisation quickened. The past was no longer taboo, and fundamental freedoms flourished to make Taiwan the freest democracy in Asia (according to Freedom House). By 1992, the first parliamentary elections were held, by 1996, the first presidential elections. The government officially apologised and compensated victims of the White Terror in 1995, establishing a ‘truth and reconciliation’ committee. In 2000, the first-ever peaceful transfer of power took place, exactly 51 years after Martial Law was enforced.

(memorial plaque)
Carve a memorial plaque for every sufferer
Build a garden for every sufferer
Read a poem for every sufferer
Sing a song for every sufferer
Forever remembering your name
Forever memorising your pain
Your hurt

I stood in the empty Memorial park. Engraved in the wall were rows upon rows of names. Innocent names of people prosecuted and imprisoned (or worse) for their ‘crimes’. Some names were touched by passer-by so many times, that they were of a different shade of colour. Our current Vice-President, Annette Shiou-Lien Lu
(呂秀蓮), was herself imprisoned for 12 years here. Her crime was delivering a 45 minute speech advocating the independence and the need for democratisation in Taiwan. Other prominent names include, Yao Jia-Wen (姚嘉文, today Minister of Justice), Chen Chu (陳菊, Minister of Labour Affairs) and Lin Yi-shun (林義雄), who was one of founders of the then-opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DDP). These people may be regarded as heroes today, and respected for their struggles and the pains they suffered for their beliefs, but there are many others…many voiceless and unseen others…

Standing in the empty park, the space and silence empowered me with overwhelming emotions. I was brought to tears when I read:

In that time
How many mothers
For the sake of their
Children banished on this island
Had shed their tears in long nights

Know the past, so as not to forget...
Do not forget, so as to remember...
Remember a time when the days were dark,
When even the clouds and sun were chained.
Cherish this day, this freedom we take for granted.