Taipei, Dec. 8 (CNA) A Taiwanese reverend recalled his experience in extending assistance to victims of the Kaohsiung Incident 30 years ago on the eve of the official opening of a human rights memorial park, saying that all the hard work was worthwhile as Taiwan now enjoys full democracy.
"I was so happy to see that Annette Lu was elected as the vice president and Chen Chu as the mayor of Kaohsiung, because, for me, it meant I did something right, " Roger Chao, a Germany-based reverend who offered assistance to Taiwanese political prisoners in the 1970s-1980s, said in a CNA interview.
Chao and his wife Doris were invited to attend the Dec. 10 opening of the Jingmei Human Rights Memorial Park, a large compound which used to house military courts and a detention center for political prisoners -- including Lu, Chen, Shih Ming-teh and Presbyterian Church Reverend Kao Jun-ming.
Chao said that he learned of the incident from German newspapers and was shocked that many demonstrators were detained. In a biennial Christian conference in 1980, Chao launched a "send-a-postcard" campaign that called for German youngsters to send postcards to Taiwanese political prisoners as a way to pressure Taiwan authorities into releasing the dissidents.
"To my surprise, thousands of Germans bought postcards and stamps with their own money and penned their support for Taiwan's democracy. Some of them didn't even know where Taiwan was but they wanted to voice their disapproval of the injustice, " Chao recalled.
Doris Chao went to Taiwan's representative office in Germany with a friend and members of the local press and asked for the immediate release of the prisoners.
The couple also submitted a list of political prisoners to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs via local churches and called for the German government to pay more attention to the human rights situation in Taiwan.
Long before the Kaohsiung Incident, Chao had been placed on the ruling Kuomintang's (KMT's) blacklist in 1972 which prevented him from returning to his motherland. Chao was not able to come back to Taiwan until 1987 when he was invited by then Vice President Lee Teng-hui for a visit.
Chao said the "ill feeling" began when he referred to himself as "a reverend from Taiwan" and a Taiwanese, rather than Chinese, in speeches. Taiwan government officials quickly advised him against doing so and told his mother who lived in Kaohsiung that her son was committing treason.
But Chao was determined to support the Taiwanese movement for democracy and kept collecting and exchanging information on political prisoners by corresponding with friends in Taiwan, Germany, Japan and other countries.
"In those days prior to the Internet, gathering information was extremely difficult. With Taiwan authority's strict information controls and luggage checks at airports, we were forced to use secret codes in letters and telegrams to find out who had been executed and whose Bible had been confiscated, " said Chao, who graduated from the department of theology of the University of Hamburg in 1963.
He and other Taiwanese reverends announced in a "Formosan Christian for Self Determination" statement in 1974 at the Gemarkerkirche church in Barmen, Germany, the same church where a group of German reverends released a statement against the rule of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis in 1934.
"I'm proud of what I did. We spoke out against the injustice 30 years ago when no one dared to say anything. And I think the Taiwanese people should cherish what they have today because they wouldn't have it without the blood, sweat and tears spent by those freedom fighters who had been unfairly tried, imprisoned or executed," he said.