By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-te (施明德) was among a group which yesterday paid tribute at a news conference to five “martyrs” executed after an uprising at Taiyuan Prison in Taitung County in 1970, saying that their struggle for freedom should not be forgotten.
Six political prisoners collaborated with prison guards at Taiyuan Prison and local Aborigines in a failed attempt to take over the prison on Feb. 8, 1970, during the Martial Law period.
The prisoners escaped with firearms before being captured on Feb. 23. Five of the six, along with more than 20 guards, were sentenced to death and executed on May 30 that year.
Shih, who was serving a sentence in the prison at the time, yesterday said that it was not right that “the page in the history books about the Taiyuan uprising remains blank,” adding that people should commemorate the martyrs so that the nation could “emerge from the long shadow of opposition and hostility.”
Shih, who has since severed ties with the DPP and was one of the initiators of a campaign in 2006 which sought to oust then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), spoke about his grief over the death of his friends.
However, several people who were also prisoners at Taiyuan Prison accused Shih of informing the authorities about the uprising.
Meanwhile, former army general and deputy defense minister Hu Chen-pu (胡鎮埔) said he wanted to represent soldiers from China — who he said had often “unwittingly become the [Taiwanese] authoritarian regime’s accomplices” during the Martial Law period — in paying his respects to those who died.
“The more I know about history, the more ashamed I feel,” Hu said.
Former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) said martyrs are mankind’s shared assets and respect for them should know no boundaries, adding that a major problem for the DPP and Taiwan as a whole is that they never respect their own martyrs.
“Reconciliation could not be reached without transitional justice,” former DPP lawmaker Hung Chih-chang (洪奇昌) said.