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Green Island visit revives memories
By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Jun 01, 2010, Page 3
“What matters now is that all 23 million Taiwanese —
especially the younger generation — will never be jailed again for holding
political views different from those of the government.”— Chen Ming-chung,
former Green Island prisoner
Former political prisoner Chen Peng-yun
recounts the construction work he had to do as an inmate as he stands in front
of a recreated scene in the reconstructed New Life Correction Center on Green
Island on May 15.
PHOTO: LOA IOK-SIN, TAIPEI TIMES
There was forced labor, torture, beating, hostility between the “Reds” and the
“Whites” and betrayal — former political prisoners recalled their life on Green
Island when they recently revisited and expressed their hope that no one else
would ever be jailed for their political beliefs in this country again.
From 1949 when Martial Law was declared in Taiwan until 1987 when it was lifted,
thousands of people were imprisoned or executed for holding political views that
differed from those of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime. Some of them
did take part in anti-government activities, but most were merely complaining
about social or political situations in the country.
Green Island, a small island with of only 16km², 33km offshore of Taitung City,
seemed to the then-KMT authoritarian regime the perfect place to jail
dissidents. Hence, the small island was home to two political prisoner camps —
the New Life Correction Center (新生訓導處) and the Oasis Village (綠洲山莊).
The New Life Correction Center was completed in the 1950s and was in use until
the 1960s when all political prisoners were transferred to Taiwan proper.
After a failed uprising planned by political prisoners at Taiyuan Prison (泰源監獄)
in Taitung County’s Donghe Township (東河) in 1970, the government decided to move
the “most dangerous” political prisoners back to Green Island and lock them up
in the then-newly completed Oasis Village.
Dozens of former political prisoners — most of them in their 80s — returned to
Green Island on May 15 to attend the opening of a reconstructed New Life
Correction Center and an exhibition of life on the island back in the Martial
Law era.
The New Life Correction Center, mostly a wooden structure, was later flattened.
During the visit, the former political prisoners recalled the times they lived
through on the small island in the West Pacific.
“I’ve worked like this, this looks so real,” former political prisoner Cheng
Peng-yun (陳鵬雲) said, pointing at wax figures showing how political prisoners had
to dig rocks from the coast and transport them back to the New Life Correction
Center.
The prisoners had to build houses and walls around the prison camp with the
rocks they collected from the coast.
“It was not easy, because the rocks were heavy and the weather on Green Island
was always humid and hot,” he said.
Work injuries were common, as Chen and his “classmates” — as the prisoners
called each other — had to walk on rocks when they moved around since there were
no paved roads on the island at the time.
Chen was one of the first dissidents to be sent to Green Island in 1951.
He was arrested in September 1950 for participating in the Taipei City Work
Committee, a branch of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) underground
organization the Taiwan Provincial Work Committee (台灣省工作委員會), created by
Changhua-born underground CCP member Tsai Hsiao-chien (蔡孝乾) in 1945.
Tsai was arrested by the KMT regime in 1950. He surrendered and submitted lists
of all underground CCP organizations in Taiwan, which led to a series of
subsequent arrests of Taiwanese communists that lasted until 1954.
“Tsai is a traitor, he only cared about himself,” Chen said. “He was able to
enjoy his life because we suffered.”
After giving up his comrades, Tsai was given the title of major general and
worked for the National Security Bureau until his death in 1982.
After his arrest, Chen was tortured, but said he did not give up any of his
comrades. He was jailed for 15 years on Green Island and other prisons on Taiwan
proper.
“I was young and full of a passion to erase Taiwan at the time,” Chen said. “At
meetings [of the Taipei City Work Committee], we mostly read books, held
discussions, but hadn’t started any action.”
He said he was also a member of the Taiwanese Communist Party during the
Japanese colonial period.
Construction was not the only labor that political prisoners faced.
“We worked on farms, raised chickens, ducks, pigs, cows and goats,” another
former political prisoner Huang Kuang-hai (黃廣海) said. “At the time, there were
no roads on Green Island, so we also built the roads.”
Huang was arrested in 1954 and sentenced to life in prison because he was caught
criticizing then-dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in letters to friends in Hong
Kong.
“The New Life Correction Center was more like a concentration camp than a prison
— we spent most of our days working instead of being in a prison cell,” he said.
“We returned to the dormitory only after sunset. An officer would come to the
door to call the roll, tell us who was assigned to do what the next day and then
lock the door at about 9pm.”
After the roll call, prisoners would have one to two hours in the room to do
whatever they wanted to do, Huang said.
Many of the prisoners, like Kue Chin-sun (郭振純), read books during their “free”
time, before going to bed.
Kue was arrested in 1953 because he was reported to have “repeatedly
participated in illegal assemblies” and he was sentenced to life in prison.
In fact, all he did was campaign for anti-KMT Tainan mayoral candidate Yeh Ting-kuei
(葉廷珪). He was released when an amnesty was declared after Chiang’s death in
1975.
“Spending decades in prison is something that would drive anyone crazy if they
weren’t able to take a break from reality by reading books,” Kue said.
Kue, who knows several languages, also translated several novels from English
and Spanish into Chinese.
Former political prisoner Chen Meng-ho (陳孟和), on the other hand, was a talented
artist.
During his 15 years at the New Life Correction Center, he not only learned to
play guitar and violin, he even managed to make guitars and violins using wooden
parts of old boats and electrical cables.
Chen Meng-ho was also a photographer — and many of Green Island’s residents
still remember his small photo studio inside the prison camp.
“I remember that when I was a kid, we were normally not allowed to go into the
prison camp,” Green Island Township Office secretary Tien Huei-hung (田輝鴻) said.
“On some holidays, such as the Lunar New Year holidays, however, we residents
could go into the New Life Correction Center to have our family photos taken by
Chen Meng-ho.”
It was because of the photos that Chen Meng-ho took and the sketches and
paintings he drew of the New Life Correction Center that the Council for
Cultural Affairs was able to reconstruct the prison and recreate scenes of
former political prisoners’ lives there.
Although Huang, a left-leaning supporter of unification, and Kue, an advocate
for independence, became good friends when they were in prison, pro-independence
dissidents and left-wing political prisoners usually didn’t get along.
“The ‘Reds’ had their own small groups. They would treat you like a brother if
you also believed in communism, otherwise they would be hostile toward you,” Kue
said. “The ‘Reds’ was the nickname for communists in prison, while
pro-independence political prisoners were referred to as the ‘Whites.’”
From the point of view of the reds, however, it’s another story.
“During the White Terror era, the KMT was more afraid of communists than
pro-independence activists. If you look at what happened to dissidents at the
time, many communists were executed, but not many pro-independence activists
were executed,” said Wu Sheng-jun (吳聲潤), a member of an underground CCP
organization who was also jailed on Green Island.
“The ‘Whites’ tried to avoid having any contact with us because they didn’t want
to be considered a ‘Red’ by the KMT,” he said.
On the side of a hill not far from the New Life Correction Center was a cemetery
nicknamed the “13th Squadron.”
“The 13th Squadron was a name that former political prisoners gave to the place
where many of their fellow prisoners who did not make it out of the prison camp
were buried,” said Tsao Chin-jung (曹欽榮), an independent researcher of White
Terror era history. “Because the political prisoners were divided into 12
squadrons, they decided to call their deceased ‘classmates’ the ‘13th
Squadron.’”
Tsao said there were also guards who died on Green Island buried there.
“Most of the people buried on Green Island were from the mainland, because they
came to Taiwan alone and there were no families to take their bodies,” he said.
Having been jailed from the ages 21 to 31 (1950 to 1960) and then from 47 to 58
(1976 to 1987) for left-wing activities, Chen Ming-chung (陳明忠) said he had no
regrets.
“I could say that my life was ruined because I spent most of my youth and my
prime in prison, but it doesn’t matter anymore,” Chen said after revisiting the
cell in which he was imprisoned at the Oasis Village. “What matters now is that
all 23 million Taiwanese — especially the younger generation — will never be
jailed again for holding political views different from those of the
government.”
“Governments are supposed to serve the people — what do we need a government for
if it’s only there to arrest innocent people?” he said.
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