Chuang, Che-Kuang
At
August 3, more than two hundred thousand Taiwan people went on the streets,
marched and gathered in front of the Taiwan Presidential Office Building. They
only have one purpose: demanding the justice for young corporal, Hung
Chung-Chu, who was tortured to dead at the brig when he served in the R.O.C (Republic
of China) Army.
As
most people know, due to the threat of China (People’s Republic of China), all
the male residents of Taiwan have to serve in the R.O.C military as obligation
service. After they reach 19 years old, they are forced to serve in the
military for one year as the duties of citizen. That is the common experience
for all of the Taiwan males.
Being
a soldier was truly a dangerous job when Taiwan and China were still in an
intense relationship. People might be killed by the enemies even when they are
just standing guard. However, after 1999 the relationship between Taiwan and
China became much more stabilized, the obligation service in military should be
no more a dangerous adventure.
But
the cases of accidental death have never ended even during the peace time. The
death of Hung Chung-Chu is not the only case. Every year there are more than 600
people died when they served in the R.O.C military, and this number was much
higher than the death rate when the U.S army fought with Iraq. According to the
official declaration of R.O.C military, most of these people died in accidents
or suicide. But as most of Taiwan males who have served in the military know,
that is not true at all.
There
is a terrible tradition in R.O.C Military- those professional soldiers or
officers would use some kind of lynching to give those rookies some educations.
That is an acquiescence movement. However, without the restriction of specific
rules, it is hard to define the boundary between “training” and “lynching”, and
lots of obligation soldiers died in this terrible violence.
However,
most of this death was covered by the corrupt R.O.C military. Hung Chung-Chu
was one of these people who died in those “educations”. There were only three
days left before he finished his service in the R.O.C Army, and then he was put
into the brig due to some vague reasons which is still not clear. After a
series of terrible “education” and “training” which called “Bobiba” in Chinese, he died
in the dark room due to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).
The
total incident sounds like an over-training accident, however there are too
many doubts in this case. First, the whole incident was illegal. Hung was not eligible
to be put in the brig because he was a corporal and his BMI was too high to do
those training. Second, the reason to put Hung in the brig is still not clear.
The military prosecution once said that because Hung violated the rule of
information security, and after few days he changed his statement said that Hung
did not follow the order of commander- but all of them are not good reasons to
put Hung in the brig. Third, all the evidences including the films of three
monitors and the Hung’s diary are disappeared. It is so unusual and makes
people suspect that the military try to hide something. Fourth, some witness
have pointed out that Hung was set up to put into the brig, and there might be
some inside stories behind. In conclusion, the whole thing is not coherent and
dubious.
And
the slight of military prosecution and Taiwan ministry of defense was the fuse
of the all marching movement. After almost one month they vowed to investigate
this case, there was nothing truth came out. More than that, the corruption
military even tried to make up a stupid story to deceive Hung’s family. And
that aroused the anger of two hundred and fifty thousand people. Because most
of Taiwan people who once served in the military know how corrupt the R.O.C
military are, they decided to support the Hung family by their practical actions-
they gathered and marched in front of the Taiwan Presidential Office Building, asking
the government to tell the truth and to modify the criminal laws for military
in order to avoid they conceal their own crime again.
This is a definitely history event of Taiwan- there is no political parties involved in this movement. It was launched on the internet, and all the participants are spontaneity because they want to bring the justice to this tiny island.. Because I am that kind of person who have highly educated, I used to think that Taiwan people are stupid and shortsighted. However, I have totally different opinion after this mass movement- now I can see the people act not for the personal benefits but to pursue those noble sentiments and esteem morality, and this movement absolutely showed that the quality of Taiwan citizen have moved forward
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