The New Life Correction Center Re-Insurgent Incident was a political incident which occurred in Taitung County’s Green Island Town. Chen Hua and 29 other political criminals were considered the source of instigation, causing the “One Person One Mission: Saving the Nation with Conscience” movement to fall, and therefore were taken to the Taiwan Province National Security Council Security Department for further interrogation. After two trials from the Command’s Interrogation Department, in the end, Chen Hua and 14 other political criminals were sentenced to death.
The Incident
editOn February, 1950, the Taiwan Province Security Council established a “New Life Discipline Primary Corps” in Taipei city, and not long after, moved it to Taipei County’s Neihu Town at the time, taking charge of insurgent criminals and Communist officers discipline education in both Kinmen and Dengbu Island. Later on, due to the increasing number of candidates needing discipline education, the place was then converted to “New Life Correction Center” in April, 1951, naming the criminals for discipline education “New Life.” In the same month, the New Life Correction Center was moved from Neihu to Green Island, due to considerations of Taitung County, Green Island located in a more remote, simple environment compared to the main island, and therefore was considered a much better location for discipline education. On May 17th, the insurgent criminals and others who were confined in the Neihu Town New Life Corps and Taiwan Province Security Council Justice Department, which together were nearly a thousand people, were moved to the New Life Correction Center.
In the meanwhile, in June, 1950, the Korean war broke out on the Korean peninsula. In the same year, from October to June, 1951, People’s Volunteer Army supported the North Korean armed forces to fight for 5 different battles against the South Korean armies, which was somewhat led by the influence of the United States. There were about 173 thousand war hostages who were taken away by the South Korean armies, and were officially categorized in February, 1952. The hostages were primarily separated into those who were willing to be repatriated and those who wouldn’t cooperate. Among them, there were about 14 thousand hostages who then decided to migrate and settle down in Taiwan. On February, 1953, centering around Chi Wei-Cheng, the former representative of the New Life Correction Center’s first squadron, proposed to organize a “One Person One Mission: Saving the Nation with Conscience” movement to show their loyalty to the government of the Republic of China, hoping that the New Lives would tattoo “Anti-Communism and Anti-Russia” slogans or alike to their bodies, to echo the tattooed hostages who were repatriated to Taiwan from the Korean war. The higher-ups from the New Life Correction Center wanted to take the opportunity to testify the results of the institution’s discipline education, and therefore, even though the event was free for all to attend, the officials induced and threatened the New Lives to actively take part. However, most New Lives were unwilling to express against their own beliefs, or that they worried about talking too much at the campaigns about the Republic of China government, which would later endanger their families’ safety under the People’s Republic of China’s reign, they chose passive protest, which later made the movement a failure. The officials of the New Life Correction Center considered the primary reason of this failure was due to Chen Hua and a few other New Lives’ instigation. In April of the same year, the strike of New Life Coal Lifting broke out in Green Island Town’s Nan-Liao Village, which contributed to the decision of New Life Correction Center’s officials to bring Chen Hua and 32 others to Taiwan Province National Security Council, Security Department for further interrogation in July at the same year.
Afterward, the Taiwan Province National Security Council Security Department detention center took advantage of the New Lives who shared the same cell with Chen Hua and more, to collect comments and other “evidence of crime” that weren’t working for Chen and more’s favor. They were able to obtain a full report of every criminal’s advantages and disadvantages, alongside notes about Communist party theories and more––these are all categorized as the prison’s so-called crime evidence. The Security Department took all the evidence to interrogate said people, considering that Chen Hua and more were attempting to develop collectives. They marked Chen Hua and others from “Stubborn New Lives” to “Communist Party Members” and transferred Chen Hua and 28 more people to the Taiwan Province National Security Council’s Military Justice Department for trials.
The Trial
editTaiwan Province National Security Justice Department’s military prosecutor did not take into account relevant statements, following the Ministry of National Defense’s instruction to “Prioritize Severe Punishment and Consider Death Penalty.” Therefore, even though Chen Hua and many others stated that they were framed by the Security Department, they were never believed. On March 25th, 1954, Chen Hua and 21 others, according to the Ordinance of Rebellion Punishment’s Clause 2, Section 1, were filed a public prosecution. On April 8th, the Military Justice Department adjudicated and made decisions not to send Yang Mu-Rong, Wu Le-Yan, Hong Wen-Lan, Hsu Hsiao-Hsia, Chang Chang-Mei to military trials, and for others, they would be handed over to the military sentences. Afterward, The Military Justice Department summoned relevant members for further interrogation, which had Chen Hua and others providing explanations to the Security Department; reports were being filed before the trials, but the primary judge and other officers didn’t take any of these records into account.
On October 20th, 1954, the court sentenced Chen Hua to death. Tsuei Nai-Bin, Hsu Hsuieh-Jin, Wu Shen-Da, Tsai Bing-Hong, Song Shen-Miao, Chen Nan-Chang, Yu Fei, Gao Mu-Rong, Wu Zhuo-Shu, Fu Ru-Chih, Huang Tsai-Wei, Fang Tsong-Yang were handed over for discipline education after their sentences, the dates were to be told; Liu Wen-Jun, Chang Jie-De, Peng Jin-Mu, Huang Tsu-Chuan, Yang Jun-Long, Fu Chung-Han, Lu Hung-Chih, Shih Hsien-Hua, Chang Shu-Wang, Wu Hsiang-Gu, Song Meng-Shao were considered not guilty. In 1955, Taiwan Province National Security Council brought the results of these trials to the Ministry of National Defense, which was then brought up to the Presidential Hall. The President Chiang Kai-Shek critiqued, “Apart from the fact that Tsuei Nai-Bin and 12 more should go through serious trials over again, the rest are to be re-determined.”
The Military Justice Department therefore canceled the results of the original trials, and followed the official instruction to divide the case into two verdicts, and each case will be re-examined again. The first verdict followed the original trial: Chen Hua would be sentenced to death; Huang Tsai-Wei, Fang Tsong-Ying’s discipline education would be extended; Liu Wen-Jun, Huang Tsu-Chuan, Song Meng-Shao, Fu Chung-Han, Lu Hong-Chih, Shih Hsien-Hua, Chang Jie-De, Peng Jin-Mu, Wu Hsiang-Gu were considered not guilty. The second verdict were about the 12 people involved in the retrial: Tsuei Nai-Bin, Wu Shen-Da, Chang Shu-Wang, Yang Jun-Long, Hsu Hsuieh-Jin, Song Shen-Miao, Tsai Bing-Hong, Fu Ru-Chih, Yu Fei, Chen Nan-Chang, Gao Mu-Rong, Wu Zhuo-Shu were then sentenced to death. In November of the same year, Yang Mu-Ron was also sentenced to death. In total, it was estimated that there were 14 people being sentenced to death due to the New Life Correction Center Re-Insurgent Case at the prison.