《TAIPEI TIMES》 Commission to turn political prison into a memorial

ANKANG GUESTHOUSE: Transitional Justice Commission members said they might have found a tree that former vice president and inmate Anette Lu mentioned in her memoirs

By Chen Yu-fu and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

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The Transitional Justice Commission said it plans to turn the former Ankang Guesthouse （安康接待室） detention center into a memorial, after commission members earlier this month inspected several places where political prisoners were held during the White Terror period.

The White Terror era was a period of political persecution broadly corresponding with the Martial Law era, which lasted from May 19, 1949, to July 15, 1987.

The Bureau of Investigations and the now-defunct Taiwan Garrison Command jointly operated the euphemistically named “guesthouse” in what is now New Taipei City’s Sindian District （新店） from 1973 to 1987.

The 4,879 ping （16,129m2） facility was divided into four wings: the “work area,” where prisoners were interrogated and tortured; the “living area,” which the bureau used as an office; the “recuperation area” with holding cells and a morgue, and the Taiwan Garrison Command officers’ quarters.

The facility’s “guests” were usually political prisoners convicted by military tribunals of espionage or subversion and later dissidents imprisoned during the Kaohsiung Incident, but also members of organized crime caught in the crackdown known as Operation Clean Sweep （一清專案）.

Well-known former inmates include former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Huang Hsin-chieh （黃信介）, former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen （姚嘉文） and writer Bo Yang （柏楊）.

Commission officials toured each area and identified some of the structures described in the written accounts of survivors, such as a portal separating the command’s and the bureau’s jurisdictions, which the inmates named the “Gate of the Dead.”

The on-site inspection also revealed that a cell used for torture, which oral historical accounts identified as the guesthouse’s “basement,” is probably an aboveground annex downslope from the main structure, it said.

Shrouded in secrecy, the center’s existence was unknown to the public during the White Terror years, the commission said.

Bureau agents would transfer detainees to the facility because its then-remote location in the hills of Ankeng （安坑） allowed torture to be conducted out of sight, it said.

Later that day, the commission inspected the site of the former Ministry of National Defense Military Prison — also in the Ankeng area — which had a subdivision holding political prisoners.

The historical parts of the prison are well-preserved and are still in use as an Agency of Corrections rehabilitation center, the commission said.

The commission inspected New Taipei City Reserve Command General Headquarters, which were formerly the site of the re-education camp named Taiwan Benevolence and Love Educational Experiment Institute （台灣仁愛教育實驗所）.

Prisoners of conscience under former presidents Chiang Kai-shek （蔣介石） and Chiang Ching-kuo （蔣經國） would typically serve at least three years in the camp, it said.

Some of those prisoners would have rubbed shoulders with Annette Lu （呂秀蓮）, who later became vice president, or Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu （陳菊）, it said.

Although the buildings of the re-education camp have been demolished, the commission found a big tree, which might be the one that has a prominent place in Lu’s memoirs, which say that she would shelter in its shade during yard time, the commission said.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES