Taipei, Feb. 28 (CNA) The victims of the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident are heroes in Taiwan's struggle for democracy, President Chen Shui-bian said Friday during the opening of a government exhibition of newly released archives on the subject.
President Chen, who was a lawyer for some of the victims of the incident in the ensuring military court trial, said the country owed its present-day democracy to them.
Chen said the people on the island should carry on the work of the victims of the incident by defending human rights and democracy, which are universal values.
The president said his administration has insisted that it is important for a nation to face up to its past and let the truth be known, thus the motivation behind the current exhibition.
However, the president said, he is surprised that some documents concerning the incident, including 49 kept by the Presidential Office, had not been declassified, let alone put on display.
He urged government agencies which still keep classified documents about the incident, including the National Security Bureau, the Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of National Defense to explore the possibility of declassifying these documents to let the public see the whole truth behind the events of Dec. 10, 1979.