Taiwan Journal舊資料

Youths Who Swam from Mainland Tell of Atrocious Life

• Publication Date：09/01/1968

Four Chinese youths who swam from the coast of Fukien province to Kinmen (Quemoy) Island told a Taipei press conference on Aug. 28 that Mao Tse-tung's cultural revolution has caused the deathes of "hundreds of thousands" and driven "innumerable" others into slave labor camps in the last two years.

They confirmed reports received in early July that more than 8,000 bodies were found floating on the West River following a series of factional clashes and armed fights between the supporters and opponents of Mao Tse-tung in Kwangsi and Kwangtung provinces.

The foursome who escaped to freedom are Kuo Kun-chung, 31, his brother Kuo Kun-jen, 19, Chen Ching-tse, 27, and Hsieh Hsiang-ling, 24. All four are natives of Fukien.

The elder Kuo said he had been sentenced by the Reds to a slave labor camp for "reform through labor" on charges of being a "counter-revolutionary". His younger brother, a student at the Communist Eight Middle School in Amoy, had been forced to join the Red Guards.

The youths have been under the care of the Free China Relief Association since their arrival in Kinmen last July. It took them "almost a day" to swim from Amoy to a small islet of the Kinmen island complex.

FCRA brought the four freedom seekers to Taipei for resettlement. A civic organization that helps support refugees from Communism, FCRA will assist the newcomers to enroll in local schools or get jobs, depending upon their personal wishes. Their needs will be taken care of by the organization until they are assured of their own means of living.

The reports of atrocities in southern China were first made known by Radio Moscow on July 4, and were followed by similar accounts from Taipei intelligence sources. The Soviet broadcast said that more than 7,000 corpses had been pulled out of the waters at Wuchow. Wuchow, also called Tsangwu, is in Kwangsi near the Kwangtung-Kwangsi border. It said another 1,000 had been recovered in Tsaoching, a ciry about 200 kilometers downstream from Wuchow and 150 kilometers upstream from Canton.

"The 60 bodies picked up by the Hongkong and Macao police in the last month," the youths said, "were only a very small fraction of the victims of the cultural revolution."

Killings in many strife-torn areas on the mainland, according to the youths, have been so rampant that the Red authorities decided to resort to dumping the dead into rivers as an easy way of disposal.