A few arrests have been made since Tuesday. One of those arrested was Er Leng-tzu* (sp?), husband ex-husband of gang leader Wang Lan -- who left for China shortly after the riot, by the way! [*Er Leng-tzu is his "nickname." His "real" name is Chu Chia-hsun.]

Another person arrested was that idiot with the A-bian hat and the Kwandao broadsword. If it was just for show, he could've brought a wooden or plastic one. [UPDATE: After watching almost 4 hours of videotape early Friday morning, I saw the "Kwandao" guy proving his sword wasn't "real" by striking his neck with the "blade" edge and not doing any damage.]

Also arrested were at least 2 of the taxi drivers who unsuccessfully attempted to block Lien Chan's motorcade on the freeway on his way to the airport. While their goal of preventing Lien Chan from reaching the airport (or at least slowing him down) may have been noble, the execution was seriously flawed, resulting in a dangerous high-speed "chase scene" in heavy rain.

While most of Taiwan's media is giving the pan-blue side of the story, more details are slowly emerging from people on the other side who were the victims of Tuesday's violence -- who seem to be mostly from the pan-green side, by the way.

In scenes reminiscent of Taiwan's "White Terror" period, gangster "mainlanders" were approaching people and asking them in Taiwanese, "What (the fuck) are you looking at?" If they answered in Taiwanese, they would call out to their leader, "Lan Jie! ('sister' Wang Lan) We've got a Taiwanese over here!" and would proceed to beat them up! (NOTE: I don't normally use the term "mainlander," but the reason for doing so in this instance should be obvious.)

KMT politicians are out for supercharged TV host Wang Pen-hu's blood now, saying he should be arrested for doing his political talk show live from the airport that morning, according to an article in today's Taiwan News. The article paraphrases KMT legislator Kuo Su-chun as saying that "the pro-green underground radio stations had initiated the violence since they were pushing listeners to throw eggs at the pan-blue supporters."

I won't simply let you make up your own mind about that charge. I've got news video of pan-blue gangsters both preparing and using their weapons against the pan-greens -- unlike the idiot with the "show sword," who apparently didn't use it on anyone.

The Taiwan News article goes on to paraphrase PFP legislator Lee Yong-ping accusing Wang of "incit[ing] the crowd at the airport to clash with the pan-blue supporters," without providing any examples of how he did so. My wife thinks this may have something to do with TVBS' edited version of Wang's comments.

Let's "logic-check" their asses
If Wang is brought in, I suppose the police would also have to arrest Sisy Chen for doing the same thing during last year's protests in front of Taiwan's Presidential Office, no? Even the China Times mentions this, although they don't tell readers exactly what Sisy Chen did.

At the time she identified herself as an "independent" legislator, but she was constantly kissing the pan-blues' asses and demonizing the pan-greens on her radio and TV shows which she had promised to give up if DPP politicians did so first -- and they did -- but she never followed through on those promises. Not surprising.

During last year's post-election riots, PFP legislator Liu Wen-hsiung threatened to bring a bulldozer with which to crash into the Presidential Office. PFP legislator Chiu Yi rode atop a campaign truck on the night of the election and led the charge to crash the gate of the Kaohsiung District Prosecutor's office.

None of those people are in jail. They have some fucking nerve talking about people who were defending themselves against physical attacks when pan-blue politicians like New Party chairman Yok Mu-ming and New Party Secretary-General Lee Sheng-feng were ordering gangsters to "Attack!" the pan-greens on Tuesday. My wife tells me this was caught on videotape.

Yok also ridiculously spoke about returning "blood for blood" (a Chinese-language equivalent of "an eye for an eye"), ignoring the fact that most of the injured were pan-greens. He's also apparently ignoring the "228 Incident" in which several thousand Taiwanese were killed under the KMT regime.

Among other pan-greens that the pan-blues want arrested are Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Wang Shih-chien and Taiwan Solidarity Union (pan-green TSU) legislator Luo Chih-ming, despite the fact that even though the gang-instigated violence was beyond their control, the DPP has apologized for being involved in it at all and "condemn[ed] any form of violence," adding that "We are in favor of meting out punishment to those held responsible in accordance with the law and urge agencies concerned to conduct a swift and thorough examination of the matter to prevent any similar occurrence from happening again."

Pan-green talk shows such as Wang Pen-hu's "Taiwan Aspirations" (Tai2 wan1 xin1 sheng1) and Clara Chou's "Taiwan Summit" (Tai2 wan1 gao1 feng1 hui4) were making these points late Thursday night:

* The violence began with pan-blue supporters throwing water bottles across the space separating the two groups and with metal objects being thrown and fired from slingshots at the pan-greens from the airport's overlooking balconies.

* The police did far too little to prevent the two sides from clashing and even flipped off at least one pan-green supporter who asked for their help.

* One 77-year-old beating victim was interrogated in a threatening manner by police before being allowed to go to the hospital. He said the police told him he'd "better be telling the truth (about the pan-blues beating him), or [he]'d be jailed for seven years."

* Ambulances took 40 minutes to arrive and ended up only bringing the wounded to a first aid center in another part of the airport!

* The violence was perpetrated by "mainlanders" and specifically aimed at Taiwanese.

More photos of the carnage
Some of the images linked below are from Yahoo! I hope they don't move the URLs around as soon as I post them:

* This is what "hundreds" of protesters look like. (I estimate that at least a thousand people are visible in the photo.)

* A clearer view of the bloodied TSU supporter in a pool of his own blood after being beaten by 20 or so Lien Chan supporters.

* One more image of the man struggling to get up.

* Here's an image of the hooligans wearing ROC flag shirts fighting with police.

* Some TSU (?) idiots protesting Lien Chan with a sign saying "Kill [Execute, Put to death] (the) traitors, protect Taiwan."

* "Pan-blue supporters try to break the police line to get near pan-green supporters," according to the Taiwan News.

* TSU and DPP legislators "try[ing] to break the police line," according to the Taiwan News.

In conclusion, Lien Chan's so-called "journey of peace" is already far too ironic.

The questions now are these: What's going to happen when Lien returns? Chen Shui-bian says people can't assemble at the airport. What's going to happen when James Soong goes to China?

Maybe Wang Pen-hu will do a live show from in front of the Presidential Office.