Report on "Exercise Harmony"---- Review of Security during Chen Yunlin's Visit to Taiwan in 2008
---prepared by Taipei City Police Department
**The term of "協和"---pronounced as “hsieh heh”--- is the same as supersonic jetliner "Concorde" but in Chinese, these two words could mean "help and peace". On the other hand, they could mean "harmony" since President Ma's administration don't want Chen Yunlin to see any protest or demonstration. And, the police like the military, tends to name mission like this as "Exercise XXX" or "Operation ZZZ".
1. Preface
It was the first time for heads of Straights Exchange Foundation (SEF) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straights (ARATS) to meet in Taiwan. It was just another regime change not so long ago, along with global recession and diplomacy among opposition parties. The voices of "NO" to Chen's visit had been escalating. Under this circumstance, it was an extremely tough test for the mission of protecting ARATS chairman Chen and the delegates.
***Councilor Chien's notes----According to the police, the ONLY goal of Exercise Harmony is protecting Chen, not protecting civilian people, so following the country's constitution is UNNECESSARY. For more than 10,000 police officers, It was the ONLY mission to protect a Chinese official like Chen Yunlin.
2. Practices of this security mission
A. Better Intelligence Collection
During the "Exercise Harmony", we........
a. collected various early-warning intelligence about assumed dangers and provided the intelligence to mission units.
b. recorded programs from some radio stations, found important intelligence and provided it to concerned units, with which they were deployed in accordance.
***Councilor Chien’s notes---- The intelligence was for "dealing with civilian people". But protecting our people, not only Chen, should be the mission of police. The second provision of "POLICE LAW" state that this country's police forces should maintain public order, protect security in society, keep civilian people from danger, and promote all people's well-being.
B. Command Center had full control
a. The department set the command center on November 3, 2008. All of the mission units had their own command posts to oversee the security situation.
b. In every hotel and every location of meeting, signing, press conference, banquet and delegates' visit, all of the mission units set up their own advanced command posts. And they had early planning for forces deployment, emergent situation reporting and response. These were all for the security of Chairman Chen and the delegates.
C. Carefully ready for responses to crisis
According to early-warning intelligence, we assumed possible crisis scenarios and prepared the best responses. Then we provided them to various mission units to effectively defuse those situations.
***Councilor Chien's notes---- The point is "Who gave the green light to police to grab national flag from people's hands and keep Chen Yunlin from being aware of people's deferent voices?"
D. Stronger security
In various locations of meeting and places like hotels, we implemented security checks and reinforced our troops to patrol around those sites.
E. Set up microwave video transmission
This was for sending real time messages to command posts to effectively deal with situations around activity sites.
***Councilor Chien's notes---- What are these for? Wire-tapping people's cellphone communication?
F. Broke the administrative formation to complete mission
a. We combined police troops from deferent sub departments and use them to implement security mission.
b. All the commanding supervisors oversaw their mission personally with perfect planning and they did their best to complete their mission.
G. Utilize mass media for propaganda
With radio broadcast, we publicize our policy and provided information about traffic control. This keep people from delay and lower their uncomfortable ness or anger.
H. Cheer up our troops in time
On November 3, 4 and 5, the director, accompanied by other high ranking staffs, went to various mission sites and gave fruits to our troops to cheer them up and to recognize their hard working.
3. How to do a better job
A. Assume possible scenarios and get familiar with ways to complete missions
Before the troops go for mission, we inform them more about it and get them familiar with possible situations and ways to complete mission.
B. Perfectly collect intelligence and provide in time
In terms of important and urgent information, we should have telephone report first, and written report later.
C. Keep journalists away from sites we disperse demonstrators by force
Before we drag people, we should ask media staffs to go away, so that we can lower resistance and avoid chances to hurt media staffs.
***Councilor Chien's notes---- Police should use other means in stead of beating people in case that they need to disperse protesters.
D. More training for future mission
Our troops should undergo more training for dealing with demonstrations and ways to handle them. Such as how to drag protesting people away, how to drive journalists out of there and how to clear roads and highways....our troops should undergo more training about them.
***Councilor Chien's notes---- Police always "turned off lights and beat people" 20 years ago or ealier. This kind of practice should stop now !
E. Purchase more mobile barbed-wire fences
We should buy more traditional and snake-like mobile barbed-wire fences and vehicles to transport them. So that we can keep demonstrators away more effectively.
***Councilor Chien's notes---- It’s far more important to let police have better sense of demacrocy, not purchasing barbed-wire fences.
4. Conclusion
During "Exercise Harmony", 170 police officers got injured and 19 suspects were arrested. We expect tougher challenges in the future. We, with our humble hearts, feel that it's our responsibility to do our best to complete various security missions in cooperation with other government units.
***Councilor Chien's notes---- There were also many people who got wounded after police officers beat them. Why not mention this ?
