All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S07E10.Catastrophe.And.Coverup.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A facility
in rural england

where information was
on a need to know basis.

You've got a compound
within the larger compound

strongly built to contain
something that was very valuable,

volatile, dangerous.

A confused and
overgrown collection of ruins

in the woods of Arkansas.

There are fences
and cages everywhere.

Obviously, this place
has been out of use

for some time.

And that begs the question,

was whatever was being kept
here released or did it break out?

A Belarusian town that
fell victim to catastrophe

and then cover-up.

This place was
populated so briefly

that it doesn't
even leave a trace.

It's so new that it doesn't
even appear on maps.

And a lush Taiwanese island

where thousands endured
unimaginable terrors.

For almost half a century,

this collection of
buildings struck fear

into the hearts and minds
of every Taiwanese person.

Decaying relics...

..Ruins of lost worlds...

..Sites haunted by the past...

..Their secrets
waiting to be revealed.

In Suffolk on the edge
of rendlesham forest

is a facility that
would be hard to miss.

Well, it looks like
the biggest runway

I've ever seen in my life

and it's set down in this beautiful
bucolic English countryside.

But this is no airport,

this looks more like
a military installation.

Rows of uniformed bunkers
and hangers populate the site.

But amongst them
are other structures

whose purpose is obscured.

Looking at this building
it's very advanced,

jetson space age in
look and appearance.

There's this one hanger
with big doors at the front

and this strange
protrusion at the back.

And tucked away on the
edge of this vast installation,

a high-security area

designed to keep people
out and to keep something in.

It has its own high fences
topped with barbed wire

and most disturbing
is the watchtower.

Something was kept in here

that they didn't want
people to know about.

40 years ago on a winter's
evening, something happened

that made this place
hit the headlines.

In December 1980 people
based here on this facility

saw this strange
lights in the sky.

A squad left the compound

and followed the lights
into rendlesham forest.

The reports say that
they followed the lights

into a clearing and found...

..Well, nothing.

Apart from the imprints of
three evenly spaced circles

in the forest mud.

After the rendlesham incident,

this site came to
the public's attention,

this is raf bentwaters.

The raf, the royal air force

is the oldest organised
air force in the world.

Bentwaters was secured
with a ten-foot-high fence.

But in one corner security
was taken to another level.

Graham Gilbert grew
up hearing stories

about this top-secret place.

This area here is called
the entrapment area,

another sliding gate
would close behind,

security personnel
from the building here

would come out,

check the security
passes of the occupants.

When a secure military base
has an extra high-security area,

you know they've got
something big in there,

something that goes
well beyond the pay grade

of your ordinary soldier.

The British armed forces
are no stranger to covert ops.

But small details suggest that
someone else was in charge.

Bentwaters was under the
command of the United States air force.

The us air force came
to bentwaters in 1951

and they fashioned this into
one of their biggest airbases

in the European space.

So sinister with the
crows and the rooks

and knowing what was
stored in these bunkers here

is really sort of
spine chilling.

Inside the compound is a row
of short bunker-like buildings.

At one end of that
corridor is a watchtower

patrolled by armed soldiers.

And at the other end is a
pillbox with holes for more guns.

This is a killing field.

Clearly whatever went on in here
was supposed to be hush-hush.

This is one of the
nuclear storage bunkers

in the weapons storage area.

And each bunker is covered
in a layer of thick earth

that would suppress any
accidental explosion as well.

The United States air
force came to bentwaters

in a time when
tensions were rising

between NATO and Soviet
states in Eastern Europe.

The mission was to bring
bentwaters up to new NATO standards

so the day that war
with Russia came,

bentwaters would be ready.

They built new infrastructure

like the building with
the strange slanted walls

that still stands today.

There's nothing like it
anywhere else on the base.

The crews at bentwaters had to
be in a constant state of readiness

for a very dangerous mission.

The event of world war III

they were supposed
to get in their jets,

fly their missions into Europe,

hit the Soviet targets
with nuclear weapons.

Pilots were supposed
to eject near the coast

either on the European
side or the British side,

come down, land,

Bury themselves
under soil for three days

to protect themselves
from nuclear fallout.

The plan was

that a friendly submarine
would then pick them up

but the soldiers knew

that once the bombs
started dropping

the chances were very slim
that there'd be anybody left at all.

They knew it was a one-way trip.

Officially the United States
neither confirms nor denies

that there were nuclear
weapons at bentwaters.

But weapons of mass
destruction weren't the only secret

kept on this site.

On the eastern edge is a hangar
with a protrusion out the back.

It's a long metal tube
that must be, like,

I don't know, ten feet high?

A funny-looking building
clearly centred around this port

for either the...

..Expelling something
or allowing something in.

This building was
called the hush house.

It was integral to
bentwaters covert operations.

One thing that the us air
force may not have considered

when they came to rural england

was that there were limits

on how much noise they
could make and when.

A law prevented the air force
testing their engines at night

or on sundays.

The hush house was designed
to let them test in secret.

So they'd bring them
into the hush house,

they'd work on the engines,
they'd test them here

and there would be no
sound to disturb the sleep

of the surrounding civilians.

Inside here

when an engine was
running full throttle

it would be unbearable.

There's a special control
room where the operators sat

behind thickened glass

to protect them from
the sound and the heat.

Today the secrets of
the hush house are known

but rumours persist

that some information
is still classified.

Graham was living in the
area when something happened

that would go down in
history as britain's roswell.

I was 18 at the time.

I first heard about this incident
when it was in the local newspaper.

Security forces went
out to investigate it

and they're reporting
strange lights and things

zooming about in the sky.

For 40 years some
of those soldiers

have been unable to
explain what happened

and they're convinced that
they had a close encounter.

However, there is another
theory that's still out of this world,

it's just not extra-terrestrial.

NASA's Apollo program
in the '60s and '70s,

they typically landed, they
splashed down in the Caribbean

or in the pacific ocean.

There were contingencies

that if they splashed
down in the north sea

or the mediterranean,

they had to have facilities
to recover the astronaut

in that case.

So right up until 1975,

they kept a prop capsule
on standby in Great Britain

so crews in britain could
train on recovering a capsule.

Now one theory is that
they used a helicopter

to fly that capsule
over bentwaters

but they lost control of it
and had to ditch it in the forest

which might explain those
strange circular imprints

in the ground.

A dummy Apollo capsule
might fit the evidence.

But there are still questions
about the rendlesham incident

which remain unanswered.

The us air force was stationed
at bentwaters for 42 years

with 11 squadrons
based there over that time.

But in 1993 the airbase
was decommissioned,

the cold war was over.

Much of the airpower that
we were going to deploy

in a third world war
against the Soviet union

was based at bentwaters.

This was the world
we lived in for so long,

may we never live
in this world again.

In northern Arkansas is
a wholly unusual scene

lost in the depths
of the countryside.

This place is way
out in the woods,

it's overgrown.

There are vines
creeping all over the place

swallowing it up.

As you travel
further into the trees,

you see the
beginning of the track

and you start to get maybe some
clue of what was going on here.

At one point it goes up pretty
high about 30 feet off the ground

so somebody put a lot
of engineering ambition

into this project.

Twisted remains
are strewn all around,

and together they
paint a strange picture.

There are lots of
metal grills, bars,

fences and cages,

it's like a prison
lost in the jungle.

You're out in the woods, you're
miles from the nearest town,

no-one's going to hear
you scream out here.

So who or what was being
locked up in the cages?

And what catastrophe would
cause this site's downfall?

It all looks a little
ram shackled

so it makes you think
whatever was in these cages,

did they stay in the cages?

What if they got out?

Far from being hidden away,
the entrance to this place

was actually designed to
catch the eye of passers-by.

So if you were
just driving past,

you see what
looks like a rest stop

but this was a rest stop
like no other in the world.

Rick Montgomery grew up nearby

and can imagine just how
strange a site this must have been

for unsuspected travellers.

Well, when you would arrive
here and come around that corner,

almost a 90-degree curve

and the first thing you
see are these cages.

And in this cage here
I'm told was a lion.

That would get your attention.

You begin to look in here
and here is a huge black bear.

Everybody's now
wondering what is this place?

For those who let their
curiosity get the better of them,

a ride upon a miniature railway
took them through a dark tunnel,

before all was revealed.

We'd come out of the
tunnel and we hit this track.

And as you make the
curve you look to your left

and there's giraffes,

and their heads are
looking you in the face

because giraffes are so tall

so they're almost
level with you.

This strange roadside
wonderland once filled with life

was Hallie's rest stop and zoo.

When it opened this
place was a huge hit.

People came in
droves, they loved it.

People would specifically travel

just to this site from
hundreds of miles away

but what I like to imagine
is the incredible surprise

of people who didn't
know about this.

They just pull over the car
expecting a normal rest stop

and ta-da, you've got
Hallie's zoo as well.

What an experience.

Opened in the early '70s

and named after its
owner Hallie ormond,

visitors would come face to face
with an exciting mix of animals,

some more exotic than others.

There was every kind of
animal local to the area,

foxes, wolves, deer,

just every kind of animal
that you can think of

that's local to Arkansas
was here in the zoo,

plus elephant, giraffes,

of course, the
orangutan, bear, lion.

But today rusted,
broken and weathered

it appears outdated
in more ways than one.

You know, a really
state of the art zoo

needs a full-time
veterinary staff,

it needs people really trained
to take care of these animals.

And you see in modern zoos

they at least make an
attempt to create habitats

that are more like the habitats
of these animals living in the wild,

instead of just confining
them to tiny cages

where they go wild with boredom.

This was one of a
number of small zoos

that dotted the
country at the time,

and regulation of
them was relatively light

so, there was a little bit
of a wild west feel to it.

Regardless of the
approach taken, however,

safety was always a priority.

Wild animals are
exactly that, they are wild

and whenever you take
them on, even a single one,

let alone the numbers
required in a zoo,

you're taking on a
huge responsibility.

This was something the
management was reminded of

when one resident decided

they'd had enough of
sitting alone in their cage.

This cage is super
interesting, it's big metal

because originally
there was a bear in here,

then they put in
here an orangutan.

He was real smart.

He knew how to undo his
cage so that he could get out.

And he would get out of his
cage and go walking around,

go walking across the street.

That's where the manager
was and he knew him.

Luckily no harm was
done by the orangutan

masterminding his own escape.

But what if it had been a
more dangerous animal?

With this kind of business, if
an accident does occur on-site,

the likelihood is it's
going to be serious.

As time would tell,

the orangutan wasn't to be
the only escapee from Hallie's.

And next time it
would be a predator

that would have the
locals running scared.

But perhaps this place should
never have been opened at all.

Now there are plenty
of laws and regulations

regarding exotic
animals in the us but...

And this is true
of a lot of activities

in the states,

there's a huge
amount of variation

and the laws vary state by state

and in some cases,
county by county.

What's surprising is that
where this zoo was located,

it was actually illegal
to own exotic animals.

Whether that law was
known at the time or not,

things would soon
be brought to a head.

In the late '70s Hallie sold
the zoo to a new owner,

and in 1979 the zoo
made the headlines

for all the wrong reasons.

Well, this is the cage that
got the biggest story to tell.

This was the cage
where the lion was kept.

The lion was sheltering
in a zoo all of its life,

it was never been
out in the wild.

But one day, somebody
accidentally left the cage door open

and the lion escaped.

With a lion on the loose,
the locals were up in arms.

There are farms all around
this place with livestock

and now you've got a
predator out there on the loose.

It was spotted a
number of times.

The people in the area
were pretty freaked out

that there was a wild African
lion roaming their backyards.

But luckily, in the end,

it turned out they
needn't have worried.

There is a kind of
comic end to all this

because after two weeks
of wandering the countryside

the lion just wandered
back into the zoo,

apparently, because
he was hungry.

I guess that lion was a
little more accustomed

to being fed

than having to chase
down its own food.

The lion came back and
went back into his cage here

and they locked
him up and fed him,

but that was the
beginning of the end

for Hallie's zoo.

No livestock were
attacked, no one was injured

but suddenly a new level of
scrutiny was focused upon the zoo.

I don't believe that
anybody ever knew

that it was illegal to
have exotic animals

in Van buren county.

It's just that once the
lion incident happened

that was an excuse

to get rid of the exotic
animals in Van buren county.

The law was already there,

just no one had
ever really enforced it,

no one had really
talked about it.

After a decade pulling
in excited tourists

and weary travellers,

in 1979 Hallie's rest stop
and zoo was shut down.

While the animals are long gone,

there was still another
twist in the tale of this place.

When Rick stumbled upon
the boarded-up site in 2011...

Well, we were rounding the curve

and I felt like I heard
god say, "look to your left,"

and all we can see was
the corner of the building.

We pulled over
and my wife thought

that we were having
some kind of car trouble

and I said, "no, I
think this is the place

"we're supposed to be."

It's always nice to see old places
get turned into something new.

But the best times

are when there's something
so surprising like this.

They turned a zoo into a church.

The old restaurant and
gift shop has been restored

and become the church itself.

While the old zoo

has been pulled into
the action once again.

We utilised the zoo.

This place has helped our church
to reach out to the community.

We have biblical
who's who at the zoo.

And we actually have people
playing biblical characters

in the old cages.

And then for Christmas
we decorate the zoo,

we light up the train track.

It's just a good way to
minister to the community.

In Rick's eyes as minister,

they couldn't have wished for
a better spot to build a church.

My wife and I love the
place, as a matter of fact,

if things go as we plan,
we will be entombed here.

We plan on staying
here, the zoo is us.

In Belarus,

seven miles from the
border with Ukraine

is a derelict land that
was once a paradise.

Your first impression here

is that you're in the
middle of nowhere.

You don't see anyone even
looking down from the sky,

you can't see any people.

The people are gone

but the forgotten pieces of a
past life have been left behind.

Murals on the walls have
been painted for children,

it suggests that whoever
lived here did so happily.

You can see abandoned houses,

you can see some
personal possessions

scattered about on the ground.

It appears that when
people did leave this place,

they left in a hurry.

The evidence suggests
something happened here

which turned this
place into a wasteland.

But the truth may be bigger
than just one neighbourhood.

Belarus and Ukraine
were just two provinces

of the Soviet empire.

Used to be that Soviet
power spanned this border,

but now something far
darker spans this border.

The town's existence
was cut so short

that it was never
added to local maps.

So what catastrophic
event curtailed its life?

And what invisible
danger was left behind?

In the 1970s, at the
height of the cold war,

the west and the Soviet union
were vying for supremacy.

But behind the scenes,
the union was in turmoil.

The Soviet system
was going to pieces.

The Soviet system of
agriculture, in particular,

could not feed the
Soviet population.

There was a great irony

that the Soviets had
a world-class military

and they were spending
billions on nuclear weapons,

but they couldn't even
feed their own people.

Piotr romaniuk grew up
in Belarus during this time.

Translation: "We're standing
in what used to be a shop.

"Those are the
remains of refrigerators.

"This shop supplied the
whole town with groceries

"and other necessities."

But this shop was
different to many others

across the Soviet union...

..There were no bare shelves.

For here, everyone
had plenty of food.

In this part of Belarus
the Soviets set up kind of

a model community
to raise cattle for food.

And they built the housing,
supermarkets, schools,

everything they needed
to house the workers

and their families.

The approach
worked so well, in fact,

that the people gave this
town an unofficial name,

'sunny'.

Translation: "Why sunny?

"Because they planned
a hay day for the region.

"Something new,

"that the new town
would be bright,

"joyful, sunny."

They wanted this
to be a model town

and so it could be used
as an example elsewhere

in the Soviet union,

and show that collective work and
community could be a big success

for the future.

Translation: "It was
a place full of life,

"a place for work
and for leisure.

"Behind us is what used
to be a house of culture

"which was supposed
to have opened in 1986

"but it never happened."

One Sunday morning in
1986 this paradise was lost.

Translation: "It was the
first time since world war ii

"that the alarm had sounded.

It was horrifying.

"And people couldn't
grasp what was happening."

On 3 may, an order was made,

the residents of
sunny were to evacuate

over the coming days,

few understood why.

Translation: "It was horrible.

"People were saying
goodbye to each other forever.

"They weren't sure they'd
ever see each other again

"because they'd never
experienced anything like this before."

A panic had gripped
the authorities.

Something so
disastrous had happened

that the state tried
to keep it secret.

In the Soviet union news
was tightly controlled.

Bad news was a state secret,

and there was no news
of the nuclear disaster

at chernobyl.

A week earlier,

a large explosion at the site had
exposed the nuclear reactor core.

Two of the reactors at
the chernobyl nuclear plant

went into meltdown,

they started spewing
radioactive smoke into the air.

Firefighters came in to
try to put out the Blaze

but, of course, they were subjected
to even more intense radiation.

Translation: "Yes, we
knew of the accident

"but nobody
recognised its scale.

"We thought it would
all be over soon.

"They'd put the fire out

"and we would resume living
as if nothing had happened.

"When the word radiation
was said for the first time,

"the older locals
couldn't even repeat it.

"They kept saying 'radio'

"and didn't understand why they
were being forced to move out

"of this beautiful
place of our country

"because of something
that nobody could see."

The town of sunny
sits near the border

between what is now
Belarus and Ukraine,

chernobyl lies just
20 miles to the south.

Airborne radiation was omitted
from the fire at the power plant

for ten straight days.

It spread across Europe,

but around 70% is
estimated to have settled

on the ground in Belarus.

It must have been terrifying.

They'd been living
in the fall out zone

for almost a week.

But no one really knew
how bad the fallout was

and no one really
trusted the government

to tell them the truth.

At the time, piotr was
working as a teacher

and was assigned to
help with the evacuation.

Translation: "We were
summoned to the district committee

"so that they could
assign party members

"to be in charge of resettlement
of different organisations.

"I was sent to kolivan village

"where my main duty was
to ensure the resettlement

"of the school."

Within 24 hours,

the town of sunny
had been abandoned...

..But the residents
of this former paradise

would face one final injustice.

Years later, when
scientists went back

to study the soil and
to study the people

and look for the
effects of the radiation,

they found that the
radiation levels were far lower

than they had suspected
at first and, in fact,

the residents of this area

probably didn't need
to be evacuated.

As the town sat empty
from 1986 onwards,

few outsiders heard the
stories of places such as this.

What happened in Belarus

is a really overlooked
story of chernobyl,

everybody talks about the
immediate area around the plant

and about pripyat.

A lot of people don't realise

that much of the dislocation
happened in Belarus next door.

Huge areas evacuated,

lives uprooted,
disrupted forever.

Life, however, has
returned to sunny.

Today it's classed
as a nature reserve

and has been reclaimed
by wild elk and wolves.

And piotr now looks for the positives
in what lies ahead for this region.

Translation: "I suppose
I've made my peace with it.

"The reserve employs
many of our people.

"It provides workspaces

"so we treat it like a facility.

"You know, it's our facility."

Over 30 years after
residents were forced

from their homes, sunny
remains a restricted area,

but change may lie ahead.

Translation: "Today
we are rebuilding it

"and everything is growing.

"We are developing very quickly.

"It makes me happy
as a citizen of this area

"and as someone who is
responsible for socio-economic growth

"of this area. It's great."

Off the coast of Taiwan
in the pacific ocean

lies a small volcanic island.

Much of the island is
covered in a thick carpet

of emerald green grass,

hence its name green island.

It's a place of towering rocks
surrounded by coral reefs.

It's not easy to get to.

Fading clues suggest

this island was more than
just a tropical paradise.

Something that
really strikes you

is you see all these
propaganda slogans

and messages daubed,
painted, scrawled, engraved.

So clearly the island was
of some political importance

but to whom and why?

A series of brutalist
concrete structures

hint at the true
nature of this place.

As we look more closely
we see a walled-off facility

that really stands out from
the rest of the landscape.

For almost half a century,

this collection of
buildings struck fear

into the hearts and minds
of every Taiwanese person.

Green island is forever
tied to one of Taiwan's

and humanity's darkest chapters.

During world war ii,

Taiwan and its islands
were ruled over by Japan,

after the fallen empire's
surrender China took back control.

For the Taiwanese people,

a new age of terror
was about to unfold.

Chiang Kai-shek became
the leader of China in 1928.

But in 1949, following
the Chinese civil war

he and his nationalist
party were defeated

by the communist forces

under the leadership
of mao zedong.

And chiang Kai-shek
takes his government

which used to govern all of China
across to the island of Taiwan,

80 miles from the
Chinese mainland.

Forced into exile,

the deposed leader
plotted to reclaim China

from the newly installed
communist government.

And green island would
come to play a key role

in chiang Kai-shek's plans.

As you look around

you see all these
propaganda messages,

one of which reads,

"be firm against
communism and ready to win."

All this propaganda and
the barrack-like buildings

make you think it's some
kind of military training facility.

However, this was not a
place to house his army,

it was designed to
destroy his rivals.

Chiang Kai-shek is beleaguered
by political enemies inside Taiwan.

The old locals who
resent the intrusion

of these mainlanders
onto their island,

but also lots of Chinese spies
inside the nationalist movement.

In a desperate attempt
to cling to power,

he rounded up those
believed to be a threat.

Lin xiu wei lives
on green island

and grew up hearing the
terrible stories from this time.

Translation: "The people's
right to freedom of speech

"and freedom to gather
together was stripped away.

"For example, if three
people got together

"they would be accused

"of joining a trade
union organisation."

This period of brutal martial law
became known as the white terror.

Chiang Kai-shek
creates this green island

as a place where he can send
people for interrogation and detention

as he launches this
so-called white terror.

This was the new
life correction centre.

Locked inside, however,

was not the typical
cast of criminals.

Here the ones being persecuted

were those with the
power to influence others

not through violence but
through art and reason.

This wasn't a normal prison,

full of hardened
and violent criminals,

instead, you had
scholars and writers,

poets and artists.

As we know nothing is
more dangerous than an idea.

Those deemed to be
the most dangerous

with the most dangerous ideas,
they were sent to green island.

Isolated from the
rest of the population

where even the
power of their poetry,

the power of their art
couldn't reach anyone.

In time, some of these
prisoners would transform Taiwan

into the country it is today.

But while caged, they
endured an imaginable hardship.

The main building is a
strange hexagonal structure

with four lines of prisoner cells
extending out from the core.

Hard labour and torture
were daily occurrences too.

For a start, each prisoner
had a sleeping space

of only two-foot-wide.

This wasn't just a prison, it
was a re-education centre,

really an ideological
brainwashing centre as well.

And the methods used
were very extreme,

to the point at which some
prisoners were tattooed

with propaganda slogans

like, "oppose communism,
resist the Russians."

While those locked inside
these walls dreamt of escape,

the site's position meant
this was nigh on impossible.

Translation: "There were
reports of political prisoners

"who attempted to escape,

"but they all failed, why?

"Because green island
is surrounded by the sea."

Known as the black current,

the powerful waters
that encircled the island

pulled flotsam
back to the shore.

It's rumoured one desperate
prisoner swam all night

towards the mainland

only to find himself
back where he started

as the sun Rose.

Translation: "Some prisoners
crafted little wooden rafts

"in an effort to escape.

"However, they were just rolled
back to the shores by the waves.

"They were then beaten up
by the guards in the bunker."

It's estimated that
over five decades

the regime arrested up to
150,000 political opponents

with many of them
ending up here.

Around 20,000 were
executed without proper trial,

most for the crime of
criticising a corrupt government.

So chiang Kai-shek's
terror really decimated

an entire generation
of Chinese intellectuals

and it would take Taiwanese
society a long time to recover.

But for the people
held against their will,

their dreams of freedom
and Liberty didn't die.

The suffering only
fuelled a desire for change.

The seeds of Democratic Taiwan
were also sewn by this persecution.

One prisoner was
kept here for so long

and resisted so valiantly

and his struggle had
such a profound effect

on the course of
Taiwanese politics

that he became known
as Taiwan's mandela.

In total, shih ming-teh,
spent 25 years locked away,

much of it was here
in solitary confinement

and several years of
that was on hunger strike.

So this guy endured
all of these things,

asked for no mercy,
put up with it all

and really became the
conscience of Taiwan.

Martial law was
eventually lifted in 1987.

For the first time in a century,

opposition political parties
were allowed to form.

And with that, many of
the prisoners still being held

were soon released.

And once released,
they formed this party,

they insist on
democracy, human rights,

they win elections,

and shih ming-teh
is one of the guys

who founds the Democratic
progressive party,

the party that now
governs Taiwan.

This site continued
to operate as a prison,

but this time, criminals
more deserving of captivity

occupied its cells.

Its prisoners were now
the gangsters and mobsters

who had helped the old regime
round up the innocent intellectuals.

In the final years
of the 20th century,

the prison was
closed and abandoned.

But the trauma experienced here

still lives long in the memory
of the island's residents.

Translation: "We must remember

"that Taiwan once
experienced strict political rule.

"We must learn from
the lessons of the past.

"History might be repeated.

"If we don't learn, the
tragedy might happen again."

In 2002, the Taiwanese
government once again

opened the doors of the prison.

Though it now welcomes a
very different kind of visitor.

Green island today
is a tourist destination

with beaches,
hotels, snorkelling

but it's really a reminder of
Taiwan's very complex past.

Taiwan's frosty relationship
with China continues

to this very day.

On the one hand,

you have Taiwan, a flourishing
free-market democracy,

on the other hand,
you have China,

one-party communist dictatorship

that has never recognised
the independence of Taiwan.

Captioned by
ai-media ai-media. TV