TOKYO -- Three prominent Taiwan dissident politicians arrived in Tokyo today on their way back to their homeland after years of exile in the United States.
Hsu Hsin-liang, Hsieh Tsung-min and Lin Shui-chuan, founders of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, are to fly to Taiwan Sunday, but it is not clear if the Nationalist Chinese authorities would allow them into the country, party sources said.
'We are determined to go back to our homeland,' Hsu told United Press International in a telephone interview from Tokyo International Airport.
'We don't want confrontation -- we don't want conflict,' Hsu said. 'We just want to get in peacefully.'
The three men helped found the opposition party last month - Taiwan's first alternate party recognized by the ruling Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, since it took power 37 years ago.
The Nationalists have ruled Taiwan under martial law since they they were ousted from the mainland by the communists in 1949.
Taiwan's ailing President Chiang Ching-kuo, son of late President Chiang Kai-shek, has recently shown increased flexibility toward his domestic political opponents and allowed the opposition party to be formed.
But it is not clear if the three dissidents would be allowed into Taiwan when their plane lands at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, or be deported or arrested upon entry, a party spokeman said.
Hsu said he expected about 50,000 supporters to greet him at the airport.
In Taipei, more than 1,000 security agents and police patrolled Chiang Kai-shek airport and 10 armored cars filled with anti-riot police were seen parked nearby. An airport official called it 'the tightest security I have ever seen in the airport's six-year history.'
Hsu, Hsieh, and Lin will meet with Taiwan supporters living in Japan during their Tokyo stopover and are to hold a news conference before departing for Taipei, party spokeswoman Mary Paluszek said.
Forty-five-year-old publisher Hsu and Hsueh were returning after seven years in exile in the United States, and Lin had been in U.S. exile for four years.
Hsu, a founder of the banned opposition magazine Formosa, left for the United States in 1979 after the Nationalist government ordered his arrest for his political activities. He published two Chinese-language magazines in Los Angeles.
Colleague Hsieh, 52, had spent nearly 11 years in prison for writing a declaration in l984 calling for an end to martial law in Taiwan.
Lin, 49, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1964 on political charges, but was released in 1977.
