First lady Wu on Aug 30, 2004

First lady Wu to attend Paralympic Games

LEADING BY EXAMPLE: Despite interference from China, wheelchair-bound first lady Wu Shu-chen will accompany the nation's disabled athletes to Athens

By Huang Tai-lin
STAFF REPORTER
 

First Lady Wu Shu-chen will head the nation's delegation to attend the 2004 Paralympic Games in the Greek Capital of Athens mid next month, the Presidential Office announced yesterday.

Noting that the trip ran into "some difficulties arising from China's attempts to hinder Wu's journey," during its planning, Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General James Huang yesterday warned China of making further attempts to interfere.

"This will be an event where our wheelchair-bound First Lady leads our physically-challenged players to attend the international Paralympic Games," Huang said.

"While China's incessant oppression of Taiwan is nothing new, should China attempt to further hinder Wu's trip, I think it would be an act that would anger both mankind and the gods," Huang said.

The Paralympic Games are the Olympic for athletes with disabilities. The Paralympic Games are usually held in the same year and at the same venue as the regular Olympic Games.

In her capacity as the head of Chinese Taipei's paralympic delegation, Wu will lead the 25 athletes to Athens five days ahead of the Paralympic Games, which will be held from Sept. 17 to Sept. 28.

"The delegation headed by the First Lady will leave on Sept. 12 for Athens," Huang said at a news press conference yesterday held to detail Wu's trip to Greece. Taiwan's delegation will travel directly to Athens on a chartered flight, Huang added.

Aside from attending the Games' opening ceremony on Sept. 17, Huang said the first lady will also visit the athlete's villages and will attempt to attend every competition Taiwanese athletes compete in "to do all she can to support our players."

"Given the First Lady's physical disability, [the trip] will be a challenge for her, tantamount to taking part in the games herself," Huang added.

Wu, paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a truck in an assassination attempt, has been in a wheelchair since 1985.

Wu will stay in a hotel which the event organizer has arranged for all heads of participating delegations and will return to Taipei on Sept. 20.

When Wu met with the Taiwan delegation for the 2003 World Wheelchair Games last October, many of the athletes expressed the hope that she could head this delegation to this year's Paralympics, Huang said. Wu agreed immediately, her physical status qualified her for the position.

Huang further stated that Wu last November had received an invitation from Philip Craven, President of the International Paralympic Committee, to attend this year's event as an honorary guest.

"After receiving the invitation, the Presidential Office, along with the Chinese Taipei Sports Federation for the Disabled, has since been working on having Wu head the delegation [for the 2004 Paralympic Games]" Huang said.

Officials deny barring pro-democracy lawmaker

AP , HONG KONG

A top Chinese official yesterday defended his government's decision to bar a Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker from entering the mainland, saying customs authorities acted legally.

Officials who turned away Legislator Law Chi-kwong at the Shanghai airport on Saturday "made a decision according to the relevant provisions of immigration law," said Li Gang, deputy head of China's liaison office in Hong Kong.

Law said he was told his presence "would not be beneficial for the country."

China traditionally considers Hong Kong's pro-democracy leaders troublemakers because of their harsh criticism of Beijing's authoritarian rule in the mainland.

But Law being denied entry marks a surprise departure from China's recent string of conciliatory gestures toward opposition figures, a strategy apparently aimed at minimizing a backlash against Beijing's local allies in the Sept. 12 legislative election.

Many people in Hong Kong are upset that Beijing ruled in April that the territory can't directly elect its next leader in 2007 and lawmakers in 2008.

The ruling prompted hundreds of thousands to protest on July 1, the seventh anniversary of this former British colony's handover to Chinese rule.

Adding to the confusion, Law claims he was told by China's liaison office here that he had been cleared to visit the mainland.

Political scientist James Sung at the City University of Hong Kong said Law may have been denied entry by mistake because Shanghai authorities weren't promptly notified to let him in.

But fellow scholar Ma Ngok said the mixed signals showed China still has reservations about Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp.

"The basis for communication is very fragile," said Ma, who teaches at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Hong Kong enjoys Western-style freedoms denied in the mainland under Chinese sovereignty, but only limited democracy.

March 19 Committee flawed

By Alfred Tsai

I am very disappointed that the Legislative Yuan passed the "March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute" to form the March 19 Committee, because the provisions in the law are blatantly unconstitutional. Let me describe how this procedure is done in the US and then describe how the Taiwanese way falls short of democratic ideals.

In US criminal procedure, the police investigate, the prosecutors prosecute, the judge acts as referee and the jury convicts. The police and prosecutors are part of the executive branch of government. In court, prosecutors are the plaintiff who represent the people and brings a criminal complaint against certain individuals. There are special laws to protect US citizens, to ensure that the government plaintiff does not use its power and resources against individuals in an unfair way.

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution ensures that indictments against individuals for crimes more serious than misdemeanors (where they can be fined over US$1,000 or incarcerated for over six months) are handed down by grand juries rather than just by prosecutors. The same amendment also protects individuals against self-incrimination.

In extraordinary circumstances, such as the assassination of President Kennedy, the investigative procedures did not differ much from the procedures outlined above. The Warren Commission was formed merely to investigate, not to prosecute.

It took an Act of Congress, Senate Joint Resolution 137 (Public Law 88-202) which passed on December 13, 1963, to give the commission the power to subpoena witnesses and obtain evidence concerning any matter relating to the investigation. In cases where there is reason to believe that high-ranking officials might have broken laws, independent prosecutors are appointed by the judicial branch because regular prosecutors are intimidated and have conflicts of interests when they investigate their superiors.

The March 19 Committee to be formed according to the new statute will have the power to investigate. It will create a group of amateur prosecutors who are politically motivated.

The Warren Commission was not formed with the presumption that the assassination victim had broken laws and that a special prosecutor is needed. Even when a special prosecutor is needed, one should be appointed by the judicial branch which, on the surface, is impartial in the eyes of the public. Members of the March 19 Committee will be appointed by political parties rather than appointed by the judicial branch.

The experience of the US in the late 1990s tells us that even independent counsels, who on the surface are impartial, can become mired in politics because they are accountable to no one. The US independent counsel law became heavily criticized and was allowed to expire in 1999. Humans, by their very nature, need to be supervised in order for democracy to work.

The March 19 Committee seems designed to find revenge rather than the truth. It is designed to override all other government agencies, rather than supplement other government agencies, as was the case with the Warren Commission. Article 8, Section 3 of the March 19 Statute requires all government agencies to turn over all materials and evidence to the committee after the statute has been promulgated. This means that the committee has sole and exclusive jurisdiction on this issue.

The committee is also given the power to meddle with the judicial process. Article 13, Section 3 of the statute says, "If the conclusions of this committee run counter to the facts found in a confirmed court ruling, this would serve as grounds for a retrial." The March 19 Committee has the power to go on a witch hunt and reverse any court case that was decided according to long standing legal procedures.

Worse of all, the committee can trample on people's freedoms, disregard property rights, and compromise government secrets. Article 8, Section 4 of the statute states, "The Committee, in the execution of its powers, is not limited by the National Secrets Protection Law, Commercial Secrets Law, Criminal Procedure Law, and other laws."

I find it commendable that many legislators want to investigate the March 19 assassination attempt on the president. However, I hope they can grow up and not taint their hard work through unconstitutional means. Because in a democracy, the ends never justifies the means.

Alfred Tsai
Taipei

Henry Lee's weasel words

So Henry Lee -- sorry, that should be "world- famous forensic scientist" Henry Lee -- has pronounced on the March 19 assassination attempt on the president and vice president. It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry -- before getting angry, that is. On Saturday night we heard the most staggering banalities mixed with the slippery weasel words that we have come to associate with this pillar of the pan-blue establishment on the US east coast.

The banalities first: Lee says that the police should go after underground arms factories because they might, by studying different methods of tooling and the marks they produce on these illegal products, be able to locate the source of the gun, which might lead them eventually to the shooter.

Somehow we didn't need a "world-famous forensic scientist" to tell us this; any 12-year-old fan of TV's CSI could have done as well.

The good doctor goes on to say that the Taiwanese police should have better preserved the crime scene. He apparently doesn't make any suggestion as to how they might have done this, which is a shame because we would like to know. After all, the crime happened during an election procession and was not immediately even detected. The president thought he had been hit by bits of an exploding firecracker, which in Taiwan is pretty much one of the hazards of the job. By the time the crime had actually been discovered, the motorcade had moved from the spot where it occurred and so had the crowd which had come to see Chen Shui-bian -- trampling over any evidence, probably destroying much of it. Short of clairvoyance, it is hard to see how much better the police could have done.

When Lee was in Taiwan at the beginning of April, this newspaper took him to task over his remarks to the effect that the shooting was not an assassination attempt against Chen because an assassin would have used a different weapon and aimed at a more vulnerable part of the body, such as the head. At the time we called this utter rubbish. And yet Lee is still peddling the same nonsense. In New York on Saturday he said -- according to The Associated Press -- "this was not a political assassination because [an assassin] would have used a more powerful weapon" than a homemade handgun.

We are appalled that someone brought in to clarify the circumstances surrounding the shooting can so muddy the waters. We are shocked that this "world-famous forensic scientist" seems to lack the most elementary forensic skills about his own logic and grammar.

An assassination is, according to the dictionary, the sudden or secretive killing of a politically prominent person. So what Lee seems to be saying is that the shooting was not intended to kill Chen. And the pan-blues think they are justified in claiming that it was a stunt to win the election. What we think Lee means is that it was not a professional assassination attempt, ie, Chen was not the victim of a professional hit man (and let us add here that we also worked this out for ourselves by the evening of the day of the shooting).

Which interpretation of Lee is the right one? We hope to be able to find out, because a lot hangs by this -- and not only in regard to the shooting. Lee appears to be equivocating, putting what he knows in such a way as to deliberately not clear up the mystery. Given his well-known pan-blue affiliations, this does no favors for the good doctor's credibility. If we are to believe in Lee he needs to stop using weasel words and tell us exactly what he means.

Pan-blue camp must face up to brutal past

By Sun Ming-lin

Recently, my job afforded me the opportunity to contact some old victims of the White Terror era.

One of them said he was extremely excited that Taiwan would be returned to the "motherland" after Japan was defeated in 1945.

He viewed China as his spiritual motherland, saying that nothing could surpass his passion for it.

Those who lived in this country at the time had a greater China consciousness, believing that they were the Han people whose ancestors originally moved from China to Taiwan, and that the "foreign regime" actually referred to the Japanese colonial government. Of course, for the nation's Aborigines, all regimes are foreign regimes.

The notorious 228 Incident in 1947 aroused the Taiwanese people's hostility towards the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) rule.

Throughout the 1960s, the people lived in austere conditions. They could only focus on "increasing production to contribute to the country."

The country was almost cut off from the progressive and anti-war social movements that flourished thought in the West during this period.

After the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, the opposition tangwai, or those "outside the KMT movement" gradually won public sympathy, and it united with the other social movements in the mid-80s.

A host of environmental, Aboriginal, labor and other social groups came together to oppose the KMT's authoritarian regime. Established in 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) emerged from these forces.

The so-called Taiwan identity also began to take shape, stressing that the public must unite to fight the KMT's regime that oppresses the Taiwanese people.

Towards the end of the late president Chiang Ching-kuo's rule, conservative forces were increasingly discarded and the president adopted a series of liberalization measures, including lifting martial law, and abolishing restrictions on political parties and the press.

He swept away the obstacles to democratic politics and freedom of speech. His successor, former president Lee Teng-hui, achieved a bloodless "silent revolution" in the political sphere.

However, the issue of transitional justice in Taiwan's society was not appropriately handled. Some White Terror victims complain to this day that they should be compensated with the KMT's assets, not taxpayers' money, and that none of the oppressors of the past have been punished.

For them, Lee's apology was not enough, since the matter was unrelated to him.

Since the pan-blue camp's leaders have not seriously dealt with the issue of justice -- even though KMT Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong went down on their knees and kissed the ground to show their love for Taiwan during the presidential campaign -- Lee still called on the public not to pity them and to eliminate the last remnant of the old foreign regime.

Now that the blue-camp has once again lost the presidency, the they should bravely face the past and clearly define what they believe to be modern Taiwan-China relations.

They should also focus on today's social policy issues, shed the foreign regime label and strive toward the goal of serving the people of Taiwan.

Sun Ming-lin is the project planner of the documentary, Chiang Ching-kuo, produced by the Public Television Service (PTS) Foundation.