Swine flu hindering disaster relief work
　

THE GOING GETS TOUGHER: The government has ordered soldiers to disinfect typhoon-affected areas as fears grow that a swine flu epidemic will break out
　

By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 1
　

Disaster relief work in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot is being complicated by the emerging threat of a swine flu epidemic, as an increasing number of flu patients are diagnosed and reported nationwide, including several aid workers.

The Ministry of National Defense said in a press release yesterday that 10 soldiers working in the Pingtung area had been diagnosed with swine flu.

The ministry, however, denied a media report that a soldier had contracted lung disease as a result of a swine flu infection, adding: “All the soldiers infected with the A(H1N1) virus have mild symptoms and are currently being treated in hospital.”

The ministry said it had ordered soldiers to execute comprehensive disinfection work in areas hit by the typhoon, as well as victim shelters, to prevent the virus spreading.

About 300 flood victims in Wannei Village (灣內) in Wandan Township (萬丹), Pingtung County, were hospitalized after coming down with a fever, reports said. Though swine flu had been ruled out, the mass hospitalization stirred panic in the village, the report said.

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) told a press conference yesterday: “While the disaster relief work is going on, we shouldn’t be careless about a [possible] A(H1N1) epidemic.”

Liu, citing recommendations by the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) committee of experts, said: “In disaster victim shelters, soldiers and volunteers are advised to wear face masks, because they are in contact with many people and that puts them more at risk of infection.”

Liu said the government’s policy on a possible swine flu epidemic has been to attempt to isolate cases and delay an epidemic for as long as possible, adding that so far the government had been successful.

“The global flu situation, however, tells us that we have to act and recent deaths remind us that we have to continue fighting this war,” he said.

Because of this, the CECC has decided to relax procedures for administrating Tamiflu to patients, so that the flu medication can be given to anyone demonstrating flu-like symptoms, even if they have tested negative in preliminary tests, Liu said.

“Those with chronic diseases, the elderly, children under five years of age, pregnant women, people in contact with swine flu patients and people with lung disease or other major illnesses will be given priority,” Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) said.

The committee of experts also recommended increasing the country’s stock of vaccine to cover 30 percent of the population, up from 18 percent, which is 7 million doses, Yaung said.

The relaxing of the standards came after the Centers of Disease Control yesterday announced the nation’s latest swine flu deaths.

A six-year-old boy living in Changhua County who had been battling the disease since July 19 and a 44-year-old woman from Pingtung County, who was not a typhoon victim and who began displaying severe flu symptoms on Thursday, passed away yesterday, bringing the nation’s total death toll from the swine flu virus to five.

Meanwhile, residents of Siaolin Village, which was wiped out by landslides during the typhoon, decided to suspend digging at the site.

Tsai Sung-yu (蔡松諭), chief of the residents’ organization, said the decision was made because it had become much more difficult and dangerous for the soldiers to proceed with the digging after torrential rain on Thursday.

Tsai said the work would restart during reconstruction of the village or during construction of a memorial at the site.

Liu Chien-fang (劉建芳), chief of Jiasian Township (甲仙), said he supported the residents’ decision.

China to put 200 on trial in Xinjiang
　

KANGAROO COURT?: Activists are concerned they will see the same abuses of the legal process as were seen in the trials of suspects detained in Tibet last year

AFP, BEIJING
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 1

China will this week put more than 200 people on trial over last month’s deadly ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, with security tight because of fears of fresh violence, state media said yesterday.

The trials will take place at the Intermediate People’s Court in Urumqi, the capital of the mainly Muslim northwest region where, according to Beijing, violence early last month left at least 197 people dead, the China Daily reported, citing unnamed officials.

The more than 200 defendants will face charges ranging from disrupting traffic to murder, the paper said, meaning that some of them could be given the death penalty. Authorities had previously announced only 83 formal arrests.

Armed police have started around-the-clock patrols in the area near the courthouse in a massive security build-up ahead of the hearings, the paper said.

Local residents have voiced concerns that the trials will rekindle the same raw emotions among the city’s different ethnic groups that fanned the deadly street clashes less than two months ago.

“Many bereaved Han families will come to wait for the verdicts and the authorities fear they may clash with any Uighur in their presence,” Guo Mei, a saleswoman who works near the court, told the China Daily.

The violence that broke out in Urumqi on July 5 pitted Han Chinese against Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking and predominantly Muslim people, in the worst ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades.

The paper reported intense public interest in the trials, which will all be public, except for those dealing with “splitting the state.”

“I’d be very angry if those rioters receive light sentences or escape justice,” an unnamed worker said. “They should be given harsh penalties for causing the loss of so many innocent lives.”

One Han shopkeeper told the China Daily that Han Chinese who “overreacted” when seeking out Uighurs in retaliatory mob violence following the initial riots “should be granted leniency by the judge.”

Both court officials and prosecutors declined to comment when contacted. A city government official surnamed Ma said he had “no information so far” about the trials.

With doubts remaining over who was to blame for the violence, the future of ethnic relations in volatile Xinjiang hinges to a large extent on how the Chinese government handles the aftermath, observers said.

“There is profound distrust on both sides in terms of Han Chinese and Uighurs,” said Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The Chinese government can make a huge advance in terms of bridging that divide, in terms of bringing the two sides together, by allowing an independent investigation that all sides can point to as impartial and objective.”

The paper did not say how many of the defendants were Uighurs, however, it reported that more than 170 Uighur and 20 Han lawyers had been assigned, suggesting that the bulk were members of the minority group.

Prosecutors have prepared more than 3,300 items of physical evidence for the trial, including bricks and clubs stained with blood, 91 video clips and more than 2,150 photos, the paper said.

Kine said HRW was concerned that the Urumqi trials “will follow the same abuses of international process that we saw in the trials of suspects detained following the unrest in Tibet in March 2008.”

Compensation triggers war of words
　

HE SAID, SHE SAID: KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung’s claim that residents of two Pingtung County townships hadn’t yet received any money drew counterclaims
　

By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 3
　

Post-typhoon relief efforts and compensation payments triggered a political mud-fight between local and central government officials and between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday.

At issue was the whereabouts of some of the NT$1 billion (US$30.4 million) in disaster relief funds issued by the central government to the Pingtung County Government almost two weeks ago.

Top officials from Linbian Township (林邊) attacked the county government for failing to provide NT$2 million to the township, although some Linbian residents told reporters that they had received NT$30,000 per household two weeks ago.

The county government, meanwhile, said it has distributed NT$140 million so far to disaster victims.

The furor erupted after KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) issued a press release on Sunday after visiting Linbian and Jiadong Township (佳冬), accusing the Pingtung County Government of delaying distribution of disaster relief funds from the central government.

Flood victims in the two townships told him they “had not received a penny in funding,” Wu said, even though the central government had issued a NT$1 billion relief funds almost two weeks ago.

He said the county government was inefficient and “the [delay] was beyond belief.”

Linbian Township Mayor Chen Chu-yun (陳朱雲) said she hadn’t seen any of the money because she had not filed an official request to the county.

“How was I supposed to issue an official document? We were without electricity the day it happened [the flooding]. In the case of a major natural disaster, shouldn’t the procedure for receiving aid be simplified?” Chen said.

A teary Hong Jun-jen (洪俊仁), secretary-general fo Linbian said: “I didn’t know that [telling Wu about not receiving funds] would cause such a chain reaction … I apologize to the nation. All I wanted was the NT$2 million for disaster relief. I didn’t know that I was supposed to file an official document to receive the funds.”

However, Pingtung County Commissioner Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻) said residents who claimed they hadn’t seen any money were lying.

“I have distributed about NT$140 million to Linbian residents. It is already in their pockets … When they said that they had not received a penny, it was not the truth,” Tsai said.

KMT and DPP lawmakers jumped into the fray at separate press conferences.

KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) questioned whether Tsao was more concerned about his own political agenda.

“Are you retaining the money so that you can offer favors to people? Don’t you know to give the money to the disaster victims immediately?” Lin said.

DPP legislators, however, said the KMT was making false allegations in a bid to distract the public.

“The KMT is merely blurring the focus of people, so that they forget how poorly the government is handling disaster relief,” DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said.

At a separate press conference, DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said that Wu had accused Tsao without knowing all the details.

“Some NT$800 million of the NT$1 billion disaster relief fund has been allocated to victims and family subsidies for deaths, missing, injuries, flood and relocation,” Cheng said.

“In addition, as of August 21, 5,189 households in Linbian and 1,828 households in Jiadong had each received NT$20,000 in flood relief funds, which makes up another NT$140 million,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Pingtung County Government said it had wired NT$27 million to Linbian Township Office yesterday.

Activists slam Cabinet’s reconstruction bill
　

VIEW FROM AFAR: One key criticism of the proposal is that no attempt was made to involve local communities in the reconstruction of their own homes and regions
　

By Loa Iok-sin, Shih Hsiu-chuan and Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTERS
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 3

Civic, environmental and Aboriginal groups slammed the Cabinet yesterday over its proposed typhoon reconstruction bill, saying the proposal lacks a mechanism to involve victims in the rebuilding of their hometowns.

To speed up the reconstruction of areas devastated by Typhoon Morakot, the Cabinet’s bill aims to coordinate efforts among central and local government authorities, allowing reconstruction to be exempt from several laws the Cabinet believes would slow down the process. The bill would also provide a legal basis for banning human habitation in risky areas and for forced eviction of communities from those areas.

The Cabinet plans to spend as much as NT$100 billion (US$30 billion) on reconstruction.

Many non-governmental groups have attacked the Cabinet’s plan.

“The reconstruction bill is nothing more than a bill to expand government power and to waste taxpayers’ money,” Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) told a forum yesterday.

The bill “gives overwhelming power to an incapable government,” he said.

Pan said that waiving laws such as the Urban Planning Act (都市計劃法), Water Conservancy Act (水利法) and Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) could turn the reconstruction effort into an environmental disaster that might trigger more severe devastation in future.

“We needed to rescue victims as quickly as possible, but our incapable government failed to do so. And while we need to carefully plan reconstruction to prevent future disasters, the government is trying to do it too hastily,” Pan said.

‘HORRIBLE BILL’

Tseng Hsu-cheng (曾旭正), chairman of Community Empowering Society Taiwan, said compared with the Provisional Act Governing Reconstruction After the 921 Earthquake (九二一震災重建暫行條例) adopted 10 years ago, “the draft typhoon reconstruction bill is horrible.”

“I think the reconstruction bill would have been much better if the Cabinet just spent one night copying the 921 reconstruction bill,” Tseng said.

He said there has been no attempt to involve local communities in the reconstruction or rebuild local industries.

Yabi Dali, a social worker who has worked in isolated communities in the Alishan (阿里山) area, agreed.

“Government officials are talking about resettling entire villages while the villagers who are still cut off from the outside don’t know about the plan,” she said.

“The reconstruction effort should not only coordinate different local and central government agencies, but should also involve representatives of the communities to be reconstructed,” she said.

Lahuy Icyeh, secretary of the Smangus Aboriginal Community Development Association, said community members should be allowed to rebuild their own houses.

Since about 80 percent of the disaster areas are in Aboriginal regions, Lahuy called on the government to respect Aborigines’ wishes to rebuild their communities near where they used to live if it’s not possible to rebuild the communities on the former sites.

“Don’t think that it’s good for the survivors if you move them somewhere close to a 7-Eleven or McDonald’s,” he said.

Liglove Awu, a member of the Alliance for Reconstruction of Aboriginal Communities in Southern Taiwan, said that since the Council of Indigenous Peoples has conducted a survey of traditional Aboriginal domains, “you can always resettle Aboriginal communities somewhere safe within their traditional domains instead of moving everybody to the plains.”

PRESERVE CULTURE

Huang Chih-hui (黃智慧), a board member of the Millet Foundation — which promotes and preserves indigenous cultures — urged the government to also pay attention to reconstruction and preservation of culture.

“The disaster has not only destroyed buildings and landscape in Aborigine communities, but also threatened their culture,” Huang said. “Places for holding important ceremonies, historic events, or myths may just disappear after communities are resettled.”

The activists will deliver copies of their suggestion to all 112 legislators and party caucus offices at 9am today.

Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said the government has no plan to change the makeup of the post-Typhoon Morakot Reconstruction Committee but promised that the opinions of local governments and victims were important to the commission.

The 31-member committee, which will be chaired by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), will have 30 officials from different government agencies, plus the heads of Delta Electronics, Uni-President Enterprises Corp, Taiwan High Speed Rail, China Steel and one university president and four professors.

Su said the committee would keep in close contact with each local reconstruction committee in typhoon-affected county or city governments so that victims can have their say on the relocation of their villages and other reconstruction projects.

The Executive Yuan will listen to what local governments and victims have to say and take their opinions seriously before any decision is made at the committee level, Su said.

The opinion of victims’ opinions is the main principle guiding of the committee and was more important than having two or three victims on the committee as a symbolic gesture, Su said.

Meanwhile, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus’ suggestion that the central government seek unlimited funding for post-Morakot reconstruction.

“It is impossible to grant the central government an unlimited budget, but we can maintain certain degree of flexibility,” Wang said.

“For example, [the Executive Yuan planned to seek] NT$100 billion [US$3 billion], but the DPP wants a minimum of NT$200 billion. Legislators can negotiate and finalize an amount that could help reorganize and restore our land and complete the disaster relief and reconstruction,” he said.

NEGOTIATIONS

Wang said he would convene a negotiation session this morning before the legislature’s extraordinary session to review the Cabinet’s special budget request begins in the afternoon.

Lawmakers are scheduled to complete the review by Thursday, which would support the government’s plan to take out loans for reconstruction effort.

DPP caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said putting a cap on reconstruction spending would be irresponsible.

“The cost of the reconstruction plans proposed by Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung county governments exceeds NT$90 billion. This figure does not include the reconstruction plan for Taitung or the repairs of roads and bridges under the jurisdiction of the central government,” Wang Sing-nan said.

The DPP lawmaker said the Executive Yuan’s proposed budget would not be enough to cover the reconstruction work, since it took about NT$210 billion to rebuild homes and infrastructures after the 921 Earthquake.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世), however, said the amount of budget was negotiable.

The Kuayue drill: Chinese goodwill?

Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 8

Those who argue that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) cross-strait policies are bearing fruit would have rejoiced at news earlier this month that, for the first time in decades, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held a major drill that did not include a Taiwan scenario.

On Aug. 12, the South China Morning Post reported a drill codenamed Kuayue (“Stride”) 2009 had been launched, mobilizing 50,000 heavily armed troops from four military zones — Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou — over thousands of kilometers. Ni Lexiong (倪樂雄), a Shanghai-based military specialist, said the unprecedented maneuver reflected the new circumstances in the Taiwan Strait.

“You can see that the Nanjing Military Command, the military region on the cross-strait front line, which played a key role in many military drills in history, isn’t taking part this time,” Ni said. “It’s because cross-strait ties have become warmer since Ma Ying-jeou was elected Taiwan’s president last year.”

While this development could be interpreted as a “goodwill” gesture from Beijing, or as reciprocity in light of the fact that Taiwan, under Ma, has also transformed the posture of its military drills, it also reflects more imminent threats to Chinese stability by “separatist” forces in Xinjiang and Tibet. Indeed, Ni was quoted as saying that the Lanzhou Military Command, which oversees security in the Tibet and Xinjiang regions, would become “more important.”

Another factor that cannot be ignored is that Beijing is trying to win the “hearts and minds” of Taiwanese and to facilitate the Ma administration’s efforts to normalize cross-strait relations. As such, not holding a drill simulating an invasion of Taiwan sends the right signals and buttresses the perception that Ma is succeeding in easing tensions in the Strait.

However, history is not without periods when Beijing played down military exercises. In the early 1990s, when the Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait met for the first time, Beijing’s saber-rattling became less strident — until former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) visit to Cornell University and the 1996 elections, when the PLA held massive military exercises and fired missiles that landed near Keelung and Kaohsiung. Initially, Beijing had seen Lee as “their man,” a leader they could work with to facilitate unification. When it realized that this was not the case, Beijing flexed its muscles anew.

Something similar occurred in the first months of former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration. Fearful of Chen’s pro-independence views, China — at the time seeking entry into the WTO — acted with caution and opted not to use the military card. Soon afterwards, however, Beijing reintroduced exercises and continued to modernize its armed forces with a Taiwan scenario as its main objective.

All this suggests that Kuayue 2009 is not a departure from the PLA’s record, nor does it signify that a new era is at hand in the Taiwan Strait. After all, despite a massive reshuffle among military academies, frontline units and military commands ahead of the PLA’s 82nd anniversary on Aug. 1, the Chinese military — under President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), who doubles as chairman of the Central Military Commission — remains very much its own creature. As such, a shift at great variance from the PLA’s posture over the past 60 years is highly unlikely.

Kuayue 2009 focused on Tibet and Xinjiang, but this does not reflect cross-strait reciprocity.

Instead, the switch was pragmatic, reactive and consistent with the present phase of dealing softly with the Taiwan issue. But the game could change in a heartbeat.

Just what was Ma doing?
　

Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 8

In a recent CNN interview, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) gave yet another disturbing excuse for his apathy in responding to the typhoon disaster.

First, he again pushed the blame onto others who he promised he would punish, while a poll by CNN has shown that 73 percent of Taiwanese feel it is Ma who should resign.

Second, he explained that the rescue efforts were hampered by the poor weather conditions until Friday, Aug. 14 — almost a week later.

Having witnessed the weather over the past week, I can only view this as yet another lie. Living in Kaohsiung City, we were delighted with the sunshine on Thursday and couldn’t complain about the weather on Wednesday. Most of Tuesday was also quite enjoyable until rain fell in the evening.

Even with days of heavy rain, local volunteers and rescue teams were fighting the rain and floods to save people, risking their own lives. What was the central government doing? Refusing foreign aid? Refusing to call a state of emergency?

Despite the arrival of the typhoon, my wife, who is a doctor, went to her clinics on Sunday morning to find almost all of her patients waiting for her. Even her patient from Cishan Township (旗山) in Kaohsiung County managed to bring his child to her clinic while the typhoon was still uprooting trees.

Her patients are all from Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, and many live in mountainous areas. On Wednesday, only five of her patients rang her to let her know they would not make it because of the floods.

If these people could get to my wife’s clinic, then what excuse does the government have for delaying rescue efforts until the weather supposedly became sunny on Friday?

The central government should be reminded that Taipei was not affected by the typhoon in the way that the south was. On TV they showed an old woman in a park in Taipei exercising under the sun with a jovial smile. Even my two friends were enjoying a nice day of shopping at the department store.

So how does Ma claim that the weather was holding them back?

What kind of weather do they need in Taipei to set up top level and central committee meetings to discuss a disaster rescue plan, as former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) did after the 921 Earthquake?

TV reports had shown dramatic weather moving toward the south. That’s when we knew that we were going to be hit the hardest, as the radar was showing the worst of the weather coming in our direction.

Did Ma not notice this? Does he not watch the news? Does he even need to as commander-in-chief? Even CNN said a destructive typhoon was about to pummel Taiwan.

But there was no sign of any government effort that weekend.

ALEX RAYMOND
Niaosong, Kaohsiung County

Hard lessons for Taiwan’s military
　

By Liang Wen-chieh 梁文傑
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 8

The 921 Earthquake and the disastrous flooding caused by Typhoon Morakot prove the point: In the face of a major disaster, the military is a necessary — possibly the only — major organization in relief operations. However, the Taiwanese military has always treated disaster relief as a sudden and temporary matter. The Ministry of National Defense’s recently released Quadrennial Defense Review, for example, does not list disaster relief as one of its tasks.

This has two consequences. First, no training for troops at any level has ever included disaster relief or disaster prevention, nor have any joint disaster relief exercises been held by the military, police and fire departments. In addition, military procurements do not include disaster relief equipment such as large helicopters. When troops back at base have nothing to do, it seems their officers would rather tell them to sweep floors and do physical exercises than organize disaster relief drills.

Second, because the military does not consider disaster relief to be one of its responsibilities, they adopt a passive approach to disasters and will do nothing unless they are told. Both the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法) and the Regulations for Applying for Military Disaster Support (申請國軍支援災害處理辦法) stipulate that local governments can only apply for military support if they are unable to cope with disaster relief themselves, but that such applications must not extend beyond the scope of the military’s support capability. In addition, local officials must submit a written explanation of the situation and specify how many troops and pieces of equipment and machinery are required.

This means that local military commanders do not need to actively form an understanding of the disaster or actively draw up plans for support efficiency. This is why, when flooding in Pingtung County reached the second floor of local buildings, the military incomprehensibly sent unusable armored personnel carriers rather than inflatable boats, and then, in a strange turn of events, went on to blame the county government for not specifying what it wanted.

Why is the Ministry of National Defense so passive in the face of disaster? Because, according to traditional military thinking, disaster relief is unrelated to military exercises. Former chief of the general staff Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) once said at an internal meeting that the military focuses on war exercises, and that “unless it is really necessary, disaster relief should be handled by local governments.”

After Typhoon Toraji hit Taiwan in 2001, Tang expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the military had been forced to interrupt a military exercise to participate in disaster relief.

In times of war, the military is involved not only in combat but must also maintain social order and handle casualties and panic among civilians. If the military lacks the experience and the capability to cooperate with police and fire administrations in disaster relief in times of peace, presumably it would simply let civilians fend for themselves in times of war.

Disaster relief training and military exercises have a high degree of overlap. Participation in peacetime disaster relief can prepare forces for an adverse wartime environment, including the destruction of equipment, communications failures, water and electricity shortages and severed lines of transportation. It could also test the military’s capability to move and restore communications quickly and to swiftly overcome an adverse topography through rebuilding infrastructure.

The capability to gain an understanding of a disaster situation in peacetime is also closely related to the capability to gain a firm understanding of enemy movements and casualties during war. This requires that the military form a good grasp of a changing situation — necessary in peace and in war.

Put simply, a military lacking disaster relief capabilities lacks the capability to wage war. Participation in one genuine natural disaster relief effort could be more effective in improving combat capabilities than a dozen military exercises. It also reveals problems with command, control, communications, intelligence, investigation, search, level of personnel training and suitability of equipment.

Compared with the Taiwanese military’s extracurricular approach to natural disasters, the Chinese military has always treated it as part of its tasks. Disaster response has been included in China’s defense white paper for many years, and in 2005, China also promulgated regulations on army participation in disaster rescue work.

The regulations stipulate that it is an important mandate of the military to carry out disaster rescue work.

They also stipulate that local military forces must provide relief assistance and report to their superiors when a local government requests assistance; that if local forces learn of a disaster zone, they must provide relief and report to their superiors; that when a local government organizes a disaster relief command center, the local military officer in charge of the corresponding military unit must take part; and that in areas often struck by disaster, the military and the local government must hold regular joint disaster relief exercises.

With this system in place, Chinese commanders cannot sit around and wait for local governments to request assistance, nor will they go unpunished if they provide too little help.

The military follows orders. If Taiwan’s leadership had been willing to issue them, the military would not have been so slow to react. It is frustrating that victims of this disaster were stuck with a commander-in-chief who would not issue orders.

If we would rather not hear excuses along the lines of “the law does not tell the military to save people if they are not asked to do so” or “the commander-in-chief did not order the military to mobilize,” then perhaps we should emulate China and enact military disaster relief legislation.

The commander-in-chief is not necessarily a capable person, but saving people’s lives is not a task that can wait until the commander-in-chief issues an order. If, in future, the duty to actively participate in disaster relief can filter down to local regiments, military police command centers and logistics command centers, we would at least not have to behold the preposterous sight of soldiers who want to rescue people holding back for want of orders.

Liang Wen-chieh is deputy director of New Society for Taiwan.

The end of a political era, thank goodness
　

By Li Kuan-long 李坤隆
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009, Page 8

As the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost its grip on absolute power, two political stars were born: President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). While the two formally represent or represented the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), their emergence also created an enduring ideological division along “green” and “blue” lines.

This division has thrust the political culture deeper into the “soy sauce vat” coined by late writer and human rights activist Bo Yang (柏陽).

When these two icons appeared on the scene, the public were given hope — pan-green-camp and pan-blue-camp supporters, at least, felt they had found their saviors.

However, after gaining power, they were ridiculed over their styles of governance. Chen is now viewed as corrupt, and Ma, who had a chance to rise above his predecessor, is now subject to public scorn because of his poor handling of the disaster caused by Typhoon Morakot.

Judging from the way things stand, it is probably safe to say that the “Ma and Chen era” is over.

I say this because Chen lost many of his strongest supporters after corruption charges were filed against him, with even some “deep green” voters making it known that they were examining the follies of their ways.

Ma’s decision-making abilities, however, had always been questioned by the public, but his reaction to Typhoon Morakot disappointed even many “deep blue” supporters.

These two forces are the basis for conflict between the pan-blue and pan-green groups. If this foundation weakens, there could be an opportunity to resolve their ideological differences.

Political leaders should be able to shape political culture in their favor.

At the same time, their opponents should provide the environment for diversified political development. Taiwan should possess both, but the personal flaws of Ma and Chen have put paid to this for the moment — and this is a great pity.

We should be happy about the simultaneous demise of the two leaders because it means that neither side will gain a comprehensive advantage, and that it may be possible to bridge the blue-green ideological divide. The demise of Ma and Chen will not only mean that others will have the opportunity to shine, but also that the public will be able to take a more balanced view of the nation’s political developments, thus benefiting the political atmosphere.

Everyone is focusing their attention on helping victims of Typhoon Morakot, while very few are paying attention to political changes. But these changes represent a turning point for Taiwan, whose political scene has been overly rigid for a long time, and may encourage people to place less emphasis on politics.

We can now see how a minority of radicals have influenced Taiwan’s political development over the past few years. It would benefit political stability if we can use this opportunity to calm the radicals or at least make them less willing to voice their opinions.

The post-“Ma and Chen era” is here, and the public has reason to feel more comfortable about what lies ahead.

I worry, however, that certain ambitious politicians will create new political stars to increase their or their party’s power.

This would be disastrous, as it would be the start of another era of blind political worship and ideological warfare.

Li Kuan-long is a lecturer at Shih Chien University in Kaohsiung.