US lacks intelligence on Osama
　

NOTHING FOR YEARS: In an interview, the US defense secretary did not confirm reports about a detainee in Pakistan who claimed he had information on bin Laden

AFP, WASHINGTON
Monday, Dec 07, 2009, Page 1

The US does not know where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is and has lacked reliable information on his whereabouts for years, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says.

The revelation from Gates, speaking in an interview with ABC News’ This Week program to be aired yesterday, comes days after US President Barack Obama announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Asked if Pakistan was doing enough to apprehend bin Laden, Gates answered: “Well, we don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we’d go get him.”

Referring to the last time US intelligence had a fix on bin Laden’s whereabouts, Gates said: “I think it’s been years.”

Bin Laden is believed to have escaped from Afghanistan into Pakistan in late 2001.

In excerpts of the interview released ahead of the broadcast, Gates could not confirm reports about a detainee in Pakistan who claimed he had information on where bin Laden was earlier this year.

Part of the US’ reason for going to war more than eight years ago in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks was to kill or capture bin Laden.

The al-Qaeda leader is seen as the chief mastermind of the 2001 attacks in the US that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Immediately after the attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network as the prime suspects and offered a reward of US$25 million for information leading to his capture or death.

In 2007, this figure was doubled to US$50 million. But so far, the al-Qaeda founder has eluded capture.

A US Senate report released last week said bin Laden was “within the grasp” of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements.

The hard-hitting study points the finger directly at Rumsfeld for turning down requests for reinforcements as bin Laden was trapped in December 2001 in caves and tunnels in a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora.

“The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the marine corps and the army, was kept on the sidelines,” the report says. “Instead, the US command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan’s loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes.”

The report, commissioned by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says bin Laden expected to die and had even written a will.

“But the al-Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected,” it says. “Requests were also turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan.”

“The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks,” the report says.

Kaohsiung Incident remembered
　

STRONG EMOTIONS: Among those imprisoned following the pro-democracy protest 30 years ago were former vice president Annette Lu and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu
　

By Vincent Y. chao
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Dec 07, 2009, Page 2

Thirty years after military police clashed with supporters of the democracy movement in Kaohsiung, the event still evoked strong emotions and memories in academics, witnesses and political leaders yesterday at a forum held to mark the protest known as the “Kaohsiung Incident.”

Lee Shiao-feng (李筱峰), a professor at National Taipei University of Education’s Graduate School of Taiwan Culture and a long-time pro-independence activist, recounted his experience as a participant in the Incident, saying the streets were filled with protesters eager to see political change and an end to authoritarian rule.

“It wasn’t a single Incident — it was the culmination of 20 to 30 years of the pro-democracy movement,” Lee told the forum in Taipei. “The people rebelled against an authoritarian government ... the more [protesters] the [government] arrested, the more people came out to support [the protest].”

The Incident started when the pro-democracy Formosa Magazine (美麗島雜誌) held a demonstration commemorating International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, 1979, in Kaohsiung, calling on then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to respect human rights and demanding democracy. Within hours, the protesters were surrounded by scores of military police, while prominent leaders of the democracy movement were arrested.

Of the 51 arrests made, eight, including Shih Ming-teh (施明德), Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and Chen Chu (陳菊), were tried in a military court and received sentences ranging from 12 years to life imprisonment. The remaining 43 were tried in civilian courts and received two to seven-year sentences.

At the forum yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) praised the protesters for their dedication and sacrifice in leading the nation to a democratic transition.

“In the 30 years since the Incident, many things have changed ... but their dedication to our nation and its democracy has not,” Tsai said. “Their sacrifices have allowed us as a society to develop and increased our own recognition of this country.”

She said that it was because of the dissidents that pressure grew on the government to eventually lift martial law and lift the bans on independent political parties and media, which led to the country’s democratization.

Tsai is one of the few people to have held the chair of the DPP without having been either a defendant or lawyer involved in the Incident.

Other participants in the Incident, such as defense lawyers Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) went on to become president and premier respectively, while defendant Annette Lu, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, later became vice president.

“Thirty years ago, we gathered to let the KMT know that we wanted the fate of our nation to be decided by us, the Taiwanese ... we wanted change and expressed it through a popular movement,” Lu said, adding that “the lessons of that day are every bit as important today.”

The Kaohsiung City Government is planning a series of activities to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident to be held until Dec. 20, including seminars on human rights, a photo exhibition, a concert and a party.

Japanese becomes 4 millionth visitor to Taiwan this year
　

By Shelley Shan
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Dec 07, 2009, Page 2

The nation welcomed its 4 millionth overseas visitor of the year on Saturday, a Japanese tourist who received a debit card with NT$400,000 in credit, along with gifts from the Tourism Bureau.

Suzuyo Goto, 62, arrived in Taiwan with some friends on Saturday afternoon and was scheduled to embark on a six-day trip around the nation that includes visits to Sun Moon Lake and other scenic spots in Tainan, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Taipei.

The bureau said that approximately 3.94 million tourists had arrived from overseas by last month, registering 12 percent growth compared with the same period last year.

Tourism Bureau Deputy

Director-General David Hsieh (謝謂君) said the bureau estimated that the number of overseas tourists would hit the 4.2-million mark by the end of this year, adding that the bureau has set a goal of attracting 4.5 million overseas tourists to Taiwan next year.

Statistics from the bureau showed that as of October, Japan was ranked first for the number of tourists that had visited Taiwan this year. China was ranked second, followed by Hong Kong and Macau, the US and South Korea.

Hsieh said between January and October, the number of Japanese tourists fell by about 8 percent compared with the same period last year. Many other Southeastern Asian nations had also seen a decrease in the number of Japanese tourists visiting. He said the number of Japanese tourists visiting Singapore had fallen by about 14 percent and Thailand had seen a 22.31 percent decrease in the number of Japanese tourists.

In contrast, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan grew by 195.3 percent when compared with the same period last year.

Ma’s Cabinet under pressure

STAFF REPORTER, WITH CNA
Monday, Dec 07, 2009, Page 3

The Cabinet will remain under pressure to tackle unemployment and many other issues after the ruling party took 12 of the 17 mayor and county commissioner seats up for grabs in Saturday’s local elections, political analysts said yesterday.

Although the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) secured a majority in the elections, it lost the county commissioner seat in Yilan County to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and that of Hualien County to independent Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁), who was expelled by the KMT for insisting in vying for the seat against party wishes.

The KMT won 47.88 percent of the votes cast, lower than the 50.96 percent it won in the last local government elections in 2005. The DPP won four seats, one more than it won in the elections four years ago. It also obtained 45.32 percent of the vote, up from 38 percent in the previous election.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is also KMT chairman, said at a post-election press conference on Saturday that the outcome of the elections was not “ideal” for his administration and that the party’s decline in local government seats and vote share was a “warning” that the KMT would have to address.

Political analysts said the Ma administration is expected to face increasing challenges in boosting employment and reviving the economy, as well as in carrying out post-Typhoon Morakot reconstruction work and dealing with a looming water shortage in the south.

Ma said on Nov. 15 at a ground-breaking ceremony for a permanent housing park in Kaohsiung County to accommodate typhoon victims that the first batch of 600 houses was scheduled for completion at the end of next month.

The Cabinet therefore finds itself racing against time to complete the construction project to fulfill Ma’s promise, analysts said.

With the water stored in reservoirs in southern Taiwan and the Gaoping River (高屏溪) lower than past annual averages, Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) convened an inter-ministerial meeting on Wednesday to review water supplies around the country and develop response measures.

A consensus was reached during the meeting that before the next flood season — between May and November — the government should ensure that water for public consumption and industrial use in Taiwan is not seriously affected.

The Water Resources Agency said at the meeting that measures to stop irrigation and planting in some areas in the south might be unavoidable, with the affected areas expected to be announced later this month.

Another major challenge for the government will be addressing unemployment.

Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has said that as unemployment is an indicator of a lagging economy, the government was treating boosting employment as one of its top priorities.

The Cabinet is trying to come up with employment promotion measures, with the aim of creating 99,000 jobs.

Short-term employment promotion measures for last year and this year will end at the end of this month, with about 45,000 temporary workers benefiting from the program becoming unemployed.

The other important task for the government will be continuing its preventive measures against swine flu. By Lunar New Year, the Department of Health will have given 120 million doses of free vaccine, analysts said.

Another test will be the security measures it puts in place for Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), who will visit Taiwan for the next round of Cross-Strait talks in Taichung City later this month, they said.

China’s the troublemaker
　

Monday, Dec 07, 2009, Page 8

Your article on cross-strait relations on Tuesday (“The Aggression in China’s Goodwill,” Dec. 1, page 8) was extremely insightful.

However, there was one sentence that bothered me quite a lot: “In other words, for China to pursue unification by force is outdated and childish.” This was in reference to China starting a war with Taiwan in such difficult economic times. As true as this statement is, it still fails to go further, and answer the ultimate “troublemaker” question.

Who is the “troublemaker” in the Taiwan Strait? Is it the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁)? Or is it the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?

Many in the media pick out the former administration as the culprit or Chen himself.

However, the answer lies in that simple statement above. Outdated and childish. Look no further than the latest movie festivals in Australia and Taiwan to see how the CCP is, has been, and will always be the troublemaker. (To be sure though, they have learned their lesson, and have cut down on it, to avoid giving further attention to contentious issues.)

Although it seems that China has been showing Taiwan goodwill, it has not. It has only reverted to economic pressure, rather than military pressure, because China realizes that to start a war now would be frowned upon.

Yet China still gets upset all the time, acts childish and says the Chinese people’s feelings have been hurt. If you’re going to speak on the behalf of over a billion people, please ask them first. Don’t preach.

The CCP must learn that no matter what, the Taiwanese people ... not their president, nor the premier, nor legislators … are masters of their own land.

To top it off, after reading Wednesday’s headline “Climate NGOs listed as Chinese,” (Dec. 2, page 1) it is clear for all to see that there is no goodwill from China.

Taiwan’s non-governmental organizations can’t even go to the Copenhagen climate conference without China trying to belittle Taiwan. China has attempted at every turn to undermine Taiwan’s international space, and in many if not most cases, it has had its way. By letting China do this repeatedly, the Ma government is only rewarding bad behavior.

The other troublemaker in all this is the US, but that is another article on its own. I really hope the CCP will wake up and see that “outdated” mindsets and “childish” international behavior only serve to undermine its goal of unification.

HARRY ADAMOPOULOS
Taipei

Stephen Harper’s voyage of ‘contrition’
　

By J. Michael Cole 寇謐將
Monday, Dec 07, 2009, Page 8

Following on the heels of US President Barack Obama’s three-day visit to China last month, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in Beijing on Wednesday on a four-day tour that also took him to Shanghai and Hong Kong. This was Harper’s first visit to China as prime minister.

Since Harper’s Conservatives assumed office in 2006, Ottawa has taken a harder line on China than did his predecessors Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, both Liberals who actively sought closer ties with Beijing and, to this end, muted their criticism of the regime.

In 2006, Ottawa ignored Beijing’s warnings against giving honorary Canadian citizenship to the Dalai Lama and, a year later, against a meeting between Harper and the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Harper was also one of a few world leaders who did not attend the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games last year, claiming that he had a “busy schedule” — a decision that many analysts, and Beijing, interpreted as a protest against the Chinese security crackdown occurring in Tibet at the time.

It is little wonder, therefore, that the media — and Beijing — would see this month’s visit as an attempt by Harper to mend fences with China, Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the US, with bilateral trade volume reaching about US$35 billion last year.

On Wednesday, The Associated Press’ staff writer Chi Chi Zhang, however, overstated the matter by writing that “Chinese experts are touting [the visit] as a fence-mending trip to repair ties damaged by Ottawa (italics added).

The problem with this sentence, which either editorializes what the experts said or adequately paraphrases them, is the assumption that it was the other party that “angered” China with its actions and that it must show contrition for the damage caused to bilateral ties.

Once again, China is portrayed as a victim; the ties were damaged by Ottawa. (It also reinforces the image of supplicant versus master that is so prevalent in the Middle Kingdom mentality.)

When academics, reporters and government officials write these things, they tend to deresponsibilize China, as if the governments that offended Beijing (Washington, Canberra, Ottawa, Paris, Taipei) were operating in a vacuum, in the absence of a cause for their actions.

In reality, those governments are “angering” Beijing by criticizing its atrocious human rights record, its repression of minorities and religious groups, its crackdowns in Tibet and Xinjiang, its arrest of lawyers and rights activists, its media censorship, as well as its aggressive espionage activities.

They also “anger” Beijing by acting according to their values — on their own soil — in meeting individuals such as the Dalai Lama, or in their reluctance to extradite individuals wanted by China — such as Lai Changxing (賴昌星), who in 1999 fled to Canada with his family after China accused him of masterminding a US$6 billion smuggling ring — for fear they might be executed after their return.

It is Beijing, because of all these things, that ultimately is the principal reason why ties have “languished,” as Agence France-Presse described relations between Canada and China.

If China didn’t break international law and didn’t repress its people, Ottawa and others would not feel compelled to act in ways that “anger” Beijing.

Ottawa didn’t damage ties with China — Beijing did. It’s as simple as that. No government should ever be criticized, or forced into contrition, for standing up for universal rights and values.

J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.