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Signatories of open
letter slam government response
‘TIME OUT’ ON AUTHORITARIANISM: The signatories
said the Presidential Office’s response was unconvincing and still see a
political motivation behind the document probe
By William Lowther / Staff Reporter in WASHINGTON
Many of the 34 academics who signed an open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九) questioning his administration’s decision to investigate former senior
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials over 36,000 supposedly missing
government documents are far from satisfied or reassured by the government’s
response.
Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) denied in a letter received
by the academics this week that the investigation was politically motivated,
even though it was announced on the eve of former premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌)
registration for the DPP’s primaries for next year’s presidential election.
Su is one of the 17 people being investigated.
“I am surprised at the sharp response of the Ma administration, which seems
disproportionate to the letter itself,” June Teufel Dreyer of the University of
Miami said. “I daresay that few of the signers find spokesperson Lo’s
explanation convincing.”
Dreyer said the signatories had also heard “disquieting comments” from Lo and
others alleging that the letter was originally written in Chinese (“it was
originally written in English”) and that the signatories were ignorant of
Taiwan.
“Really, some of us have lived there for decades; others visit regularly, read
Taiwan newspapers and watch Taiwan television. Some were born in Taiwan; one
carries a Taiwan/ROC passport. How then can we be considered ignorant? One must
wonder how many documents were lost in the 2000 presidential transition,” she
said.
Author Gordon Chang (章家敦), another of those who signed the open letter, said:
“The case of the 36,000 missing documents is a whodunit without a crime, at
least no crime involving the documents in question. But of course there is one
crime in this drama. And what is that? That is the willingness of President Ma’s
administration to use its investigatory powers to influence the upcoming
elections. That crime is real, shameful and corrosive of democracy.”
“We sent the letter because someone had to speak out. The assertion that we are
‘foreigners’ who should mind our own business is regrettably the same one
Beijing makes whenever someone points out the obvious about human rights in
China. This is a perfect time to call a ‘time out’ on Ma’s march back to
authoritarianism,” he said.
And Stephen Yates, former deputy assistant for national security affairs to
former US vice president Dick Cheney, said: “News of the recent government
action against several of the most senior officials in the previous
administration struck many of us as unusual and questionable. It appeared to be
part of a troubling pattern of expansive, lengthy and repeated investigations,
indictments and trials of former administration officials. Much of which amounts
to a criminalization of politics and an erosion of justice.”
“Senior elected and appointed officials in any government are not responsible
for document management. And the fact that two-and-a-half years passed before
this issue was referred to the Control Yuan for investigation also is
inconsistent with any notion of real national security or law enforcement
concern,” Yates said.
John Tkacik, a former senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, said:
“Supposedly these documents are circulating outside the Presidential Office. Why
weren’t there any examples given? Surely, the Presidential Office could have
pointed to some of the unclassified documents that are missing and demonstrate
how their circulation is injuring the public interest. That in itself is enough
to make anyone suspect that the accusations are politically motivated. At this
point, the 36,000 documents affair looks like deminimis non curat lex — trifles
not to be handled under the law.”
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