Thu, Nov 20, 2008 page8

• [LETTERS]

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  Back on the watch list

  The Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada has watched with increasing concern over the past few months as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government on Taiwan carries out a series of arrests, detentions without charge, impeachments and “evidence gathering” raids against officials, legislators, local government officials and diplomats of the previous Democratic Progressive Party administration.

  This is ostensibly an anti-corruption campaign to uncover evidence for the prosecution of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his family for financial misdeeds. But it has been accompanied, even driven, by a hate campaign against “the monster Chen Shui-bian” (United Daily News, Oct. 30) in the KMT-friendly media, and frequent “revelations” of confidential prosecutorial information by KMT legislators.

  Looking at this complex series of events, we are led to conclude that the KMT is abusing the justice system, the Control Yuan and the media, using them as tools of character assassination and a political settling of accounts with the opposition.

  Almost 30 years ago, in 1980, the KMT carried out a similar campaign to decapitate the opposition after the Dec. 10, 1979, Kaohsiung Incident. At the time the excuse was opposing violence and suppressing rebellion. A campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the accused was followed by a series of show trials. How ironic that Chen was a defense lawyer for some of those charged. Today this kind of political play is being re-enacted under the banner of opposing corruption.

  The Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada calls on the KMT to cease these political prosecutions, free those who have been detained without charge and respect the independence of the justice system.

  In a democracy, changing the parties in power is normal, as is holding officials responsible for their deeds, but majority governments must respect the opinions and rights of minorities on controversial issues. Political settling of accounts is the death knell of democracy.

  We call on all organizations and individuals who have supported Taiwan’s struggle for democracy and human rights these past 30 years to once again put Taiwan on their watch list. We urge them to express their concern over these disturbing developments.

  We commit ourselves to renewed vigilance of human rights in Taiwan in the current poisoned political situation.

  Michael Stainton

  President,

  Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada,

  Toronto, Canada

  Reply to Jerome Cohen

  I take issue with Jerome Cohen’s article in the South China Morning Post on Nov. 13 on political events in Taiwan under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) regime.

  Cohen opened his article with a patronizing lecture on how the seemingly exotic Chinese are supposed to be special in dealing with foreign envoys, as if the principle did not apply to the rest of humanity. Putting aside his untrue claims about Chinese history, his imposition of feudal history on immigrant-dominant modern Taiwanese society is absurdly condescending to Taiwanese and carries a disturbing subtext that Chinese are to be treated as a special species apart from the rest of humanity.

  Furthermore, the choice of this opening paragraph implies that the “offense” committed by the Taiwanese toward the Chinese envoy should be viewed as more objectionable than in other contexts.

  If Cohen agrees that modern American society should abide by how Europeans dealt with politics 3,000 years ago, then I would agree that his opening paragraph bears rhetorical, if marginal merit.

  The most disturbing aspect of Cohen’s article is that he applied a reporter’s style of recording eyewitness accounts when claiming that police brutality was “sometimes in response to violent provocations by demonstrators,” a statement he had no facts to support. He also used the words “a huge mob” to describe peaceful protesters outside a Taipei hotel when the Chinese envoy was dining with members of the Ma regime.

  Yet Cohen repeatedly used the term “claim” when referring to accounts of detentions of DPP politicians by critics of the Ma regime. Furthermore, without providing any facts, Cohen lectured the DPP by saying that the party “must not degenerate into an army of street fighters.” Where was Cohen’s commentary when Ma was on Taipei’s streets with the “red shirt” protesters in the fall of 2006?

  It is unclear what Cohen was trying to achieve with his article. His unusually carefully choreographed and apologistic presentation of recent happenings in Taiwan positions him well in a comfort zone agreeable to the Ma regime and China. Was this a university professor speaking or a politician?

  Finally, is Cohen so naive as to believe that an “an independent commission” can be set up under the Ma regime to investigate the recent string of detentions of present and former DPP officials?

  On Nov. 14, the “independent” but KMT-controlled National Communications Commissions sent a formal note to the radio station Voice of Happiness in southern Taiwan, threatening to shut it down because one of its program hosts was organizing a tour with his listeners to northern Taiwan — including the detention center where Chen Shui-bian is being held.

  On the same day, another supposedly “independent” agency, the Financial Supervisory Commission, took the unusual step of holding a press conference to announce a one-month ban on any public statements by financial analyst Allen Chu (朱成志), including his newspaper column.

  The reason? Chu wrote an article called “A lesson in credit transactions for a stupid president.” His article contained erroneous data, for which Chu had already apologized in the newspaper, yet Chu has been a long-term supporter of the “stupid president.”

  Sing Young

  Taoyuan
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