The victory in the Lafayette arbitration court case is of major significance to Taiwan. The huge sums involved in the Lafayette frigate deal led to the death of Navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓), a major navy personnel reshuffle, several years of domestic political conflict, several political scandals in France and several international court cases in Taiwan, France and Switzerland.
However, the victory does not imply that all the fraud has been cleared up. The fraud case and the arbitration case are two different matters. Proving that commissions actually were paid in connection with the Lafayette case is just the beginning of a new wave of investigations. The government must now increase efforts to clarify the channels through which the commissions were forwarded and determine which officials were involved.
Credit must go to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for his determination to pursue the investigation “even if it shakes the nation’s very foundation” and to the Control Yuan for pressuring the Ministry of National Defense to file an arbitration lawsuit.
Taiwan obtained information that the secret Swiss bank account of arms dealer Andrew Wang (汪傳浦) included money connected to the Lafayette case. The French side said Wang represented Taiwan, which meant it could not have violated the contractual ban on commission payments, but Taiwan won the case by proving Wang was neither a government official nor a representative. The main reason the case was finally solved was that Taiwanese investigators were able to bring home six crates of documents regarding Wang’s bank account and other secret papers from Switzerland. They found that in 1990, Wang and a French counterpart had signed a secret agreement specifying an 18 percent kickback. The documents were key to solving many detailed issues.
Taiwan may have won the arbitration, but the recipients and channels remain unclear. Merely retrieving the money will be unacceptable to Yin’s family and to the Taiwanese public. When former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) and retired vice admiral and former chief of the Navy’s Shipbuilding Office Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明) said the result cleared their names, they were talking through their hats. The fact that the money will be returned doesn’t mean the guilty no longer need to be found. The fraud and murder investigation must continue.
Wang, who remains in hiding in the UK, is crucial to the case. When investigating Wang’s bank accounts, Swiss courts told Taiwan they also held sales commissions paid out in connection with Taiwan’s purchase of Mirage fighter jets, French-made Mica air-to-air missiles and Matra R550 Magic 2 missiles. As long as the investigations into the Lafayette and the Mirage commissions do not involve Wang, we will not find out what went on and where commissions went.
In September 2006, investigators charged Wang with corruption and they must now bring him before a Taiwanese court. The team also filed a lawsuit against Lei, and the Taipei District Court is expected to issue a verdict in that case late next month.
This case has dragged on for nine years, but the resolution of the arbitration case will help to find the officials in the navy and the Ministry of National Defense as well as the mysterious “high government officials” that shared in the commissions.
The Lafayette case has been resolved and an arbitration lawsuit was filed in the Mirage case in 2003. The government must reject any out-of-court settlements. The bottom line in every case of fraud in connection with these arms purchases must be to pursue it to the end and to deal with every official that has taken money and broken the law.
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