Taiwan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Haiti over a US$15.8 million (NT$472 million) donation to post-earthquake reconstruction efforts when the upcoming visit by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to Taiwan’s Caribbean ally was being arranged, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Friday.
The memorandum was signed by Ambassador to Haiti Liu Bang-zyh (劉邦治) and Haitian Chancellor Pierre-Richard Casimir on July 9, the ministry said.
Under the MOU, which had gone largely unnoticed, Taiwan commits to donate US$15.8 million for a new building housing the Court of Cassation, Haiti’s highest judicial body, Florencia Hsieh (謝妙宏), deputy director-general of the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, said by telephone on Friday.
Hsieh said Ma and Haitian President Michel Martelly will preside over a ceremony to commemorate the laying of the building’s first stone in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Ma is to arrive in Haiti on Tuesday on the first leg of a five-nation tour, which includes Paraguay, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The president will also make transit stops en route to Haiti and on his way back to Taiwan in New York and Los Angeles respectively.
The project will be carried out by the Panama-based Overseas Engineering & Construction Co (OECC) and is to be completed in 24 months, Hsieh said.
The OECC is a subsidiary of the Overseas Investment & Development Corp, a Taiwanese incorporation of major public and private enterprises, groups and financial institutions established by the late banking magnate Jeffrey Koo Sr (辜濂松) in response to the government’s call to assist in overseas public infrastructure projects to enhance relations with the nation’s allies.
The project is to be funded from a budget allocated for foreign assistance programs and payments will be provided progressively over the course of the construction in direct relation to how much work has been completed, Hsieh said.
According to the ministry’s budget statement this year, the budget allocation for such programs in all 12 of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in Latin America and the Caribbean stood at NT$3.4 billion, in addition to NT$440 million allotted for confidential expenses in the region.
The court project came up during discussions held between the two countries on what Taiwan could do to continue to help earthquake victims in Haiti after the completion of several humanitarian relief projects to provide vocational training, medical care and education, Hsieh said.
Three years after the earthquake, hundreds of thousands of people continue to suffer its effects. According to UNICEF, about 357,785 people — 138,000 of whom are children — are still living in crowded temporary settlements, are dependent on aid and are at a higher risk of exposure to abuse and exploitation.
In January, UNICEF requested US$11.65 million to meet its annual humanitarian goals to tackle the prolonged displacement, persistent cholera epidemic and food insecurity plaguing Haiti, problems that were all augmented by Hurricane Sandy last year.
Ma is to become the first Republic of China (ROC) president to visit Haiti since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1956.
First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) visited the Caribbean country when she participated in efforts by NGOs to provide humanitarian aid to the country in August 2010.
During former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) tenure in office from 2000 to 2008, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration made several failed attempts to have Chen visit Haiti, including a last-ditch effort by then-minister of foreign affairs James Huang (黃志芳) in December 2007, a source familiar with the situation said.
The source said that the most difficult barrier to realizing Chen’s visits was the possibility that it would provoke an angry response from China, which as a permanent member of the UN Security Council has the power to veto continuing the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops in Haiti. The country relies heavily on the UN force to maintain public order and security.
In 2006, then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who had been designated as Chen’s special envoy to attend the inauguration of then-Haitian president Rene Preval, was scheduled to depart from Taiwan on May 12, but Taipei was told by Haiti on April 29 that the trip had to be canceled.
If Ma pays a high-profile visit to Haiti, it could be depicted as a vindication of his policy of rapprochement with China, said Antonio Hsiang (向駿), director of Center of Latin American Studies at Chihlee Institute of Technology.
However, a former official with the previous DPP administration, who wished to remain anonymous, held a different view.
China has not been the only factor behind Chen’s failure to visit Haiti, nor was it the only factor contributing to the success or failure of Ma’s planned visit to Haiti, he said.
“The instability in Haiti at the time [of Chen’s administration] was causing security problems in arranging the visit, while the 2010 earthquake and ensuing humanitarian aid delivered by Taiwan to Haiti have made it more justifiable to arrange a presidential visit to Haiti,” he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats