Late US senator Edward Kennedy, who died on Tuesday at the age of 77, was remembered on Wednesday as a loyal friend to Taiwan.
Throughout his long and colorful career as a politician, Kennedy championed liberal domestic policies that promoted civil rights and dramatically improved life for the poor, while along the way he became especially interested in Taiwan.
Gerrit van der Wees, editor of the Taiwan Communique at the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, said that in the early and mid-1980s, Kennedy played an important role in Taiwan’s transition to democracy — he initiated many hearings and held press conferences to highlight martial law was still in place in Taiwan and had been in force since 1949, and the country’s lack of democracy.
Kennedy worked closely with the late senator Claiborne Pell, and congressmen Jim Leach and Stephen Solarz.
“Together, they were affectionately referred to as the “Gang of Four” in support of democracy and human rights in Taiwan,” van des Wees said. “The efforts of senator Kennedy and his colleagues in the US Congress strengthened the democratic opposition on the island, which coalesced and led to the formation of the Democratic Progressive Party in September 1986, and the end of martial law on July 14, 1987. The Taiwanese-American community and the people in Taiwan fondly remember senator Kennedy as one who stood with them in one of the most difficult periods in the island’s history. We will miss him.”
In a 1982 Senate speech, Kennedy said: “In Taiwan today, a broad range of basic liberties are denied. Serious restrictions are placed on press and political freedoms. Strikes are outlawed. Political and religious leaders have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Military tribunals are used for civil cases and a range of other abuses persist.”
“Some members of the legislature in Taiwan have had the courage to question these restrictions and have called upon the government to set them aside, but despite these protests, there has been insufficient progress in restoring human rights for the people of Taiwan,” Kennedy said. “For several years, I have persisted in private efforts to alleviate this burden of repression. I therefore call on the leadership of Taiwan to take immediate action to release the political and religious prisoners and to improve the human rights situation on the island.”
“The United States is proud of its long and close relationship with those who live on Taiwan and I am proud of my own role in the Senate as the principal sponsor of the Taiwan Security Resolution in 1979 — now part of the law of our land — which was specifically designed to reassure the people of Taiwan about our concern for their security and prosperity and for peace in the area,” he said. “Now, as then, our friendship with Taiwan is based on a continued interest in their wellbeing and on a common belief in freedom, and in fundamental human rights.”
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