| Vancouver Sun |
Friday, November 07, 2008
Hopes of a new era that accompanied the election of Ma Ying-jeou as president of Taiwan in March are being eroded by allegations his Kuomintang administration is reverting to authoritarian tactics used when it ruled the island under one-party martial law for 40 years.
At least seven senior members of the Democratic Progressive Party administration of former president Chen Shui-bian are being held under draconian "investigative detention" laws that allow prosecutors to hold suspects for up to four months without charge.
Prosecutors claim they believe the detained officials have been involved in corruption and might destroy evidence if not imprisoned.
But DPP leaders and other observers accuse the new Kuomintang administration of using the judicial system to purge the political stage of its opponents, smearing the reputations of the detained DPP officials by leaking unsupported allegations to the media, and using the detentions to try to extract confessions.
Those detained include a former senior official in Chen's office, the former interior minister Yu Cheng-hsien, former deputy prime minister Chiou I-jen, the former deputy environment minister Dr. James Lee, two DPP municipal officials and a county magistrate.
Former president Chen himself is under investigation for allegedly misusing the equivalent of just over $500,000 from a special fund and his wife, Wu Shu-jen, is on trial for the same offence.
The allegations against Ma and his Kuomintang administration have come to a head during the four-day visit to Taiwan of Chen Yunlin, the head of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
Chen is the most senior envoy from Beijing to visit Taiwan since 1949 when the island became an exile haven for the Kuomintang after its defeat by the communists in China's civil war.
Chen and his Taiwanese counterpart, Chiang Pin-kung, signed a series of agreements allowing direct flights and shipping between Taiwan and China, linked postal services and regulations governing food safety.
Ma and his administration insist the agreements will help boost Taiwan's economy and will not undermine the island's sovereignty as an independent nation.
But opponents such as the new leader of the DPP, Tsai Ing-wen, say Ma and his coterie of influential senior Kuomintang officials, who were mostly born in China, have been too ready to make concessions because they are prepared to surrender the island's sovereignty to Beijing.
Those suspicious of the intentions of Ma and his influential mentors such as former Kuomintang leader Lien Chan and James Soong, both of whom have developed close ties to Beijing, have watched intensely every nuance of the visit of ARATS head Chen.
There were instant rebuttals in the media when, in preparation for the visit, Ma referred to Taiwan not as an independent state, but as a "region" and an "area."
That opposition intensified when no Taiwanese national flags were flown around the hotel where the 60-member Chinese delegation stayed and police confiscated the flags from demonstrators on the streets outside.
The heavy security around Chen's visit has fuelled concerns on Taiwan that the Kuomintang is returning to the authoritarian methods of one-party rule and martial law it was forced to abandon in the late 1980s under pressure from the public and its principal ally, the United States.
On Wednesday a coalition of human rights, judicial reform and social movement organizations accused the Kuomintang of "pulling Taiwan's human rights standards down to the level of the People's Republic of China." The organization cited suppression of protests during the Chen visit, as well as the detention of the DPP officials.
Similar criticism came from a group of 20 leading American, Canadian and Australian experts on China and Taiwan.
The group, which included Washington's former de facto ambassador to Taipei, Nat Bellocchi, said the recent acts by the Ma administration resembled "the unfair and unjust procedures practised during the dark days of martial law."
jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com
至少七位在民進黨陳前總統執政時期的高官，正在接受嚴厲的調查羈押，讓檢察官可以在沒有起訴前就羈押長達四個月。
檢察官宣稱，他們相信這些被羈押的官員們涉及貪污，如果沒有羈押的話可能會破壞證據。但是民進黨的領導人和其他觀察家則譴責國民黨政府是在利用司法體系迫害其對手，用透露未經證實的資訊給媒體以及羈押他們，試圖得到自白等手法來抹黑前民進黨官員。
被羈押的包含前內政部長余政憲，前行政院副院長邱義仁，前環保署副署長李界木，兩位中央級官員以及一位地方文職官員。
前總統陳水扁本身也因為一件不當使用大約美金五十萬的特別費用被起訴，跟他的夫人吳淑珍一同被審理。
對馬以及其國民黨的反對意見在中國海協會會長陳雲林來訪的四天達到高峰。
陳雲林是從1949年，當這座島自中國分出而被共產黨打敗的國民黨統治後，北京造訪台灣的最高官員。
陳雲林以及對口江丙坤，簽訂一系列的協議，包括直航以及中台兩地貨運問題，以及食品安全的控管問題。
馬英九以及其政府堅持這些協議可以促進台灣的經濟，也不會傷害作為一個獨立國家的主權。
但是反對者像是民進黨的新主席蔡英文，說馬英九以及他那些大多數出生在中國的國民黨高官，對於讓步已經做出太多準備了，因為他們打算把台灣的主權獻給北京。
這些質疑的緊張情緒，讓馬以及他的心靈導師們，像是兩位積極與中國交好的前國民黨領導人，連戰以及宋楚瑜，都密切觀察陳雲林訪台的一舉一動。
在準備此次來訪前，媒體便出現一些反對聲浪，因為馬英九說台灣不是一個獨立的國家，而是一個「地區」。
當反對黨發現這些中國使團所住的飯店附近沒有台灣國旗飛揚，以及警察取締在路上抗議群眾的國旗時，更加不滿。
在陳雲林附近的重重警衛，激起(國外)對台灣的關注，是否國民黨會走回一黨專政時戒嚴法的威權手段；國民黨在80年代末期，在他們主要盟友美國的壓力下，放棄了這種威權手法。
星期三，一個結合人權，司法以及社會運動的組織控訴國民黨將台灣的人權標準放在中華人民共和國之下。這個組織闡述了國民黨壓制陳雲林到訪的抗議，以及被羈押的民進黨官員們的情形。
而美國，加拿大以及澳洲所組成的二十位中台關係專家們，也發出類似的批評。
這個團體，包括華盛頓前實質上的駐台北大使白樂崎，說最近馬政府的行為聚集了「戒嚴黑暗期那些不公不義的手法」。
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