One hurt, six detained in Taiwan scuffle over China
The average reader might not have any idea what's beneath that headline. Is Taiwan "fighting to take over China" or something? Since only a small percentage of people read past the headline, it only serves to create confusion about the situation.
Here's what's going on: The Taiwanese protesters are standing up for their sovereignty while deals compromising Taiwan's sovereignty are being signed by two authoritarian parties without the people's consent. But Reuters fails to provide you any of that information which is vital to understanding the story.
Although a scant few more details appear within the article, those details are obscured by a mess of unhelpful memes and outright smearing of the victims in this matter, thus canceling any value they might have otherwise contained.
The anatomy of mendacity The article begins:
TAIPEI (Reuters) - A police officer was hurt and six people detained late on Wednesday during a protest against a visit by China's top negotiator to Taiwan, officials said.
It was the first violence in four days of protests against the visit of Beijing negotiator Chen Yunlin in Taichung, central Taiwan.
There goes Ralph Jennings (whose byline appears at the bottom of the article) phoning it in from Taipei yet again. If he could read (or maybe a quote by Upton Sinclair is what applies here), the Tuesday December 22, 2009 edition of the Taipei Times (that's two days ago) would have informed him of this violence by police:
A Taichung City policeman was penalized yesterday for using pepper spray on two protesters on Sunday night, but the police said his demerit was for carrying non-standard equipment rather than for assaulting the protesters, adding that he acted in self-defense.
Don't mace me, 兄弟! The actual incident mentioned above took place four days ago (Sunday, December 20, 2009). "[F]irst violence," my ass! The police were the ones who drew "first blood"! Jennings isn't telling you the truth.
Getting back to the Reuters piece, Jennings feeds the readers generalities:
Also on Wednesday, protesters tried to stop Chen from visiting a temple, taunting police that have guarded every step of his December 21-25 visit, local media reported.
Jennings fails to answer some essential questions for the readers: Who were the protesters? (Were they members of the violent China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP, 中華統一促進黨), members of the peaceful Falun Gong movement, common hooligans, or simply citizens of Taiwan who don't want an authoritarian regime to take over their lives?); Why were the protesters there? (Chen Yunlin has previously threatened Taiwan, and he and his comrades are currently trying to annex Taiwan.); How did they try to stop Chen Yunlin? (Did they use weapons [sticks, stones, knives, guns, Molotov cocktails]? [No.], or did they just stand at the scene, hold up signs, and shout? [Yes.]); Which temple was this, and does it have any special significance? (Could it be Chenlan Temple, a temple which is run by a convicted criminal? [Yes!]); Which local media? (I dunno. Jennings doesn't/won't specify.)
Can you feel just how empty of any actual information that paragraph of the article is? He could have used that space much more efficiently if he had instead explained some of the facts to the readers. Ben Goren's blog Letters from Taiwan has a good list from which lazy reporters could simply copy and paste some terse, well-researched facts about Taiwan.
The generalities above are followed directly by this meme:
China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.
The full name of the party Jennings is referring to is the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- not just the "Nationalists." They fled to Taiwan to save their own asses from Mao Zedong's (毛澤東) Commie bandits (共匪), not to "save Taiwan," as is often purported by those who support the Chinese KMT's authoritarianism.
More importantly, China's "claim" has no legal basis, but Jennings doesn't keep my italicized phrase in his clipboard where he could easily paste it into the article to at least provide some semblance of "balance." And there he goes with that faux-honest "the island" formulation yet again, trying to undermine the fact that Taiwan is an independent country with a population slightly higher than that of the entire "island continent" of Australia (never just "the island [of Australia]").
The article ends with these two paragraphs full of copy-and-paste "journalism" and a byline:
As ties warm under Taiwan's Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou, economic powerhouse China and the export-reliantisland agreed on Tuesday to negotiate a trade deal that would cut tariffs.
Protesters oppose closer ties between the governments.
(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by David Fox)
FOX News Taiwan? Let's take down the troubling elements one by one.
Note the positive words ascribed to China and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九): warm, friendly, powerhouse. Note the diminutives ascribed to Taiwan: reliant, island.
What the protesters oppose is not any sort of ties between "governments." What they oppose is unequal party-to-party negotiations taking place behind closed doors with no opposition oversight whatsoever and which evidence shows to be a series of steps leading up to Taiwan's annexation by two authoritarian regimes working hand-in-hand.
How many average readers would have noticed these things upon first reading them? Far too many ordinary people have become numb to this kind of garbage that passes as "journalism."
The writers whom I have repeatedly criticized apparently won't change, so the readers must wake up, stop falling for this, and wake others up as well. Your most basic human rights and your livelihoods -- if not your lives -- are at stake, and mendacious media therefore amounts to just another form of violence.
* Here's a YouTube video of some of the hooligans stationed around the Chenlan Temple: "大甲鎮瀾宮前成自治區，廟方派出紅衣人保護警方維安現場-民視新聞" (Translation: The front of Dajia Township's Chenlan Temple becomes an "autonomous region," people in red [and pink] shirts dispatched to protect police, "preserve order" at the scene - FTV News). Note that in addition to the "uniforms," some of these guys are wearing earpieces, indicating that they're organized and awaiting orders from someone, much like soldiers on a battlefield. Squiggly lines of BS detection: Taiwan, 台灣, media, 媒體, memes, 大腦模仿病毒, Reuters, 路透社, Ralph Jennings, 唐甯思, Yen Ching-piao, 顏清標, violence, 暴力
This video first came to my attention via the Letters from Taiwan blog, and it made me want to vomit (on the crosswalk-hogs within):
7:53 YouTube video: "總統牆內簽公約 政府牆外侵人權" Translation: Behind the wall, the president signs human rights agreement, outside the wall, the government infringes upon human rights
Oh, the irony is too much to endure! Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was across the street signing two United Nations (UN) human rights covenants, but police outside were ironfistedly enforcing the unjust Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) when Ma himself said he would return the streets to the people.
The Taiwan Shadow Government (台灣維新影子政府) web site has a post about people wearing black T-shirts and vests bearing the name of the Matsu Temple (大天后宮) physically removing college students from a demonstration yesterday against the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government's policies regarding students from China (where fake educational credentials are easy to come by) entering Taiwan's schools and being able to use their degrees to find jobs here. Watch as police allow the ones committing violence to just walk away:
1:18 YouTube video: "20090503台南市天后宮反對承認中國學歷．大學生嗆馬遭暴力" Translation: May 3, 2009, Tainan City, Matsu (Tianhou) Temple, opposing the acceptance of Chinese diplomas, university students protesting Ma Ying-jeou encounter violence
The Taiwan Shadow Government site also posted this video of the incident which was shot from another angle by FTV News (民視新聞). In this video, you can see one of the temple thugs tackle two protesters:
1:32 YouTube video: "學生台南嗆馬英九被帶進警局 2009 05 03 民視新聞" Translation: Students protesting Ma Ying-jeou in Tainan carried into police station May 3, 2009, Formosa Television (FTV)
The students weren't caught in flagrante delicto committing a crime -- they were exercising their right of freedom of speech.
Déjà vu all over again Remember what happened when anti-Taiwanese Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) returned to the Taoyuan International Airport? Gangster-affiliated men dressed in black accompanying Kuo roughed up DPP politicians, reporters, and several people who were there demanding an apology from Kuo for his insults of the people of Taiwan. In that case, the police stood by doing nothing but holding up signs declaring the protests illegal, and they said later that they "didn't see any violence." See the "invisible violence" for yourself, and be amazed at your own superpowers:
4:25 YouTube video: "高級外省人郭匪冠英返台成「郭街老鼠」-抱頭鼠竄!還有黑衣暴民護送!" Translation: "High-class mainlander" Commie bandit Kuo Kuan-ying returns to Taiwan, becomes a "rat crossing the street," covers his head and runs away! Black-shirted gangsters aide his escape!
Remember what happened when people who were protesting former V-P Lien Chan's (連戰) visit to China in April 2005 were beaten up by gangsters affiliated with pan-blue politicians? Same violent shit, different day.
VOLUNTARY: Prosecutors have concluded that a clerk at Sunrise Records turned down the music and pulled down the shutter during protests against Chen Yunlin
[...]
Prosecutors said they would not indict a police chief who was accused of forcibly closing a record store during protests surrounding the visit of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) last year.
Former Beitou Precinct chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿), who was in charge when police closed the Sunrise Record store, had been accused of forcibly entering and conducting a search of the store without a warrant.
Chief Prosecutor Huang Mo-hsin (黃謀信) of the Taipei District Court said an investigation had established that a sales clerk at the store had voluntarily turned down the music and pulled down the shutter after being asked to do so by police.
Prosecutors quoted Lee as saying that he went into the record store to ask if the music was coming from there, not to search the place. A young clerk then turned the volume down and, when he saw the crowd and police shoving each other, began to close the store's front roller shutter.
Lee said someone yelled that he was about to be crushed under the gate, whereupon police officers tried to push the gate back up.
Contrasting with what prosecutors and police are claiming, in early November 2008, Sunrise Records issued a public statement saying that it was the police that wanted the door closed -- not the people working there.
Watching the above video, tell me if you can't plainly see the things that prosecutors apparently cannot (pay close attention around the 0:37 and 1:33 marks):
Note that Lee enters the store (0:37) with 3 or 4 other officers, that there are several more right outside the door, and that dozens more are outside on the sidewalk. (That's just counting the ones visible in this video.) After Lee and the other officers entered the store, can anything that happened inside really be considered "voluntary"? Recall Sunshine Records' statement on the matter.
Furthermore, what do you see at the 1:37 mark? The police are pulling the door down! Why can't the prosecutors see that?
And if Lee had to go into the store "to ask if the music was coming from there," he must have some serious sensory difficulties.
In the above video, the police enter the store around 0:33, and the music continues until about 0:51 or so. Seconds later, the police are violently pushing people who were previously dancing and singing.
"Voluntary," my ass. This is pure police and prosecutorial arrogance!
Before I get to this latest instance, take a look at just a sampling of the behavior of the KMT, and try to keep in mind that they're accusing the other party of being "violent":
2:04 YouTube video: "換掉" Loose translation: Time for change
On Wednesday, April 22, 2009, female DPP legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) slapped KMT legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) in the face after he provokingly called her a "shrew" (pōfù, 潑婦) in the legislature at least 11 times. Lee also accused Chiu of "lacking a proper upbringing" (沒家教).
2:42 YouTube video: "美國人的哥哥李慶華罵邱議瑩沒家教-民視新聞 20090422" Translation: Lee Ching-hua, brother of American (Diane Lee), berates Chiu Yi-ying as "lacking a proper upbringing" - FTV News, April 22, 2009
When Lee continued to insult Chiu, she went back and grabbed him by the collar, sarcastically shouting, "Just keep it up!" before she was pulled away by other legislators.
Throughout the day, Lee repeated the phrase "party of violence" over and over.
Later, the ever-redshirt-wearing Lee held a press conference along with other KMT legislators, where he repeated himself some more -- Mao Zedong-like (毛澤東) -- as if doing so would magically turn his lie into "the truth" when he said it for the hundredth time (while pointing to an anonymous quote in the blue media).
Holding up another mirror for the KMT One of the legislators who accompanied Lee at this press conference was Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), who said (with a large dose of racist invective) that "violence is in the DPP's DNA." Ironically, while she accuses others of being violent (and the KMT frequently accuses the DPP of being "ethnically divisive"), she can be seen in this video striking two police officers:
Lee even went to the courthouse with media in tow to press the button in order to initiate a lawsuit against Chiu. It seems like a good time to remind readers of what former president of the Executive Yuan, Hsu Shui-teh (KMT), once said: "The courts belong to us." ("法院是我們家[國民黨]開的.")
Party of violence, indeed! The KMT most certainly and demonstrably is a party of violence!
Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian taken into custody
Another dark day in Taiwan's history
In yet another incredibly provocative move by the still-new Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was handcuffed by police and taken into custody this afternoon. A trial by public opinion has been conducted by leaking information and using the media to create an impression of guilt based on insinuation before actual evidence has been shown to the public.
Breaking News Talking Show (大話新聞) just reported that Chen Shui-bian was beaten* (被打) by court bailiffs (法警) and that spokesman for the Wild Strawberries (野草莓) student protesters, National Taiwan University associate professor of sociology Lee Ming-tsung, (李明璁) was beaten by 4 police.
* UPDATE: This probably needs a clarification, but I'm not sure what kind yet. Reporters from ETTV and TVBS -- both very blue stations -- said that X-rays and other information indicated that Chen was indeed injured. Wednesday's Taipei Times mentions the claim that Chen "had been struck by a bailiff." [/update]
There are lots of bloggers and volunteers in Taiwan and overseas concern current Taiwan Police Violates Civil Rights When Maintaining Order during the Meeting of Taiwan's and China's Top Negotiators.
Due to most appeals and protests are blocked and distorted seriously on the mainstream media in Taiwan. Therefore, we set up the website and blogs delivering our press release, reports and so on. We continue watching these matters and offering different materials in other languages.
Please further visit our website or contact us directly. We really need you to help us to speak our voice out at this key moment. If you have any further questions, please be free to leave your messages on our website or reply to us. We will try to reply to you soon. Thank you so much.
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Taiwan Police Violates Civil Rights When Maintaining Order During the Meeting of Taiwan's and China's Top Negotiators
2008.11.5
Chen Yunlin, the chief of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, landed at Taiwan on November 3rd. He signed agreements on passenger-cargo flight, maritime shipping, mail service and food safety related issues with Chiang Pin-kung, the chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation. These agreements made Taiwan and China enter an age of three direct links. He would also meet President Ma Ying-Jeou of Taiwan.
For a long time, China has repressed any opportunities of Taiwan to participate international events. China neither recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign nation nor gives up its plan of making martial intrusion into Taiwan. Many Taiwanese people, including Taiwan's biggest opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party, were worried that Kuomintang government would not be able to defend for Taiwan's sovereignty during the negotiation. They also questioned that this meeting was not put under public examination. They are holding protests throughout Chen Yunlin's visit to Taiwan, expressing their claims, such as "One Taiwan, One China". Those people against China's forceful repression of Tibet's independence activities also joined the protests, holding "Free Tibet" slogan.
For Chen Yunlin's Taiwan visit, the Kuomingtang administration has specifically deployed some seven thousand policemen and special agents to cordon off the venues where Chen would appear in an attempt to prevent the public from raising protests. Measures employed by the police to guard Chen these days have, however, gone beyond the bounds of the law and the Constitution and seriously infringed on citizens' personal liberties and civil rights. Following are some instances:
1. The policy confiscated and damaged personal belongings of flags and balloons held by people at protest venues.
2. In the evening of November 2, four Taichung City Councilors, Chen Shu-hua (陳淑華), Chiu Su-chen (邱素貞), Chi Li-yu (紀麗玉) and Lai Chia-wei (賴佳微), checked in the Grand Hotel where Chen Yulin would stay during his visit. The next morning, they displayed protest banners from the balcony of their room. Within one minute, special agents broke in the balcony and entered their room, without their consent, to remove banners and restrain their actions.
3. Three bloggers with national flags of Taiwan and Tibet in hand were forcefully taken away by the police when walking southbound along Chung Shan North Rd and passing by the Taiwan Cement Building, where Chen Yunlin visited Cecilia Koo Yen, widow of the former chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation. The arrest caused the dislocation of fingers of one of the bloggers, but police refused to send her for medical treatment until she provided personal information.
4. Chen Yu-ching (陳育青), a photographer who visited friends near the Grand Hotel, was arrested and sent to the police station for interrogation for shooting the video of the banned area with hand-held camera.
5. Hung Chien-yi (洪建益), a Taipei councilman, entered the Ambassador Hotel, where Chen Yunlin's dinner reception was held, in the afternoon. When leaving by himself in the evening, he was dragged away on the ground for tens of yards by several police officers at the front gate of the hotel. He did not shout derogatory slogans or carry any dangerous items but only wore a T-shirt with the mark of "No Conspiracy with China" on it.
6. On November 4th, while Chen Yunlin was at the dinner reception hosted by KMT leaders at the Ambassador Hotel, a nearby record store was playing some Taiwanese song out loud. The police thought the song would stir up the feelings of the protesters on the scene, so they, in uniform or plainclothes, led by Beitou Police District Chief Lee Han Ching, broke into that record store, asked the store owner to stop the music, and shut the door.
7. On November 3rd, the Association of Taiwan Journalist issued that Cheng Chieh-wen (鄭傑文), a photojournalist from the Central News Agency, was dragged by the security police for 10 meters while he was doing his job at the Grand Hotel, and that an inappropriate press coverage area plan had caused quarrels between the press and the officials. ATJ declared that press freedom was under severe attack in Taiwan. Meanwhile, the government imposed such strict control over press coverage for this event that several reporters from Hong Kong said they failed to get press passes and had limited rights for coverage.
Protests are continuing, so are actions that invade human rights, actions that do harm to freedom of speech and personal liberty. These actions not only violated both Taiwan's criminal and civil laws but also contradicted the Constitution that should have protected the rights of people. We will be watching these events, and we want to raise our severe objections to the police in Taiwan.
Let me say it up front, and let me say it loudly: THE PEOPLE OF TAIWAN DO NOT WANT A POLICE STATE! TAIWAN IS NOT PART OF CHINA!
I can also say without much doubt that they're already pretty fucking tired of Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) administration.
The blue and red elephants in the room As I mentioned earlier, martial law is being reintroduced to Taiwan, and the philistine police response to protesters as well as to people simply expressing their feelings is a clear indication of this situation.
DPP politicians Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄), Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群), Wang Hsiao-wei (王孝維), and Liu Yao-ren (劉耀仁) were walking near the Grand Hotel (圓山大飯店). One of them was clearly pushed to the ground by police, despite the non-violent behavior of the entire group.
When four DPP city councilors from Taichung unfurled two banners from the window of a room they had booked in the Grand Hotel before the arrival of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), police forced their way into the room, removed the banners, and whisked the room's occupants away to the hotel's basement.
Pro-Taiwan banners are unfurled at the Grand Hotel ahead of Chen Yunlin's arrival "Get out, commie bandit Chen Yunlin" and "Taiwan is Taiwan" (Taipei Times photo) (Click to enlarge)
(It's kind of hard to finish this post because I've been watching police on TV doing things like punching people in the face, knocking them down, and dragging them along the ground.)
Wednesday's Taipei Times put the number of police personnel involved in this week's events at between 7,000 and 9,000.
Could this be the "anti-secession" law (which "legislates" the arbitrary use of "non-peaceful means" against Taiwan) coming into effect, as some have suggested? Chen Yunlin said that he "saw and heard" the protesters, after all.
Is everybody awake yet? How long have I been trying to alert the world? Don't wait until the bloggers, the Talking Show (大話新聞) hosts, and all of your friends get arrested before you do something. Immediately educate everyone you know about what's going on!
When the police enforce laws that don't exist, what else should you call it but (undeclared) "martial law"? You should acquaint yourself with some of its names:
Remember what I wrote less than two weeks ago about "Ma Ying-jeou's thugs"? [highlighting added]:
If these four legislators did this without Ma's or KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's (吳伯雄) knowledge or permission, shouldn't they be kicked out of the party? (Pre-completion update: Fai has offered to quit the party, but he wasn't kicked out.) If Ma and/or Wu did know about it, shouldn't they step down from their respective positions? And are the KMT's "apologies" really apologies when caucus whip Lin Yi-shih says that "these four legislators didn't do anything wrong." Is he advocating Gestapo-like tactics? What if the shoe were on the other foot?
Furthermore, can the KMT's "apologies" really count as apologies when a front-page ad in Thursday's United Daily News (聯合報) has Wu making the excuse that they "went to the wrong place at the wrong time"? Would it have been okay at "another time"?
But that was yesterday Well, they've gone and proven my point about those non-apology "apologies." Let's take a look at some more recent behavior from thug-islators Alex "The Faker" Fai (費鴻泰) and son-of-a-gangster Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才), with comparisons to their earlier "apologies" provided by the Thursday night edition of Talking Show (大話新聞):
Those "apologies" sure didn't last long, huh? Or, as I originally suspected, they were meaningless from the start.
Blues of a feather President-elect Ma "Harvard-trained ployer" Ying-jeou's (馬英九) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has done the same thing by making "token gestures" to the survivors and family members of the victims of the 228 Massacre. Ma has also made election-related "promises" to the same victims. Ma and his party's insincerity is made apparent by the fact that they continue to idolize Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石 / 蔣中正) -- the "main culprit" in both that incident and the subsequent decades-long period of White Terror and martial law in Taiwan.
With the above information to set the stage, how long do you think it will be before Ma and his party try to resurrect the old Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (國立中正紀念堂)?
The DPP government had changed the name of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall and replaced the inscription dazhong zhizheng (大中至正) on the gate of the hall with "Liberty Square" last May as part of its "de-Chiang campaign," aimed at erasing symbols of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
"Illegally changing the name of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was ill-mannered and was, of course, invalid," Ma was quoted as saying in an interview with the Chinese-language China Times published yesterday.
SUMMARY: Four legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- a party which frequently claims their opponents will use "dirty tricks" (奧步) to win the election -- initiated actions this past Wednesday which arrogantly overstepped their authority. Just 10 days before the presidential election, the legislators intruded into the campaign headquarters of those very opponents under the guise of conducting an "inspection." Such things are supposed to be handled by prosecutors (檢察官) with warrants.
Although it doesn't appear that they actually gained access to the campaign offices, they did abuse their authority by refusing the building's first-floor security's demands for them to sign in and by imagining that they have any such power to conduct "inspections" of private property.
[...] it is all nice and well that Ma apologized, but it shows he cannot control his party's legislators.
As Ma yesterday said that it was a public issue whether Hsieh's campaign was illegally leasing the office building, Hsieh said he had no problem discussing the issue. However, it was another issue for KMT legislators to barge into his campaign headquarters and then condemn the violence of his [meaning Hsieh's] team members.
"It is to mistake the effect for the cause," he said. "It is like a woman who is sexually harassed by a man and slaps the man on the face. The man turns around and then accuses the woman of brutality."
Whether they got "in the door" or not is not the issue here. It's about their intentions.
The DPP has subsequently produced the lease for their office space for the public to view and make up their own minds:
The lease agreement (Hsieh's campaign rented the office space under the company name 「美夢成真」, or "Dreams Come True") (Click image to enlarge) (See also the article which accompanied the above image in the Liberty Times [自由時報] print edition)
On Friday, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) was still "urging the Executive Yuan to investigate whether or not Hsieh's camp had occupied the bank's property for free." Read on, and see behind the multiple curtains of this crazy mess.
(REMINDER: Hovering your cursor on most links in my posts will reveal extra information in a small pop-up.)
Villainy and vengeance Wednesday evening, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Alex Fai (費鴻泰) (caucus whip), Chen Chieh (陳杰), Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才), and Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) (an officer in Shih Ming-teh's [施明德] "redshirt" army [紅衫軍]) went to DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign headquarters in Taipei looking for information they claimed would show an illicit relationship between Hsieh and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) or that Hsieh's campaign was either paying unfairly-reduced rent or none at all.
It began earlier in the afternoon with an interpellation of First Bank manager (總經理) Huang Hsien-chuan (黃獻全) and Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) at the Legislative Yuan by Alex Fai during which Fai says he wants the two others to accompany him to DPP headquarters the following morning, then suddenly changes his mind and wants to go "right away" (馬上). See the flip-flop between the 3:33 and 3:43 marks in the video below.
According to an article in Thursday's Taiwan News, they used the excuse that they were doing a "fire inspection." After the four ignored first-floor security, went up to Hsieh's office on the thirteenth floor, and then took the elevator down to the third floor -- where they were blocked in by campaign staff -- police were called to the scene. When police arrived, they began to escort the four legislators away (no one was being placed under arrest), but a large crowd had apparently already gathered outside.
Son-of-a-gangster Lo Ming-tsai fled the scene amidst the pushing and shoving going on between DPP supporters and the many police who were outside the offices. These supporters wanted to legally detain the three remaining suspects until prosecutors arrived. The police were able to remove the KMT legislators from the scene a couple of hours later after prosecutors finally arrived to verify the DPP's claims and the DPP unblocked the exits.
Alex Fai (費鴻泰) on Thursday I'm no Dr. Bill Frist, but I can detect neither an ear injury nor any signs of brain activity by watching this guy on TV. (Click image to enlarge)
As the KMT legislators were making their way to the police car, someone in the huge crowd that formed outside appears to have landed or nearly landed a blow on or just behind Fai's right ear, but in the footage of him "apologizing" for the incident Thursday afternoon, a medium close-up (above) didn't reveal any problems with his ear, chin, or any other part of the exterior of his head. TV images on Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon showed him variously in a wheelchair and on a hospital gurney. He has since conjectured that he's being persecuted because he is a "waishengren" (外省人) (his own term), or so-called "mainlander." (See video of that twisted excuse in Part 2 of the links here [21:11 on-screen "也許衝著我是外省人的關係"]).
Alex "Faker" Fai (費鴻「太過分」, screen right) "stretch-er-ing" the truth on Wednesday (Click image to enlarge)
KMT presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then made a statement "denouncing" (譴責) the violence "on both sides," obfuscating the fact that if these members of his own party had stayed in the Legislative Yuan and not overstepped their authority, the day's events would not have occurred. Subsequent statements from Ma included half-hearted apologies which must be seen to be truly understood.
Who's to blame? If these four legislators did this without Ma's or KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung's (吳伯雄) knowledge or permission, shouldn't they be kicked out of the party? (Pre-completion update: Fai has offered to quit the party, but he wasn't kicked out.) If Ma and/or Wu did know about it, shouldn't they step down from their respective positions? And are the KMT's "apologies" really apologies when caucus whip Lin Yi-shih says that "these four legislators didn't do anything wrong." Is he advocating Gestapo-like tactics? What if the shoe were on the other foot?
Furthermore, can the KMT's "apologies" really count as apologies when a front-page ad in Thursday's United Daily News (聯合報) has Wu making the excuse that they "went to the wrong place at the wrong time"? Would it have been okay at "another time"?
These were not mere "rogue supporters" -- they were legislators, including a caucus whip and a convener of the Legislative Yuan Finance Committee. What the fuck kind of Bizarro World do these people live in?!
Why Wednesday? With a report by Next magazine (一週刊) just coming out alleging that KMT legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) has US citizenship (or did during her legislative terms) and another story about Ma Ying-jeou's father Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) having had an affair several years ago, one might suspect that Wednesday's incident was a KMT dirty trick to distract attention from these other things.
If, as Ma-the-son says, there's nothing to the green card story, why does he continue trying to divert everyone's attention toward the Central Election Commission's (CEC) report that said he doesn't have US citizenship when that's a horse of a completely different color?
Is this going to hurt Ma and help Hsieh to win the election? Will this event (四個笨蛋) be blamed if Hsieh wins the March 22 election the way those pesky "two bullets" (兩顆子單) were blamed when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won in 2004? Only time will tell.
RELATED INFO: * SocialForce.tw provides links to video of the event which I haven't seen any of the news channels broadcasting. The video begins with still pictures unaccompanied by sound, but then you can hear DPP officials describing just what they were doing as it happened.
* "Dirty tricks"? I've got yer dirty tricks right here! Via Friday's China Post:
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A Taiwanese opposition lawmaker said Friday he will consider suicide if party presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou loses the presidential election on March 22.
Alex Fai of the opposition Nationalists said he felt extremely sad about the controversy surrounding an opposition invasion into the Taipei headquarters of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh on Wednesday.
If the incident costs Ma his presidential victory, Fai said, "I will not exclude the possibility of ending my own life."
[...]
Before January's legislative poll, DPP lawmaker Wang Shih-cheng said he would jump into the sea if his party failed to win a single seat in the city of Taipei.
The Nationalists ended up with a clean sweep there, and Wang made good on his promise - though without any lasting ill effects.
If you even entertain the thought that Fai would do the same, you're a fool!
* Thursday's Taiwan News uses active verbs in the headline "KMT lawmakers cause chaos after storming Hsieh's office," telling readers just who did what as well as when and how they did it. (The link is to a cached version, because Taiwan News articles are inaccessible to non-subscribers after a week or so. I've saved the original page -- with images [try these links: 1, 2] -- as a PDF file for when the online version disappears.) Check out how Ma Ying-jeou deflects the blame:
Speaking in Chiayi yesterday, Ma expressed "regret" over the incident and censored the Hsieh camp for "violence."
* Thursday's China Post unsurprisingly makes it look like the incident happened spontaneously with the passive headline, First melee erupts as presidential race heats up. Note also that it's the "[f]irst" melee. Do they have inside information about plans for more such incidents? Foreigner in Formosa points out that the geographically-challenged newspaper hid the story. (I had found it via a Google search for info related to this incident.) While it was a front-page headline in the print edition (I saw it with my own eyes while I was at work), a link to the article was missing from the front page of the March 13, 2008 online edition (which I also verified with my own eyes). Try out their "select date" function at the bottom of their front page, and see for yourself.
* In this video from CTiTV, you can see that their videographer accompanied the four legislators in the elevator. The anchor says that their personnel "didn't see anyone kick or even touch the glass door" -- just 11 seconds after it appears that one of them does touch the door (1:50 in the video). Could it be that they're the only ones with a camera who saw it and that they're just not showing us the footage? Don't forget what the anchor just said, basically repeating what the reporter said around the 1:40 to 1:45 mark and what happened between the smoke and the mirrors. This report is presented as if the "evil DPP" set a "trap" for the "kind and gentle" KMT, as if the latter didn't decide on their own to show up at the headquarters of the former. And the more the reporter and anchor say that about the door "not being kicked," the more I suspect that it did happen.
Hsieh aides alleged that Fai and company kicked the door open to intrude. Fai said they all entered "peacefully."
"If I did," Fai said, "I'll quit as lawmaker and politics altogether."
His three colleagues vowed to follow suit after they offered an apology.
Lawmaker Lo Ming-tsai said he would resign as convener of the Legislative Yuan finance committee, should he have kicked open the door.
The other two legislators, Chen Chieh and Luo Shu-lei, also asked to be forgiven for their sally, which was intended to find out whether Hsieh paid for an extra office on the thirteenth floor of the bank's building without paying rent.
"Please produce evidence that we kicked in the door," all four said, "and we all would resign."
While Fai says he'll "quit ... politics altogether," Lo Ming-tsai -- the one who fled the scene before police arrived -- promises a much lesser sacrifice. Gee, I wonder why. (I also wonder if something is lost in translation here. Did they actually "kick [in/open]" any doors, or was it more like "barging in" or "intruding"?)
"It wasn't violence," Hsieh went on. He likened the free-for-all to a tit-for-tat. "Can you say a girl slapping a man trying to rape her is committing an act of violence?" he asked.
What Hsieh means there is that he doesn't accept Ma's description of the violence being "on both sides." You tell him, Frank!
* The BBC goes FUBAR with this story, claiming that "MPs from both sides were arrested." That did not happen on this planet, but the usual suspect's name (Caroline Gluck) appears in the story:
According to the BBC correspondent in Taipei, Caroline Gluck, the run-up to elections in Taiwan are normally heated affairs, but violence-free.
So the clash at the DPP campaign offices - the first case of any disorder ahead of this month's presidential elections - was widely reported, our correspondent adds.
I guess Gluck "forgot" about the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) in March 2004, the gas bomber in December 2004, and so many other similar "violence-free" incidents. Michael Turton blogged this one in more detail while I was busy with this post.
* October 27, 2007: The KMT in Taiwan vs. the GOP in the USA, in which the "phony sanctimony and faux outrage" of the party that brought us George W. Bush is compared with that of the KMT.
* May 20, 2004: "United" only in their divisiveness, in which the losers of that year's election stand behind shields of irony while accusing Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of "hiding behind bulletproof glass." (Foiled yet again!)
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