Election or Deception?

---- An Open Letter to US Congresspersons on Taiwan's

Dubious Presidential Election

Date: March 24, 2004

Dear Honorable Congresspersons:

Sincere Greetings!

In this letter we wish to appeal to Your Excellencies to respond to our grave concerns over the current political turmoil that has arisen in the wake of Taiwan’s dubious Presidential Election last week. Some 800 journalists have stormed into Taipei to cover what they believe will develop into a "bloody confrontation," ending in major warfare between the U.S. and China. Even our State Department spokesman expressed his concern about an impending "large scaled confrontation." We heartily support any genuine democracy based on fair elections, just as we strongly oppose fake elections based on fraud and deception.

Please review the following key-points:

I. Two Magic Bullets Changed History!

Taiwan’s presidential election was scheduled to take place on March 20. The Chicago-educated candidate, Dr. Lien Chan, and his running mate, Georgetown-educated Dr. James Soong Chu-yu, were both expected to win decisively over the incumbent President Chen Shui-bian, with a margin of from 800.000 to one million votes.

However, at 1:45 p.m. March 19, to the surprise of all, President Chen and his running mate, Harvard-educated Annette Lu, were reportedly shot by some unknown "assassins" in his home town of Tainan. However, both mysteriously escaped death. One bullet penetrated the windshield of an open jeep and hit Vice-President Lu on her right knee; another wounded President Chen in his abdomen—the injury was only skin deep, leaving a wound about 12 cm in length and 2 cm in width. As Congressman Shen Fu-hsiung of Chen’s own party so suggestively put it, "We are saved by two ‘magic bullets’!"

In the hours after the "assassination incident," a half million sympathy votes were cast for Chen’s ticket. A large number of independent voters were intimidated by Taiwan’s Fundamentalist TV and Radio Broadcasting media in Southern Formosa (Taiwan), which charged his opponents Lien and Soong with links to the Chinese Communist regime in a joint assassination attempt. A huge number of military and police personnel, ranging from 38,000 to 200,000 ( a majority of whom are suspected to have favored Lien-Soong) were summoned to duty in the name of national security. Thus they were denied their legitimate right to vote for their candidates! The final marginal difference between Lien and Chen is only 0.22% (less than 30,000 votes), far below the minimal requirement of 1% for an automatic recount in any constitutional democracy. In addition, the figure of 330,000 voided votes is appallingly high!

Consequently, a huge rally was organized and led by Lien in protest. Demonstrators sat in front of the Presidential Mansion, now a new "Democracy Square" in Taipei, for more 120 hours after March 20th, despite the cold rainy weather. They have only three simple and humble demands to make: (1) an official investigation the case of the "assassination incident"; (2) a recount of the votes; and (3) allowing military and police personnel to vote. These demands have been met with even colder and shrewder tricks from Chen’s administration, such as by a deliberate delay of due process, denial of the charges, and a blunt rebuttal of Lien’s appeal for a recount and nullification of the unfair election.

On March 24, the former President of Chen’s party (DPP), U.S. scholar in residence at Harvard, Mr. Hsu Hsin-liang, has joined the protest, declaring "Give me the Truth, or give me Death" (initiating a hunger strike)! What will come next as a result of such mounting tension and hostility? Who knows?

II. Investigate the Assassination Riddle First!

Since to pursue the second and third claims by legal mechanisms is the most time-consuming (and may just play into Chen’s hand for his "buy time strategy"), Harvard-educated Mayor Ma Ying-chiu of Taipei has recommended an investigation of the alleged assassination attempt as the most pertinent, important and effective approach. It is such an intriguing case that, as it stands, the more you reflect upon it, the more you doubt about its truth claim!

Fortunately, in this regard, we are illuminated by a clue from Dr. Henry Lee (Chang-yu), our Magic Detective, today’s Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Lee openly pointed out: "There must be something unusual about the case. For usually, in the case of political assassination, the suspect aims at the victim’s head or chest," seldom or never at the abdomen or the knees, to say nothing of being such a short distance, only six to ten feets, from the target. Usually, when a person is shot, he feels acute pain immediately, and those sitting around him/her must be hurt, aware, alarmed, or shocked. Why was this not so in the present case? The jeep kept going for 12 kilometers, and the wounded President was able to walk ten minutes alone, all the way up to the Rare-Beauty Hospital/Clinic (Chi-mei Yi-yuan), declining the offer to be carried safely in a stretcher or a wheelchair. Later he explained, "As president, as leader of our nation, I cannot afford to fall down." Does that mean that Mr. Reagan or Mr. John F. Kennedy do not deserve to be recognized as our presidents or national leaders? This is simply his own self-defensive rhetoric for face-saving.

(A) Some Taiwan journalists, e.g., Han Kuo-hai (United Press, 3/22), raised the pertinent first-stage questions concerning national security: (a) Why and how is it that those in charge of security allowed both the President and Vice President to ride in the same vehicle, and to appear in public at the same time, in violation of the expressly stated regulations governing national security? (b) why and how is it that for this particular campaign activity at President Chan’s hometown neither candidate wore bullet-proof vests? (c) why and how is it that security forces allowed both candidates to ride in a privately-owned jeep, open all around, instead of the officially provided bullet-proof security vehicle?

(B) Other observers have raised second-stage questions concerning the responsibility of criminal investigators, such as (a) why and how is it that a bullet penetrated the front windshield and hit Vice President Lu on her right knee without hitting the Guard-in-Chief who was sitting right in front of her? (b) why and how is it that, when the front windshield glass was penetrated and broken, definitely making some noise, none of the six persons on board the jeep was aware of what had just happened? (c) why and how is it that the two circuit attorneys sent by the district/municipal Court of Justice to investigate the case were denied access by national security personnel?

(C) The Distinguished Congresswomen Ms. Chen Wen-chien has called attention to the basic facts that (a) the President preferred to seek help from a private clinic 5.6 kilometers away, the Rare-Beauty Hospital, instead of the Cheng Kung University Hospital near-by! (b) based on reliable sources, the medical personnel at the hospital were told in the morning to be prepared for something "big" to happen in the afternoon; (c) according to experts on criminal justice, the bullets taken from the victims did not fit the shells discovered 12 kilometers away! (d) for such an extremely important matter, there seem to be no vigorous efforts being immediately made to locate the perpetrators!

(D) Ex-Congressman, and current President of the New Party, Dr. Yu Mu-ming, who himself was a medical doctor, remarked quite poignantly that: (a) for a matter with such immense impact, it is a shame that we still have no idea where exactly the original site of "assassination" is; (b) if the jeep kept going for another 12 kilometers (nearly 8 miles) after the shooting, the suspect(s) must have escaped long ago! (c) the blood stains on the recovered bullet heads could be easily made to pass the test of a DNA match, not a big deal for make-up experts; (d) since there was reported to be only a grazing type of subcutaneous gunshot wound on Mr. Chen’s abdomen, Dr. Yu the physician stressed, the patient could have been released in less than an hour with minimal medical treatment; why must it have taken four to five hours for the hospital, and 11 hours for the National Security Bureau, to give a news conference?

(E) On March 22, Li Ao, a famous writer and nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, has called attention to certain aspects as crucial: Normally, the medical expert chosen to serve the president in an emergency must be a heart doctor (cardiologist) or a surgeon. Why, in the current case, did President Chen prefer that a cosmetic physician/surgeon perform the operation on his abdomen? Was it a self-staged fake gunshot, patched up with a laser-operation, followed by surgical re-sewing?

(F) Congressman Chiu Yi demonstrated March 23 before a TV audience that President Chen’s wounds could can be easily faked and shown to public.

(G) Most strikingly surprising above all was the publication three years ago of a Japanese political fiction titled The Assassination of Chen Shui-bian (its Chinese version available). Almost all the details of this assassination incidents coincide with the book contents, except the site locations. Did that book serve as a handbook or playwright? What a marvelous coincidence! [the author ban ye lang (transliterated) just died on Feb. 27.]

In addition, there still remain many other questions, no less pertinent than those above listed. How could a bullet run its course about 12 cm in length in a slightly curvy way along the abdomen? How could a bullet that penetrated the windshield of a jeep fail to penetrate President Chen’s clothing? How could it hit his abdomen, while bypassing his trousers, belt, and undershirts or underwear? It must be a "magical," a real "smart" bullet, most likely digitally guided!

All these questions constitute sufficient grounds for reasonable doubt about the alleged "assassination," indicating that it may well have been staged and premeditated. Yet, unfortunately, what an immense and imminent impact this had! The more the Chen administration has tried to cover up the truth, to delay legal mechanisms, to deliberately refuse the demonstrators’ claims, the more self-revealing and self-defeating the ruse is doomed to become.

III. Summary & Suggestions

Finally, we wish to sum up by stating that:

(1) we are pleased to learn that Dr. Henry C. Lee (Chang-yu) is willing to help investigate the case in question at the invitation of Dr. Yuan Chien-sheng, Chief Delegate for the Lien-Soong camp, or the Nationalist Party and the People First Party, in the U.S.

(2) we recommend to our friends in Taiwan that a fair-minded Independent Investigation Committee, composed of distinguished members with international prestige in the field of justice, be called upon to review the whole case;

(3) we strongly urge the U.S. government to adopt the wise policy of caution: to refrain from cabling any official congratulations to either of the disputed "electees," and to refrain from sending any U.S. delegation to attend the May 20 Presidential Inauguration until the whole case is perfectly clarified after investigation. As Dr. Yuan sadly pointed out, whether the Inauguration can be held as scheduled is open to question if no satisfactory resolution can be reached. We do not wish to see the image of the U.S. as standard bearer of democracy and freedom be tarnished by any association with the abuse of democracy and fraudulent manipulation.

(4) President Chen’s credibility crisis is regrettably a matter of his own making, in view of his past record, first as a fake victim of poisoned food while running for Mayor of Tainan District, and later as a convicted felon sentenced to jail for one year for libel in the early 80s. Our four years of experience in dealing with such a political figure is a good lesson for all parties concerned.

Looking forward to your sagacious judgment and decision.

Sincerely yours,

A Group of Concerned Chinese-Americans in the U.S.