The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday defended its vice chairman and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was accused by People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) of directing Soong and KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to leave the scene of an April 10 demonstration that subsequently became violent.
Lien and Soong, defeated in a presidential election last month, had led a demonstration outside the Presidential Office but left earlier than expected to sign a petition at the KMT's headquarters nearby.
"It was the event host that hastened both Chairman Lien Chan and Chairman Soong to sign the petition and not Taipei Mayor Ma," KMT Spokesman Alex Tsai (
"I have not heard that Mayor Ma was involved in the matter," Tsai added.
Tsai's remarks contradicted Soong, who on Saturday said that Ma had asked both him and Lien to leave the demonstration early.
"When Ma said we should take the lead and leave early, we went along with Ma's suggestion, cooperated and left early," Soong said.
After Lien and Soong left, the demonstration turned violent, with some protesters refusing to leave the site when the event's permit expired.
The police used water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, sparking scuffles between riot police and the angry demonstrators in which 127 people were injured, including 86 police officers, 27 protesters and 14 reporters, according to a report by Taipei City Police Bureau's Chungcheng First Precinct Chief Wu Su-lu (吳思陸).
Pan-blue supporters had blamed Lien and Soong for the debacle, complaining that they had expected the pan-blue-camp leaders to join them in a sit-in on Ketagalan Boulevard, which runs between the Presidential Office and the KMT's headquarters.
Tsai said that Lien and Soong had originally planned to join the sit-in but that the KMT-PFP alliance's decision-making panel had decided on the eve of the demonstration to get Lien and Soong instead to sign a petition for a referendum on creating an independent task force to investigate the election-eve assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian (
After making speeches at the venue, Lien and Soong, encouraged by an unidentified host on stage, walked back to KMT headquarters to sign the petition, Tsai said.
Ma, who also led the pan-blue camp's election campaign, has been caught in an awkward position, juggling his roles as Taipei's mayor and a senior member of the KMT.
KMT Legislator Lee Chia-chin (
Lee said that the bloodshed of the demonstration was over and that everyone should stop talking about it, otherwise it would just "hurt our own people and please out opponents."
PFP Legislator Chin Huei-chu (
According to Chin, Soong felt that both he and Lien had been unjustly blamed for the actions of others while Ma had been earning all the praise.
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