Minor skirmishes as DPP launches UN torch relay

The relay was also marred by some clashes.

Dozens of KMT youth corps members tried to join the relay carrying national flags, but police ordered them to leave.

Light skirmishes broke out as police tried to push them back.

"The police are stealing our national flags. Why can't we carry flags and join the relay?" some youth corps members shouted.

About 30 members of the the Chinese Unification Promotion Association, a pro-China group, tried to provoke participants as they reached the Zhongxiao E Road-Zhongshan S Road intersection.

Several people were injured and were sent to the hospital.

Police also prevented dozens of red-clad protesters from haranguing the relay participants.

Meanwhile, KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) led several hundred party members and supporters in a 5km bike tour of Taipei City yesterday morning to focus on the "plight of the people."

Ma called on the government to put greater effort into improving the economy.

While the party expected up to 500 participants, about 200 to 300 cyclists joined in, with some dressing like vagrants or hanging milk powder cans on the bicycles to highlight the people's plight.

Leading the crowd and singing "Fighting for a better life and returning to the UN," Ma criticized the DPP for creating conflict with its UN referendum bid and for failing to improve the economy during its years in office.

"Neither returning to the UN nor joining the UN is more important than improving the lives of Taiwanese. The DPP has pocketed the nation's assets for its own interests and we can't ignore its incompetence anymore," Ma said in front of National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall before launching the ride, also at 7am.

To avoid running into the DPP, which launched its relay almost simultaneously, Ma and other cyclists took a different route. No confrontations were reported.

KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), who did not join the event because of back pain, met Ma, KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and other members at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and used the occasion to criticize the DPP.

"President Chen has caused such misery for Taiwanese and now he wants to continue controlling our future by manipulating the electoral mechanism," Wu said.

The party's youth corps, attending the event, accused the DPP and its supporters of attacking them.

Corps director Huang Chih-chong (黃執中) said DPP supporters surrounded corps members and scolded them for bringing the national flag to the DPP's relay.

"The DPP should not join China in suppressing the national flag," Huang said at KMT headquarters.

Other pan-blue city and county governments were scheduled to hold cycling activities yesterday or later.