The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday called on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers to set aside partisan politics and agree to establish a special investigative committee to probe last month’s election-eve shooting.
Speaking one day after the opposition party raised the possibility of contesting the election results, DPP lawmakers said the government owed the public a clear and consistent explanation on the attack on KMT Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文).
“We should all attempt to responsibly uncover the truth around the incident,” DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said. “What we don’t want to see is this [committee] blocked by KMT lawmakers.”
DPP lawmakers are expected to propose the establishment of the investigative committee at the legislature’s procedural committee meeting this morning, although it is unlikely to receive support from the majority of KMT lawmakers.
If passed, however, the proposal would create a bipartisan legislative committee. DPP lawmakers said they want the committee to be named the “Nov. 26 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee.”
“Our aim is to return to Taiwanese, the families of the victims and supporters of [our] party a sense of justice, regardless of what the final motive is found to be,” Pan said.
Sean Lien, a son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), survived after being shot through the face at an election campaign rally for a local KMT candidate on Nov. 26. The shooting led to an outpouring of sympathy votes for KMT candidates the day after, DPP lawmakers said after the incident.
Pan and several other DPP lawmakers said that Sean Lien’s shooting should be investigated in the same manner as the far-reaching investigation, which was supported by KMT lawmakers, into the shooting of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and then-vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on March 19, 2004. The prove involved US forensic expert Henry Lee (李昌鈺).
Opposition party lawmakers have attempted to play up the connection between Sean Lien’s shooting and the shooting in 2004, saying they were both attempts to undermine Taiwan’s democracy. As part of the announcement yesterday, DPP lawmakers said they would also support the investigation committee taking a second look into the 2004 incident.
“If the KMT still has any lingering questions over Chen’s shooting, perhaps we should hold both the investigations together,” DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) said.
At a press conference yesterday, KMT lawmakers denied any similarity between the two shootings, suggesting that the former president’s incident was staged, while Lien’s shooting included evidence of “real” bullets.
“The Nov. 26 and March 19 [incidents] are monumentally different,” KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) said. “One of them had real bullets, while the other one used fake ones. One victim was seriously hurt and was fighting for his life ... the other one was [grazed].”
KMT lawmakers also suggested during the press conference that they would not support the creation of the investigative panel, despite KMT caucus Deputy -Secretary-General Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) saying that the KMT also had an interest in uncovering the truth.
“We want to find out the truth even more than the [DPP] does,” Hsieh said. “[But] the DPP only wants to find out the truth to see if there is any chance the election can be overturned.”
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
RSS