Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) yesterday ordered the removal of the National Women’s League’s (NWL) leadership after the group refused to sign an administrative contract that would see it undergo a drastic structural reform.
The Ministry of the Interior issued an official document ordering the removal of league chairwoman Cecilia Koo (辜嚴倬雲) and league deputy chairwoman Yeh Chin-fong (葉金鳳) after it received a letter from the group stating its opposition to government-led public supervision and its decision not to sign the contract, Yeh said.
“This is not the result we had hoped for, but we have to face it with courage,” Yeh told a news conference at the ministry in Taipei, adding that negotiations proved that the power of a few reformists within the league was not enough to bring changes to an organization that has lived in the past and closed itself off from the outside world.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The ministry — the government tasked with supervising civil associations — also instructed the league to hold a leadership election within 10 days and provide documentation on how funds from the Military Benefit Tax was used, he said.
If the election is not held, the ministry is entitled to appoint a representative instead, Yeh said, adding that he was not ruling out dissolving the league.
The Military Benefit Tax was a tariff levied on the US dollar value of all imported goods from 1955 to 1989, which provided most of the funding for the organization’s charity work, including construction of military dependents’ villages.
Photo: CNA
The league — founded in 1950 and run for decades by Soong Mayling (宋美齡), the last wife of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) — is under investigation by the Executive Yuan’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee over its alleged links to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The ministry had given the league a deadline of noon yesterday to sign the contract, which would have finalized an agreement reached by the league, ministry and the committee on July 24.
Under the agreement, the league would donate more than 80 percent of its assets, NT$31.2 billion (US$1.04 billion), to the government for charitable purposes; merge with its subsidiary, the Social Welfare Foundation; allow the government to appoint one-third of its board of directors; and give veto powers to an additional one-third of its directors.
Had the league honored the agreement, it would have ceased to exist as a political organization and would have been removed from the committee’s target list.
Later yesterday, the committee issued a statement expressing regret over the league’s decision, saying that the committee would convene on Tuesday next week to deliberate on whether to issue administrative penalties against the league and freeze its assets.
“There is no room for delays in achieving transitional justice in our society. We had hoped that the league would shoulder its share of historical responsibility ... and join us and the ministry in facing and dealing with the past,” the committee said.
“It is a pity that even to this day, the league continues to reject public supervision,” it added.
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