Senior officers from the navy yesterday said they have sent a formal letter to the French government, requesting an explanation of allegations raised by opposition lawmakers that Taiwan was charged more than Singapore for six Lafayette-class frigates in a deal brokered in 1991.
The allegations are just the latest in a series of charges that have been brought to light in a procurement case full of intrigue, accusations of US$760 million in kickbacks and even murder.
"The letter was sent on March 10. We want to know if Singapore bought Lafayette-class frigates at one-third the price the French government charged Taiwan for the same product," said Rear Admiral Lei Kuang-shu
PHOTO: HAKU JUI-PO HUANG, LIBERY TIMES
"We also want the French government to give an explanation regarding the alleged multi-billion kickbacks in connection with the US$2.7 billion Lafayette frigate sale between Taiwan and France in 1991," he said.
Lei made the statements yesterday in response to inquiries from the press over the alleged kickback scandal, which received renewed media attention after the arrival in Taiwan of Christine Deviers-Joncour, the ex-mistress of former French foreign minister Roland Dumas.
Deviers-Joncour said she came to Taipei to push for a separate Taiwan investigation into alleged kickbacks over the sale.
Dumas, 77, is being investigated for allegedly benefitting from commissions worth US$10 million paid by oil group Elf to Deviers-Joncour in an attempt to have him reverse his opposition to the sale.
The former state-owned oil company Elf had lobbied the French foreign ministry on behalf of Thomson-CSF, which built the six frigates for Taiwan.
Dumas, who is to be tried in June on charges of conspiracy and fraud in relation to corruption at Elf, said in a recent interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur that investigators should be looking into kickbacks made when Thomson sold the frigates to Taiwan.
Deviers-Joncour, speaking through an interpreter, said yesterday that she wanted "the clouds hanging over the case to disperse."
She said she was not sure if any Taiwanese government officials were implicated in the scandal, but she believed there was a link with the 1993 murder of a Taiwan naval captain.
A direct link with the death of Captain Yin Ching-feng (
However, during the investigation, 28 people, including 13 military officers, were arrested and sentenced to jail terms of up to life imprisonment for graft and leaking confidential military information.
Yin, whose body was found floating off the east coast of Taiwan, was believed to be planning to report the leaks to superiors when he was killed.
At the center of the murder investigation was Colonel Kuo Li-heng
Kuo pleaded not guilty and authorities are still searching for Wang.
Defense Ministry spokesman Kung Fan-ding
"The special group has since convened 115 meetings, with the latest one held last Thursday," Kung said.
The defense ministry has offered a NT$30 million reward for information that will crack the murder inquiry and Kung said it would welcome any information provided by Deviers-Joncour.
In February, French magistrates referred Dumas, Deviers-Joncour and five others to trial, including former Elf chairman Loik Le Floch-Prigent and Alfred Sirven, a top company executive who has been on the run for the last three years.
Two French newspapers reported yesterday that Sirven is currently living in the Philippines.
Lei, meanwhile, denied allegations that the six frigates also had design and manufacturing defects.
He said the navy has already answered all questions over the quality of the frigates.
"The navy wants to assure the public that the Lafayette frigates are in good condition and that they are now responsible for the majority of patrol and escort missions in the Taiwan Strait and around the island," Lei said.
"[New Party lawmaker and vice presidential candidate] Elmer Feng
One defense official, who declined to be identified, said Beijing probably obtained all the information it wanted to know about the Lafayette frigates before France and Taiwan signed the deal. The information was bought, not given, the official added.
Meanwhile, Lei admitted that the Lafayette frigate does have a defect in the design of its propulsion system and that all six of the ships are scheduled be overhauled.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS