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Chen reminds UN of `privilege'

President Chen Shui-bian, left, signs a communique accompanied by Francisco Flores, right, president of the host nation El Salvador at the closing ceremony of the summit meeting between Taiwan and its Central American allies. PHOTO: CHU YO-PIN, TAIPEI TIMES

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday in San Salvador appealed to the UN, urging it to learn from the countries of Central America and their "sense of justice."

Chen also said that the UN should implement the "universal privilege" of its Constitution and allow Taiwan to return to world body.

"If the UN had the same sense of justice, then Taiwan, the Republic of China, would not be excluded from the UN and become an orphan in the international community," Chen said.

Chen made the remarks following a summit of Taiwan and its Central America allies. He also expressed his appreciation to those countries for continuing to support Taiwan's entrance into international organizations during the past decade.

"We believe all our allies will persist in supporting Taiwan's entry to the UN, World Trade Organization and World Health Organization and we hope they will also help Taiwan become a formal member of the System for Integration in Central America (中美洲統合體, SICA), and a dialogue partner of the future FTAA (美洲貿易自由區)," Chen said.

SICA was formally established in 1993 and Taiwan is now an extra-regional observer.

At the summit, Chen advocated that if Taiwan could be promoted as an "extra-regional member," the country could provide more assistance to help diversify the SICA's efficiency.

However, a joint communique from the summit did not note any support of such an idea. Sources revealed that some countries oppose Taiwan becoming a formal member of the organization.

The summit in El Salvador of the heads of eight nations including the host country, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican, Panama, and Belize, has been the most important activity of Chen's 16-day visit to Central America.

The summit is the third biennial meeting between the heads of government of Taiwan and the central American nations. The last meeting one was held in Taipei in 1999.

Heads of state who attended the meeting signed a communique declaring that each member will enhance diplomatic relations, economic cooperation, and reaffirm their support for Taiwan's admission to international organizations.

The communique also announced that all Central American members welcomed Taiwan as an extra-regional observer and that each would look into the legal principles which might lead to strengthened relations.

During the press conference, Chen also clarified some Chinese-language newspaper reports of May 25 which said that Chen had promised to give renewed financial assistance totalling US$103 million to SICA and that Taiwan had already given US$240 million to the organization last year.

"That information is far from the truth," Chen said.

Chen said that according to Taiwan's records, the government has only made two promises of financial assistance to SICA since 1990.

"First, there was not any summit held last year," Chen said, "and the US$240 million was for a project passed by the Seventh Meeting of Central America Foreign Ministers to be used as part of the Central America Development Fund (中美洲發展基金), which Taiwan would pay over a 12-year period [US$20 million each year], beginning in 1998," Chen said.

"As for financial assistance for SICA, Taiwan contributed around US$101 million to help it accomplish 40 projects since 1991," Chen added, "therefore the amount -- which the paper [incorrectly stated] at US$103 million -- was actually the total of the past 10 years' financial assistance, not a new project."

Chen went on to say that no issue of money or financial assistance has been discussed during the ongoing summit.

"The conversations between us were just like those between family members," Chen said. "We chatted about all sort of subjects, but not money," he added
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