A KMT elder and former diplomat cut his wrist during a meeting yesterday to protest the party's failure to expel former party chairman Lee Teng-hui (
The drastic move by Konsin Shah (夏功權), a former representative to the US between 1979 and 1981, took place during a meeting of the KMT Central Advisory Council.
"Many members have said they would kill themselves if the opposition camp fails to retake the presidency in two and a half years," Shah, 81, told the council, composed mainly of members who fled China after the civil war. "I may not be alive by then, so I would like to set an example today."
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMESN
The octogenarian then slipped a blade out of his briefcase and slit his left wrist at the podium, saying, "Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) must unite the party and handle the proposal to expel Lee for the sake of justice."
The suicide attempt threw the assembly into disarray.
Chang Che-chen (
Shah was rushed to the nearby National Taiwan University Hospital and was in stable condition.
As before, the KMT chair declined to address the Lee issue to avoid alienating Lee supporters.
It is generally believed the DPP would not have won the presidency last year if two splinter groups, the People First Party and the New Party, had not broken away from the KMT.
In addition, some KMT mem-bers such as Shah attributed the DPP victory in part to Lee's secret backing. The alleged collusion led hundreds of grassroots members to besiege the KMT headquarters for days after the election debacle, pressing for Lee's downfall.
Shah, who received his law degree from Washington DC's Georgetown University, held several diplomatic posts, including ambassador to Uruguay and New Zealand.
Earlier, Shah and fellow member Liang Su-yung (梁肅戎) filed a joint complaint with the KMT disciplinary department, accusing Lee of betraying the party.
They cited as evidence Lee's public statements that he would stump for legislative candidates from the Taiwan Solidarity Union, formed primarily by former ranking KMT members sympathetic to the former president. Shah maintained that if Lee wasn't expelled, the KMT would collapse within two years.
Echoing Shah's apprehension, Wang Tso-yung (
Wang, who advised Lee to join the KMT, said he regrets the move as the biggest mistake he ever made in his life.
Ironically, the Central Advisory Council, created by Lee to appease the KMT old guard, has been the main venue for Lee-bashing.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS