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DPP sees pan-blue conspiracy

DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) yesterday said that a demonstration of farmers and fishermen scheduled for Nov. 23 is actually a KMT and PFP conspiracy to boycott financial reforms.

"We have noticed that the KMT mobilized all its members in the farmers' and fishermen's associations to carry rotten food such as eggs and fish at the demonstration," Chang said yesterday at DPP headquarters.

Both KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) said they will take to the streets alongside farmers and fishermen to protest the government's ignorance of the associations' contribution to the country and its intention to eliminate those institutions.

Chang fought back yesterday, saying the opposition boycott will not only undermine the government's efforts to clean up the associations' non-performing loan problems, but may also cause the collapse of the nation's financial system.

"Once the government accomplishes the reorganization of farmers' and fishermen's associations, the Cabinet will keep its promise to provide NT$3.5 billion per year to help revive the system starting next year," Chang said.

Chang stressed that the Legislative Yuan had reached a consensus on June 14 on the need for a fundamental reform of the financial system, adding that the Cabinet should make rebuilding these troubled institutions a priority.

"The Cabinet is now executing the Legislative Yuan's resolution, which is also endorsed by those opposition parties," Chang said. "I have no idea why opposition leaders have now planned and mobilized such a large-scale demonstration to block the policy."

The credit departments of farmers' and fishermen's associations were established in 1960s and their credit cooperative departments were intended to improve the country's agricultural development.

However, over the past few years, complaints from academics and the DPP have grown about the associations serving as a source of "black gold" politics.

The DPP went as far as to say the associations virtually serve as a KMT mobilization mechanism during election campaigns and that the associations are under the control of local political factions and criminal organizations.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has declared on several occasions since taking power in May 2000 that he would reform the associations with an aim to clear up the overdue-loan problem.

DPP Legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水), head of the party's Policy-making Committee, said yesterday that he wonders why, since the associations cannot reclaim their non-performing loans, the heads of of these associations rejected the government's proposal of a NT$3.5 billion annual subsidy.

"Actually these farmers' and fishermen's associations have already lost their function because they no longer post profits," Lin said. "Opposition parties' criticisms are obviously for political purposes."
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