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Lawmakers defend and criticise Therese Shaheen

Therese Shaheen, former chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, is a good friend of this country and she should not be a source of political bickering, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative leader said yesterday.

Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), a DPP party whip, discounted opposition allegations that Shaheen is in Taiwan for talks on US arms sales to Taipei.

Tsai called for the opposition not to inject domestic political struggles among parties into bilateral relations.

He urged the opposition not to besmirch Shaheen as an arms broker, saying that no one would be Taiwan's friend if an American citizen were groundlessly labeled as an arms broker simply because she or he made an effort to help improve bilateral ties.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus ridiculed President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) decoration of Shaheen with the "Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon" yesterday "in recognition of her contributions to promoting Taiwan-US ties during her time with the AIT."

Huang Teh-fu (黃德福) called the award an abuse of the right of the head of state since Shaheen was forced to step down from her post because of her alleged role in brokering arms deals between Taiwan and the US.

Huang said the DPP administration is bringing shame on itself if Shaheen was decorated this time because of her "true" role in arms sales.

The People First Party's next legislative whip, Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄), said Shaheen is by no means an architect of bilateral cooperation.

Shaheen's stepping down reflects the fact that the US administration was not satisfied with her performance, Liu said, adding that Chen's decoration of Shaheen is tantamount to a slap in the face to the Bush administration.
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