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Anti-Chen e-mail, ad condemned

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday denied it was responsible for an anonymous e-mail to members of the US Congress that likened President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to Adolf Hitler for an advertisement in a Congressional newspaper that asked the US not to support "a fraudulent president."

Although the KMT distributed the 20-page Bulletgate pamphlet -- which questions the legitimacy of Chen's re-election -- to every US senator and representative in June, and also used the likening of Chen to Hitler in campaign ads in Chinese-language papers in Taiwan prior to the election, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起), director of the KMT's International Affairs Department, said yesterday that the e-mail and the ad in Roll Call were spontaneous actions by overseas Chinese.

He claimed that the KMT had nothing to do with either.

"I don't think that they were designed by the KMT or People First Party [PFP] members," Su said. "But we know that a lot of zealous overseas Chinese in the US thought the election was problematic. So we are not surprised by [the e-mail and ad] at all."

Su, however, admitted that the KMT sent a second edition of Bulletgate to US government officials this month, which warned Taiwan's freedom of the press was at risk.

"The KMT will not forgo any chances to appeal to the international community," Su said.

The e-mail -- entitled "US Government Backing `Taiwan Hitler' for a War?" -- was sent to members of Congress earlier this month and can be viewed on the Internet (www.2bullets.com/index.htm). Mugshots of Chen and Hitler are on the e-mail, which also says Taiwan will provoke a cross-strait conflict and labels Chen a warmonger who relies on US support. It also asked the US not to side with Chen since "Chen is an illegitimate president who stole a fraudulent election."

The half-page Roll Call ad was sponsored by the "Truth Alliance" and "Chinese-American Alliance for Democracy in Taiwan." Headlined "In Taiwan, Dead People Can Vote!" the ad claims Chen won re-election through trickery.

High-ranking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday denounced the e-mail and the ad as defamatory and said the party would issue a brochure entitled March for Taiwan's Democracy, which would outline the political circumstances that Taiwan went through before and after the March presidential election.

In a news conference yesterday, DPP Information and Culture Department Director Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said 30,000 copies of the brochure would be published in Mandarin and English. Cheng said the party would also send a letter to Roll Call in order to respond to the claims made in the ad.

Cheng said that the pan-blue camp has trashed Taiwan's reputation internationally by spreading ridiculous allegations.

"People who make untrue accusations ignore the country's interests," he said. "This libel is groundless and has hurt Taiwan's image. The DPP has a responsibility to correct the situation."

Deputy Secretary-General Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said that the party is willing to provide airfare for members of the groups who sponsored the Roll Call ad to return to Taiwan. Chung said that both groups are obviously out of touch with Taiwanese society.

additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling
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