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DPP legislators call for Hau Pei-tsun to be investigated

Democratic Progressive Party legislators Kuan Bi-ling, left, and Hsu Kuo-yung hold a press conference yesterday to demand that former chief of the general staff Hau Pei-tsun take responsibility for the high-profile Lafayette scandal. PHOTO: CNA

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday demanded that prosecutors include former chief of the general staff Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) as one of the accused in their next wave of investigations into the graft involving the nation's purchase of six Lafayette-class frigates from France in 1991.

DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) dismissed a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday which said the investigations into the Lafayette case had been concluded with the indictments of a fugitive arms dealer, his family, a former naval captain and his brother last week.

Hsu said at a press conference that prosecutors believed officials from the Ministry of National Defense and the navy must have been involved in the corruption behind the arms deal and would therefore continue their investigations.

Prosecutors said in their indictments that the defense ministry and the navy had accepted the soaring price of the frigates "no matter how unreasonable this was," Hsu said, which made it unlikely that indicted arms broker Andrew Wang (汪傳浦) and former naval officer Kuo Li-heng (郭力恆) were alone responsible for overturning the navy's decision to purchase 16 warships from South Korea in favor of buying six Lafayette-class frigates.

The ministry had agreed to start negotiations on the contents of the South Korean contract on May 4, 1989, Hsu said, citing the indictment as saying that the arms sale was almost finalized at that time.

Crucial cable

However, Hsu said the Control Yuan's report mentioned that a cable filed by Hau on May 5, 1989, during his visit to France, had caused a change of tack.

Wang and Kuo were subsequently indicted on charges of gaining illegal commissions through the Lafayette deal.

DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) told the press conference that the indictments also quoted Kuo as saying that in a secret meeting on March 14, 1989, he told Wang and the CEO of the French arms manufacturer Thompson CSF (now called Thales), which agreed to sell the six frigates to Taiwan for US$2.8 billion, that the power to decide the arms deal lay with the chief of the general staff, not the navy.

Drawing on the indictments, Kuan said that Kuo had also suggested to Wang and the manufacturer that they try to communicate with Hau, who was then chief of the general staff, in a bid to have him order the navy to abandon the South Korean deal.

"Many decisions were referred to Hau back then, and we can all see that Hau enjoyed the full authority to make decisions unilaterally," Kuan said. "Therefore, without Hau, there would not have been a Lafayette purchase."

At the press conference, Hsu and Kuan also produced photographs of a house on Dunhua S. Rd which they said they believed was used by Hau.

Kuan said that although there was no household record available for the abode, a reliable military source had told her and Hsu that it was frequently visited by high-ranking military officers.

Evidence

Kuan said she and Hsu had further evidence of what Hua had been doing in the house since 1992.

"If Hau does not tell the truth, we will present the evidence," Kuan said.

Hau served as chief of the general staff from 1981 to 1989. In December 1989 he was appointed minister of national defense and became premier in May 1990.

When questioned by investigators in late July, Hau said: "As the then-chief of the general staff, I did not have a predominant position in arms procurement. The chief of the armed forces [the president] had the final say on the arms bill."

Yesterday Hau denied ever having met Kuo or Wang and said the accusations leveled at him by Hsu and Kuan were "beneath contempt."

In a statement released yesterday, Hau said his meeting with the French defense minister in 1989 was open and transparent, and denied ever having been invited to attend any private briefings in "VIP" rooms.

Hau also denied having a "secret base" and argued that the residence on Dunhua S. Rd was provided by the Ministry of National Defense when he served as minister of justice.

The residence, Hau said, had been returned to the ministry.

"The Lafayette case has been used by a tool in the DPP's election season smear campaigns for the past six years," Hau said in the statement, adding that he would file a slander lawsuit against Hsu and Kuan.

Echoing his father's condemnation, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday urged the legislators not to resort to smear tactics to boost the chances of his DPP opponent, former premier and Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
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