DPP dishes dirt on Hau, offers little proof

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Jan-daw (余政道) yesterday accused Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and his family of having unlawfully purchased a piece of land.

Yu told a press conference that Hau bought the land, located on Fulin Road in Taipei, with his sister Hau Hai-wen (郝海雯), mother Kuo Wan-hua (郭菀華) and two relatives in 1967.

At the time, Hau was only 15.

The land, however, was zoned for agriculture, not for residential construction at that time, Yu said, citing an official cadastre. He provided copies of what appeared to be an authentic register to reporters.

Yu added that the Land Law (土地法), which took effect in 1955, stipulates that farmland can only be sold to farmers and used for agriculture.

Yu said Hau and his family violated the law because they were not qualified to buy the land and they built a residence on it.

He also said he suspected they had committed forgery in order to obtain the land, but he offered no proof to substantiate this.

Yu said that Hau's father, former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), might have abused his authority as premier and purchased the land under the name of Hau Lung-bin because it was unlikely that Hau, who was a junior high school student at that time, could have afforded the land himself.

Meanwhile, in a separate press conference, DPP Legislators Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) and Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) also accused Hau Pei-tsun of malfeasance, but did not provide any evidence to support their claims.

The legislators used a chart to outline what they called "inappropriate treatment," involving Hau Pei-tsun accepting free trips to the US from three US arms dealers over a 10-day period in the 1980s. At that time, Hau Pei-tsun was the nation's chief of the general staff, and was in charge of military procurement.

Meanwhile, Hau Lung-bin's campaign office director, W. S. Chuang (莊文思), yesterday dismissed the accusations, saying that the Hau family had purchased the land before government regulations stated that only farmers are entitled to purchase farmland.

Chuang cited a 1992 report from the Chinese-language United Daily News, which said that the regulation that only farmers were entitled to purchase farmland was established in 1976, but that Hau's mother had purchased the land in 1968.

The issue had been raised in 1992 when Hau Pei-tsun was serving as premier, and the Taipei City Government had offered an explanation to clarify the matter, Chuang said.