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Forum discusses stolen assets

Winning a legislative majority and holding a referendum next year on reclaiming Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets will be crucial if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is to tackle the matter of stolen party assets in a peaceful and democratic manner, German specialists attending an international forum said yesterday.

Former East German prime minister Lothar de Maiziere said it had been essential for his party -- the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) -- to hold a majority in the "People's Chamber" of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1990 as it made democratic reform easier following the collapse of the communist regime.

De Maiziere made the remarks in his keynote speech at an international forum on transitional justice organized by Taiwan Thinktank in Taipei yesterday.

Under his leadership, de Maiziere said his government froze the assets of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

In absolute secrecy, he drafted a bill with his assistant and cousin, Thomas de Maiziere -- now the head of the Federal Chancellery -- to prevent the SED from hiding its assets, camouflaging them or transferring them abroad.

The bill was passed on May 31, 1990, and went into effect the following day. The law required that all political parties and their affiliated organizations put their assets under the trust of an independent commission formed by the prime minister.

From that moment on, political parties and their affiliations had to obtain the consent of the commission to relinquish their assets and the commission had the right to hear the evidence, question witnesses, carry out house searches and confiscate property, de Maiziere said.

At first, the SED showed some resistance but de Maiziere said they did not dare attack the commission because it was chaired by a respected lawyer and teacher of the SED chairman.

Malte Fischer, former officer of the secretariat of the Independent Commission for the Inspection of the Properties of the Political Parties and Political Mass Organizations of the Former GDR -- also known as "the Commission" -- said the Commission and the Federal Institution of Special Tasks Concerning the German Reunion retrieved party assets worth 1.6 billion (euro) -- of which more than 1.2 billion (euro) belonged to the SED.

Fischer said it was important for a party to hold a political majority in parliament to fa1cilitate the handling of improperly obtained party assets under an authoritarian regime.

"If you don't have the support of the majority, you cannot do many things," he told the conference. "That is the way of doing things in a democracy."

Referring to the DPP's push for a referendum on redeeming the KMT's stolen assets next year, Fischer said the campaign was pivotal, but said that the DPP's minority in the legislature was to its disadvantage and comported some risks.

"It would be great if you are sure you will get a majority vote for that, but it could be very dangerous if you are not, because once it failed, the entire process would be put to an end," he said.

In additiopn to the referendum, Fischer said DPP and KMT leaders should sit down and hammer out a solution to the problem.
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