Reports that the Presidential Office is accusing 17 former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials of “failing to return” 36,000 documents to the National Archives a few years ago have caused uproar amongst Taiwanese-Americans.
They are furious at what they see as a blatant attempt to damage the DPP in the run-up to legislative elections to be held at the end of this year or the first half of next year and next year’s presidential election.
The documents, most of them classified, cannot be found and there is little or no evidence to indicate what happened to them, but Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) has said the case is being investigated by the Control Yuan and that it could lead to criminal charges.
“To come up with this matter at this time, when the primaries for next year’s presidential elections are underway, is very very fishy,” president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) Bob Yang (楊英育) said.
Yang said the move was “yet -another transparent attempt” by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government to use the Control Yuan and the judicial system as tools of political persecution.
FAPA is an umbrella organization representing a large number of Taiwanese-American groups.
“It is just flabbergasting to see that the Ma government thinks it can get away with this,” he said. “If any documents are missing, it should have been noticed during the transition period in 2008.”
“In any government organization, such documents are seen and reviewed by high officials, but lower level officials process and file them. These lower officials are the same people in either DPP or Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] administrations. In Taiwan’s bureaucracy, they would not dare to deviate from the established rules on handling documents,” he added.
Yang said it was “regrettable” that Ma was once again abusing the Control Yuan for political purposes.
“Taiwan’s democracy is suffering yet another setback at a time when it can least afford it,” Yang said. “Playing these games is detrimental to Taiwan and its future as a free and democratic nation.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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