Hundreds of veterans from the army’s 1st Special Forces urged the legislature at a protest in Taipei yesterday to hold a public hearing and pass compensation legislation for the one-year extensions of their military service decades ago.
More than 570,000 personnel had their military service extended by one to three years between 1967 and 1986 and they were all recruited as part of the former 1st Special Forces.
Their forced service extensions had violated the Military Service Act (兵役法) and was unconstitutional, said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), who -introduced a draft bill in the legislature calling for compensation for the extra years of service.
Photo: CNA
Chai chaired the Army 1st Special Forces Rights Association to promote veterans’ rights and organized a 500km march along the west coast, which started in Pingtung County on Oct. 22 and ended in downtown Taipei yesterday, concluding a march of 22 days.
The association submitted a petition to the legislature, stating that the extensions were illegal and unconstitutional and urged the legislature to hold a public hearing on the case and pass the compensation legislation as soon as possible.
“I missed a lot of time with my family for having to serve that extra year. Some of my comrades broke up with their girlfriends at the time. Those things were irreparable,” said a 56-year-old veteran surnamed Chen (陳), who served as a signal troop and currently lives in Sinjhuang District (新莊), New Taipei City (新北市).
Chen and other veterans also condemned the Ministry of National Defense, which insisted that the extensions, which was carried out in the form of an executive order, was legal, and said the current administration’s claim of budget shortcomings was an excuse to discourage the legislation.
“We never said we wanted a large amount of compensation nor did we say we want the money now, but the government will not admit it made a mistake. That’s the problem,” said DPP Taipei City Councilor Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘), himself a veteran of the 1st Special Forces and currently the deputy chair of the association.
If the government could spend more than NT$215 million (US$7.15 million) in two nights for a musical and NT$13.5 billion for the Taipei International Flora Expo, it should not use budgeting as an excuse, Chiang said.
The association said its members would demand legislative candidates in their districts to support the bill ahead of the January legislative elections and it does not rule out organizing more protests if their voices are not heard.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods