Pioneering democracy activists yesterday reminisced about the establishment and the achievements of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) ahead of its 30th anniversary and said the organization’s main goal would be safeguarding Taiwan’s sovereignty.
“In terms of diplomacy and protection of human rights in Taiwan, the association has done more in the past 30 years than the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration has,” former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) and former foreign minister Mark Chen (陳唐山), FAPA’s first and second presidents, told a press conference.
Chai and Chen, high-school classmates in Chiayi, had never imagined that they would enjoy prominent political careers when they began advocating independence for Taiwan in the US in the 1960s and established the FAPA in Los Angeles, California, on Dec. 8, 1982.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Today, FAPA is a Washington-based lobbying organization made up of 53 chapters and more than 3,000 members that promotes Taiwan-US relations and cooperation as well as rights and interests of the Taiwanese.
According to Chai, the birth of FAPA was accidental because the overseas Taiwanese students wanted to establish a radio station in Guam at first.
With the Taiwanese-American community’s success to help Taiwan gain a quota of 20,000 immigrants to the US per year — after the original quota of 20,000 was given to China due to the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the US, democracy advocates in the US thought it was the right time to establish an organization like FAPA.
“Young people are probably not aware of what the FAPA has done, because they are too young to experience the Martial Law period and the days of serious infringement of human rights in Taiwan. But I’m proud to say that FAPA had played a pivotal role in helping Taiwan become a democracy it is today,” Chen said.
However, Chen said the organization would have to shift its focus from human rights to Taiwan’s sovereignty, as the latter had been eroded tremendously since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) is scheduled to make a speech at the ceremony of FAPA’s 30th anniversary, which former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and DPP representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) would also attend, at San Jose, California, on Saturday.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS