After stealing from the people of Taiwan for more more than half a century, thereby amassing a fortune that has been consistently used to corrupt elections and most recently as an economic weapon against the DPP government, the thieving KMT may be about to get its comeuppance. It might however be a little premature to break out the champagne. The road from the Control Yuan's findings last week to seeing the KMT stripped of its ill-gotten gains is not an easy one.
The Control Yuan's findings were, in themselves, hazy. They were that the KMT was probably guilty of embezzling 133 buildings and other properties from the assets of the Japanese colonial government to its own pocket in the late 1940s, and in a 30-year spree of kleptomania from 1958 to 1987 transferred at least 86 tracts of land and 37 other properties from government ownership into party hands -- free of charge.
The Control Yuan's findings do not constitute a thorough accounting of the depredations of the KMT on Taiwan during its 50 years of kleptocracy. Rather they cite the best documented cases of illegality as a means of showing the need for a root and branch investigation by the judiciary of all the KMT's assets.
Of course the KMT blathers that there is no value in the Control Yuan report and the Cabinet's order for an investigation is simply a rather dirty election tactic. Nonsense. What better time for the government to remind everyone that the KMT is as much a criminal racket as a political party than just before they go to the polls. Perhaps the DPP is learning from the example of the KMT itself which decided to reveal James Soong's status as a fraudster just three months before the last presidential election. What is sauce for the KMT goose is surely suitable for the DPP gander.
For a criminal, the problem with land is that it leaves a documentary paper trail -- who acquired it and from whom and how -- which is why the Control Yuan's findings center around land and property transfers. The KMT's other activities of self-enrichment on the island -- its looting of banking assets in the form of acquiring illegal loans from state-owned banks, and its shameless manipulation of the stock market to finance its election campaigns as well as launder its kickbacks -- are more difficult to get to the bottom of. The ironic thing is that this should be a problem for the KMT. Actually it is a problem for the rest of us. What do you do when your major opposition party is also a criminal gang? To what extent does busting the KMT for its racketeering thereby constitute a weakening of democracy?
Eastern Europe provides several models for post-communist countries dealing with the assets of their communist parties, ranging from the simple abolition of the party and the seizing of its assets by the state -- Poland -- through the voluntary surrender of those assets to a public social welfare fund -- Hungary -- to the painstaking examination of the assets by a government commission leading to the confiscation of those illegally obtained and the retention of those legitimately acquired, as in Germany. Before the presidential election last year Chen Shui-bian on several occasions spoke approvingly of the German model, but the issue seems to have been left on the back burner until now.
To be certain, little is likely to be done as long as the KMT controls the legislature, which is why the electorate needs to be reminded of why not to vote for the party of pickpockets. Assuming that the party fails to buy the Dec. 1 elections -- though it will certainly try -- progress might be made at last.
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