Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in 1994 agreed to donate US$10 million to South Africa's heavily indebted African National Congress (ANC) to sustain Taipei-Pretoria ties, a retired veteran diplomat admitted for the first time yesterday.
"Beijing had paid US$10 million then and we simply matched it," former ambassador to South Africa Loh I-cheng (
Loh's remark came in the wake of the disclosure of confidential National Security Bureau (NSB) documents in the local press yesterday.
Loh said that after learning the ANC under Nelson Mandela was loaded with debt of US$20 million after the first all-race elections in 1994 that brought Mandela to power, he reported the situation to Lee during his visit to Pretoria for Mandela's presidential inauguration ceremony.
"The president said he was very impressed by Mandela and asked me if there's anything we could do to help the ANC. So I suggested that if we could help with half of the debt, Mandela would be most grateful," Loh recalled.
Loh also stressed the amount offered to the ANC then was US$10 million, adding that he had no idea why the leaked NSB document said the figure was US$11 million.
According to a China Times report, Lee, after his return from Pretoria, requested that the foreign ministry offer the donation to the ANC, but the ministry said it would have difficulty coming up with such a large donation.
Lee then asked the NSB to retrieve US$ 11 million from an alleged secret fund to advance the donation, and the foreign ministry several years later agreed to reimburse US$10.7 million to the NSB, the report said.
Control Yuan President Fred-erick Chien (錢復), who served as the foreign minister in 1994, yesterday said he was unaware of the alleged donation.
When contacted by the Taipei Times, Yang Ching-chih (楊清吉), a former foreign ministry accountant who reportedly handled the reimbursement of the donation to the NSB, said "the matter had nothing to do with me."
In fact, Taiwan's US$10 million donation to the ANC was not news in South Africa as a South African journalist, Gaye Davis, reported the deal in a Dec. 8, 1995 article in the Weekly Mail & Guardian.
"President Nelson Mandela has cited a US$10 million donation from the Republic of China on Taiwan for the African National Congress' general election campaign as one reason South Africa would not break ties with the island republic in favor of diplomatic relations with mainland China," Davis wrote in her story.
Mandela then said the money was given as "a donation and not a bribe" and that the ANC would not repay a friend's favor by "stabbing them in the back," the report said.
The 1995 report also said that then-ambassador Loh had insisted no donation had been made.
Mandela announced at the end of 1997 that South Africa would sever ties with Taipei to establish links with Beijing, just months after saying such a step would be "immoral" as Taiwan had been a good friend to his ruling ANC.
A drunk woman was sexually assaulted inside a crowded concourse of Taipei Railway Station on Thursday last week before a foreign tourist notified police, leading to calls for better education on bystander intervention and review of security infrastructure. The man, surnamed Chiu (邱), was taken into custody on charges of sexual assault, taking advantage of the woman’s condition and public indecency. Police discovered that Chiu was a fugitive with prior convictions for vehicle theft. He has been taken into custody and is to complete his unserved six-month sentence, police said. On Thursday last week, Chiu was seen wearing a white
The Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union yesterday vowed to protest at the EVA Air Marathon on Sunday next week should EVA Airway Corp’s management continue to ignore the union’s petition to change rules on employees’ leave of absence system, after a flight attendant reportedly died after working on a long-haul flight while ill. The case has generated public discussion over whether taking personal or sick leave should affect a worker’s performance review. Several union members yesterday protested at the Legislative Yuan, holding white flowers and placards, while shouting: “Life is priceless; requesting leave is not a crime.” “The union is scheduled to meet with
‘UNITED FRONT’ RHETORIC: China’s TAO also plans to hold weekly, instead of biweekly, news conferences because it wants to control the cross-strait discourse, an expert said China’s plan to expand its single-entry visa-on-arrival service to Taiwanese would be of limited interest to Taiwanese and is a feeble attempt by Chinese administrators to demonstrate that they are doing something, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said the program aims to facilitate travel to China for Taiwanese compatriots, regardless of whether they are arriving via direct flights or are entering mainland China through Hong Kong, Macau or other countries, and they would be able to apply for a single-entry visa-on-arrival at all eligible entry points in China. The policy aims
The government yesterday donated US$200,000 to the Philippines to support post-earthquake relief and recovery efforts, following a powerful magnitude 6.9 quake that struck Cebu Province late last month, killing at least 72 people and injuring 559 others. The donation was presented earlier yesterday by Representative to the Philippines Wallace Chow (周民淦) to Cherbett Maralit, deputy resident representative of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, at Taiwan’s representative office in Manila. In his remarks, Chow expressed concern for those affected by the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck the central Philippines on the night of Sept. 30. "We sincerely hope for the earliest possible
RSS