Fri, Sep 17, 2004 page3

• Legislative hopeful slams pan-blue groups' `smears'

  • By Debby Wu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Activist groups such as Truth of Taiwan Presidential Election Alliance (TTPEA) that run advertisements attacking Pres-ident Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in Washington have close ties to the pan-blue camp, with some members also having close ties to China, a Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative candidate said yesterday.

  David Huang (黃適卓), son of TSU chairman Huang Chu-wen (黃主文), alleged yesterday that several groups, including the TTPEA and the Alliance for Truth in Taiwan Presidential Election (ATTPE), had been running advertisements in US media to slander Chen and discredit the presidential election.

  "One advertisement even compared Chen to Adolf Hitler, and this is an insult to Taiwan. The groups also ignored the choice made by Taiwanese voters," Huang said.

  Huang said that the Hitler advertisement was similar to one made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance during the presidential election campaign. Huang then said that these groups running advertisements in Washington had close ties with the pan-blue camp.

  "For example, since March 20 the head of the ATTPE, Chen Chuang-fei (陳壯飛), has worked with Dai Qi (戴錡) and Li Jingfen (李競芬), two members of the China-backed Strait Peaceful Re-unification Association, in spending big bucks on running the advertisement `Going to War over Taiwan's Illegitimate President,'" Huang said.

  "Though ATTPE changed its name later on, the association's spokesman, Stan Tsai (蔡德樑), was a convenor for the New Party in Washington and has repeatedly promoted reunification," he said.

  Huang also showed a news report dated Aug. 5 from China's Xinhua Net (新華網) quoting Tsai as saying that "one China, two systems" was a great idea, and that the Hong Kong model would assist in peaceful reunification with China.

  "These groups have claimed that they are non-partisan, yet their advertisements have become a part of China's reunification propaganda. The pan-blue camp should explain its connections to these groups," Huang said.

  The New Party was not happy to hear the accusations.

  "The Democratic Progressive Party used to do the same thing in the US too!" Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) said when asked if Tsai was the New Party's former convenor in Washington.

  The two groups have been the subject of controversy since an e-mail campaign targeted members of the US Congress and advertisements in the Congressional newspaper Roll Call were placed.

  The e-mail -- titled "US Gov-ernment Backing `Taiwan Hitler' for a War?" -- was sent to members of Congress earlier this month and can be viewed on the Internet (www.2bullets.com/index.htm).

  Mugshots of Chen and Hitler are placed alongside one another in the e-mail, which also says that Taiwan will provoke a cross-strait conflict and labels Chen a warmonger who relies on US support.

  The e-mail also asked the US not to side with Chen because "Chen is an illegitimate president who stole a fraudulent election."

  The Web site provides a link to a pan-blue supporters' club in Seattle (panblue.org).

  The half-page Roll Call ad was sponsored by the TTPEA and the "Chinese-American Alliance for Democracy in Taiwan."

  Titled "In Taiwan, Dead People Can Vote!" the ad claims Chen won re-election through trickery.
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