Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), the former information division acting director at the nation’s representative office in Toronto who on Monday admitted he wrote a number of articles smearing Taiwan and Taiwanese, yesterday revealed that he once handed over confidential papers regarding the assassination of writer Henry Liu (劉宜良) to Liu’s wife.
Liu, a vocal critic of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) also known by his pen name Chiang Nan (江南), was assassinated at his home in California in 1984 in what many believe was a political murder. He was most famous for writing an unauthorized biography of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).
In an interview with TVBS aired yesterday, Kuo told the story about the Chiang Nan case in a bid to prove that he had been a “patriotic person,” in response to the criticism he has received over the articles written under the pen name Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽).
Kuo said that he revealed confidential government information to Liu’s family after the murder when he was a Government Information Office (GIO) official stationed in New York.
“What I did at that time betrayed the government … During the authoritarian era, the government killed a man. It should not do that. In terms of administrative ethics, Kuo Kuan-ying violated ethics rules. But in terms of high moral standards, he was patriotic and he did that for the good of the country,” Kuo said in the interview.
Tsui Jung-chih (崔蓉芝), Liu’s widow, later yesterday confirmed Kuo’s remarks when she was contacted by TVBS. Tsui said she was given some information by Kuo after the death of her husband in which she learned how the government planned to deal with her.
In the interview, Kuo said that the Fan Lan-chin incident had forced him to “come out of the closet politically.”
“Over the past 20 years, I have been patriotic while keeping my identity hidden,” he said. “After the [Fan Lan-chin incident], I am forced to be patriotic using my real name.”
Kuo said that his “biggest wish in the remainder of his life was to live in a stable province of Taiwan unified with China.”
The GIO on Monday issued Kuo two demerits and relieved him of his civil servant status for his “inconsistent” explanations to the GIO on whether he was Fan and a series of remarks he made to the media that the GIO considered a “declared defiance of the government.”
Kuo was not disciplined for the articles written under the pen name that smeared Taiwan and Taiwanese.
GIO Personnel Office Director Kuo Cheng-sheng (郭忠聖) said yesterday that whether the freedom of speech of civil servants should be compromised because of their post should be determined by the Judicial Yuan’s Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries and not the GIO.
Kuo Kuan-ying said in the TVBS interview that the GIO had punished him out of “political concerns,” but added that he did not harbor resentment against the GIO for taking disciplinary action against him.
“I didn’t feel that I lost too much [because of the incident]. I lost my pension and my position, but I earned the country a big advantage and earned myself a reputation … This is a reward for me as a Chinese. I do not blame anyone. I am very satisfied,” he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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