Civilians and government officials yesterday paid tribute to former Air Force pilot Chen Huai (陳懷) on the 50th anniversary of his death. Chen died when the Chinese military shot down the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft he was flying.
ceremony
The ceremony held by civilians including Roger Hsi (習賢德), a professor of journalism at Fu Jen Catholic University, Yang Hua-kun, a younger cousin of Chen, and three former members of the Black Cat Squadron took place at the Air Force’s martyrs tomb in Sindian District (新店), New Taipei City (新北市).
National Security Council Secretary-General Hu Wei-jen (胡為真) and the chief of the air force’s political warfare department, Lieutenant General Wu Wan-chiao (吳萬教), represented the government and military in their tributes to Chen.
Hsi said because Chen did not marry and his direct relatives live in Fuzhou, in China’s Fujian Province, they have been unable to go to Taiwan to apply to the government for compensation and have not received any compensation for his death in 50 years.
He said compensation for Chen’s sacrifice for the country is a matter of morality and justice and he hoped the government could find a way to compensate the family.
compensation
Yang said Chen’s parents suffered oppression in China after Chen’s death. The military later said in a press statement that according to the Act Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), Chinese nationals who are family members of martyrs could receive compensation but because Chen’s parents have died, no one could apply for compensation.
Before Chen was killed above Jiangxi Province, he had flown three other operational missions in the U-2.
The Black Cat squadron flew U-2 surveillance planes and collected intelligence information from 1961 to 1974.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS