Protesters and police yesterday clashed as scores of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members attempted to storm the building housing the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, while several high-level KMT officials were inside examining records of a committee hearing last month concerning two KMT-owned investment companies.
Shouting slogans such as “No truth without justice” and “Unjust [committee chairman] Wellington Koo (顧立雄), illegal Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee,” members of the party’s Youth League and Taipei-based women’s affairs division gathered outside the committee’s building in Zhongshan District (中山) at about 9:30am.
Several protesters threw eggs and bundles of ghost money at the building, while others tried to break through police lines, only to be carried away by police.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“Although there are only 200 of us standing before the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee today, we represent all the 23 million people of Taiwan,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said, urging KMT supporters to make their voices heard through all possible channels.
The protest took place concurrently with three KMT officials’ examination of records of the Cabinet-affiliated committee’s Oct. 7 hearing, which was held to determine whether Central Investment Co and its subsidiary Hsinyutai Co ought to be classified as KMT affiliate organizations and if their shares should be transferred to the government.
The committee on Nov. 1 concluded that the two companies are KMT affiliate organizations, and on Friday ruled that since they were founded using illegally obtained assets, all KMT shareholdings in the firms must be turned over to the government.
Photo: CNA
“We are here today for three purposes. First is to carefully examine records of the hearing to see if they truthfully reflected what we had expressed, because we spotted many mistakes during our preliminary check,” KMT Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) said.
Chiu said they also intended to review recordings of the hearing, if any, to understand how the committee arrived at its decision and whether they were made based on Koo’s opinions alone.
As many documents — such as those concerning how the Central Investment Co was founded in 1971, which were originally kept at the Ministry of Economic Affairs — have been retrieved by the committee, thus making them inaccessible to the KMT, Chiu said they also planned to examine those files in the committee.
At a press conference held later yesterday, Chiu accused the committee of engaging in “black-box operations,” saying a committee staff member asked to receive them was utterly unhelpful.
“The female staff member, surnamed Chu (朱), refused to show us the investigation records and the minutes of the meeting between the committee and former KMT treasurers Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) and Hsu Li-teh (徐立德), saying we did not file a formal request,” Chiu said.
Chiu said his inquiries regarding whether the committee had presented documents provided by the KMT relating to the party’s founding capital for Central Investment to all committee members were also dismissed.
He added that he was denied access to minutes of the committee’s meeting on Friday and its finalized letter of disposition.
“Even if it is a court case, all relevant investigation and court documents are available to the public. Why does the committee refuse to make public its documents? If this is not ‘black-box operation,’ then what is?” Chiu said.
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