The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office earlier this month began investigating the Taiwan Civil Government (台灣民政府) group for alleged financial irregularities, mainly focusing on its founder and secretary-general Roger Lin Chih-sheng (林志昇).
Following raids of the group’s headquarters and residences on May 9, Lin, 67, has been detained and has had his communications restricted.
Prosecutors said that Lin has made more than NT$300 million (US$10.02 million) in illegal profits from business schemes, but revised the estimate to more than NT$1 billion based on new evidence and testimony by former members.
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Taipei Times
Charges of fraud, money laundering and related offenses are pending in the case, after searches uncovered NT$130 million in cash at Lin’s residence, along with deposits of NT$6 million and US$520,000 divided over seven bank accounts and ownership of five properties.
The group is generally seen as an unorthodox civic organization engaged in political dissent, following a fantastical ideology and meddling in the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty. Its image has been tainted by allegations of selling fraudulent documents and papers, and profiteering through sales of the group’s “government positions” and other questionable financial schemes.
The group was in 2008 founded by Lin and Richard Hartzell, a US citizen and rights campaigner living in Taiwan who believes that the US Government, not the Republic of China (ROC) government, has legitimate sovereignty over Taiwan, based on his interpretation of the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
In an article, Hartzell wrote: “The ROC was the legal government of China as referred to in World War II. However, the ROC failed to maintain its legal position when it fled to Taiwan in late 1949. As of late April 1952, with the coming into force of the SFPT [San Francisco Peace Treaty], the ROC was not the legally recognized government of Taiwan; it was merely a subordinate occupying power and government in exile.”
Taiwan Civil Government members, in line with Lin and Hartzell’s narrative, asserted that Japan and the wartime US Military Government (USMG) still have a legitimate claim over Taiwan, because the post-war treaties and international process did not finalize Taiwan’s political status.
Lin and Hartzell asserted that all Taiwanese have the right to US citizenship and the group’s officials promised that the USMG would take over Taiwan in 2012, which was later revised to 2016.
Although the group espouses pro-Japanese and pro-US viewpoints, most Taiwanese independence advocates and political activists have rejected the group as holding an extremist ideology and eccentric political views, and have avoided any association with it.
Most campaigners in the Taiwanese independence movement understood early on that the group was a fraudulent operation, an illegal profit-making scheme by Lin and his associates, Taiwan Nation-Building Forum member Chang Chun-jung (張春榮) said.
“It was based on fabricated history and fantasy tales, using obscure international documents and dubious claims about the US government’s position as the leading Allied occupying power in East Asia during the post-war period,” Chang said. “With the help of some American friends, Lin painted a pie in the sky to brainwash the gullible, especially the elderly generation, and to cheat them out of money.”
“It was a big political delusion which was quite effective, because it preyed on many Taiwanese people’s desire to rid themselves of the shackles of the ROC imposed by the former exiled Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime and to sever Taiwan’s political attachment to China,” Chang said.
The Taiwan Civil Government sold its members the group’s “Citizen ID” cards, printed with the “USMG” logo, which they asserted granted holders access to and residency rights in the US, along with the right to free education in the US, but these claims have been dismissed by the American Institute in Taiwan.
The group also sold fictional government positions for up to NT$30 million in the case of top offices, with Lin claiming the titles would confer the right to take up office as mayor, county or township chief, or government minister in the event of the USMG governing Taiwan as a US territory.
Former group member Tsai Chao-peng (蔡朝鵬) told prosecutors that he paid more than NT$10 million for the group’s documents and ID cards, and a big sum to become “head minister of Tainan Prefecture,” and he also persuaded family members to sign up.
Tsai said he began to have doubts when Lin pushed back the promised date of the US government dismantling the ROC and taking over from 2012 to 2016.
After delving into the details and checking the group’s claims, Tsai said he realized that he had been duped, and started to collect evidence and bring together members who had similar doubts.
Last year, Tsai spearheaded an effort to file a judicial complaint against Lin and other Taiwan Civil Government officials at the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office.
Hartzell was quoted by local media as saying that he publicly renounced his association with the group in 2012 and denying any connection to the alleged financial schemes operated by Lin.
Accusing Lin of deceiving the public, he was quoted as saying: “Lin claimed that he had close contact and conferred with top officials at the US departments of state and defense, as well as the CIA. That was not true at all, it was distorting the facts.”
“The claim that the US government had authorized the Taiwan Civil Government to give classes and train people for top government offices was also a lie,” Hartzell was quoted as saying.
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