Cabinet grilled over melamine scandal
ANGRY LEGISLATORS: DPP lawmakers called for heads to roll, accusing the government of reacting too slowly after learning that stores were selling tainted products
By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008, Page 1
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday grilled Health Minister Lin Fang-yue (林芳郁) and Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) over the government’s response to the melamine scandal, panning the government for not pulling tainted products from store shelves.
At a meeting of the legislature’s Health, Environment and Labor Committee yesterday, DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) asked Lin whether Maxwell instant coffee, the brand served to legislative staff, contained melamine.
Lin responded by saying: “The toxicity is limited if you don’t drink it very often.”
Lai pressed on, saying the instant coffee was imported from China, to which Lin replied that although the Department of Health had banned milk powder, dairy products and products containing plant protein from China, it would not recall products that had already entered the country.
“Your logic is all wrong,” Lai said, calling for all unsafe products to be recalled.
After taking the podium, DPP Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩) offered Chiu, who doubles as chairman of the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC), and Lin each a cup of Maxwell coffee.
The two hesitated to take the cups, at which point Chen asked: “Didn’t you say as long as you drink lots of water, you can clear your body of melamine?”
In June, a Taiwanese company imported 1,000 25kg bags of Chinese milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical and sold them to food processing factories to be used in cakes, beverages and calcium tablets.
On Sunday, the concerns over tainted products spread as King Car Industrial Co (金車) recalled eight of its products containing non-dairy creamer from China, all of which tested positive for melamine.
Another six companies that use non-dairy creamer from China sent their products to be tested for melamine yesterday.
The health department also said it had tested 18 locally produced brands of fresh milk and found no melamine.
At the meeting yesterday, Chen mocked Lin, bowing her head in prayer as a reference to a comment Lin made in June during the enterovirus outbreak, when he said he would rely on prayer if the outbreak persisted.
Accusing health officials and the CPC of responding too slowly after learning that tainted products were being sold in Taiwan, Chen “prayed” that God give these officials “capacity, determination and a sense of shame and responsibility.”
Asked by Chen whether any officials should step down to take responsibility, Chiu said the officials had done everything they should to deal with the tainted products.
In response to companies that have said the ban on select imports from China would hurt their business, Lin asked them to “withstand this temporary pain to grow in the long run.”
Noting that Japanese agriculture minister Seiichi Ota had resigned on Friday over his ministry’s handling of imported rice tainted with mold and pesticide, DPP Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) asked who should resign over the milk scandal.
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Chiu replied. “All this time health officials have worked hard ... There’s no need to kill a person every time [a problem arises].”
At a separate setting yesterday, Control Yuan member Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) said he would start a probe this week to determine whether there were any irregularities in the government’s handling of the scandal.
Cheng said he planned to question officials at the health department, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Council of Agriculture to determine whether information was withheld from the public about the contamination or whether there had been any failings in cross-strait communication on food safety.
The government should conduct a thorough examination of all dairy products on the market and demand businesses pull questionable products immediately, he said.
Dissident fed up with Taiwan
HOMESICK?: Cai Lujun, who spent three years in a Chinese jail for criticizing Beijing, said that he was tired of being a ‘half ghost’ in Taiwan and wanted to go home
DPA, TAIPEI
Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008, Page 3
A Chinese dissident, angry that Taiwan has not granted him permanent asylum, yesterday asked the government to send him back to China.
Cai Lujun (蔡陸軍), 40, said he made the request because he could no longer endure the “endless wait” for asylum and the humiliation of living like a “half ghost, half human being.”
He said he is not afraid of imprisonment in China for defecting to Taiwan, because it would be better being jailed in China than begging for food and waiting indefinitely for asylum in Taiwan.
In a statement entitled “The Taiwan and US Governments, Please Remember: I am a Human Being!” Cai also blasted the US for rejecting his asylum application, calling it a coward before China.
Cai applied for asylum in the US with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Sept. 11.
The AIT turned him down on the grounds that Taiwan has a well-established mechanism to protect asylum seekers.
Cai, a former businessman in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China, was jailed for three years in 2003 for criticizing China’s government on the Internet.
On July 26 last year he fled to Taiwan on a Taiwan fishing boat to seek asylum.
Cai was kept in a detention center for illegal Chinese job seekers for three months and was released in December, after Taipei confirmed that he was a bona fide defector.
Then began the long wait to be granted asylum.
The Mainland Affairs Council promised to grant asylum to Cai and four other Chinese pro-democracy activists — some of whom have been in Taiwan for four years — or find a third country to accept them.
But the council said it could not grant asylum now as an asylum bill is still pending review in the legislature. Its effort to help them find asylum in a foreign country has been futile because most countries have diplomatic ties with China and do not want to offend Beijing by sheltering Chinese dissidents.
Cai lives on a NT$10,000 monthly subsidy and cannot work, receive public healthcare or apply for a cellphone because he does not have permanent residence.
After holding several news conferences and a half-day hunger strike in front of the Presidential Office, Cai said he had lost faith in the Taiwanese government and wanted to go home, even if he faces jail in China.
“After one year’s painful experience in Taiwan, I now want to return to China. China is a scoundrel and it admits it is a scoundrel. Taiwan is more shameless than China because it claims to be a nation of freedom and democracy but does not respect human rights,” he said by telephone.
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| BASKING IN THE SUN A sun halo, usually caused by the interaction of sunlight on atmospheric ice crystals, is seen behind a Rothschild giraffe as it leans over a wall to take food from the hands of visitors at The Giraffe Center in the Lang’ata suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday. Run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, The Giraffe Center was founded in 1979 and aims to protect the Rothschild giraffe. PHOTO: AP |
A sovereign disorder
I totally agree with the Liberty Times editorial’s characterization of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies as suggestive of a person with multiple personality disorder. (“President Ma gives away the store,” Sept. 15, page 8).
I could go further and say that Ma and his diehard Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) followers seem to suffer from a developmental disorder given that they continue to dwell in the past, thinking and believing that they still live in a country called the Republic of China (ROC), which exists only in history books.
In an interview with a Mexican reporter, Ma said the government should not waste time and effort trying to resolve the sovereignty issue. (“‘State to state’ theory is dead, Ma says,” Sept. 4, page 1). I wonder how much time and effort Ma’s administration has actually spent on this issue other than making hints at unconditional surrender.
The problem of Taiwan’s sovereignty will be solved as soon as the president is willing to declare that the country’s name is no longer Republic of China in light of the UN’s “one China” policy, which recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and not the ROC.
Ma and his followers have been trying hard to bury Taiwanese sovereignty even though Taiwan is regarded around the world as an independent country. His administration has actively refused to insist on Taiwan’s status in the world arena, and without any real pressure from outside.
I guess Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and his people in the PRC must be overjoyed at seeing Ma surrender his title as president and then his country’s sover “Long live the ROC” will not resurrect it from obscurity.
I hope the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will use the Double Ten festivities to organize some protest action by chanting “Long Live Taiwan,” which represents the only hope of a future for Taiwanese.
Top DPP officials should conduct public education campaigns from time to time to encourage people to demand the government hold a referendum on changing the nation’s title from the ROC to the “Republic of Taiwan,” or just “Taiwan.” If not, Taiwan will be gobbled up.
Kris Liao
San Francisco, California
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