~Taiwan Church News

3276 Edition

December 8 - 14, 2014

Editorial

Editorial: It's Time To Release "Bian-vera"!

"Look! Bian-vera comes up again to save the game!", in a metaphoric usage of NY Yankee's legendary relief pitcher - Mariano Rivera, becomes a very popular and sarcastic response circulated among Taiwan youth when they comment on KMT's adept maneuvers to rescue themselves from political troubles. So, who is "Ben-vera"? He is our former Taiwan President, Mr Chen Shui-bian(A-bian), who has been jailed behind bars since 2008. Every time when President Ma Ying-jeou attributes his policy failures to the imprisoned A-bian, especially some pan-blue believers are easily persuaded to buy those stories, the young folks in social media can tell immediately in a black humor that Bian-vera has come back to save KMT's losing game!

Reflecting a series of shocking political events since 2008, including a flooding protest of Red Shirt Army, the immediate indictment and custody of a just veteran national leader, A-bian was mercilessly humiliated and painted by most media as a corrupt President from 2000 to 2008. Even though over a trillion NT dollars had been saved or costed down for Taiwan's finance budget in his terms, A-bian was still prosecuted for the crime of embezzlement when he stepped down. In 2008, except a few die-hard fans would give A-bian warm support and applaud whatsoever, Taiwan society were dominantly persuaded by KMT propaganda and the media that A-bian is corrupt for sure. But, after a severe test of time after 6 years, we cannot help but ask: Are the alleged facts of A-bian's cases really guilty as prosecuted by the legal systems and reported by the media?

Why almost all A-bian's cases, related to various charges of corruption, embezzlement, money laundry and leakage of national secret documents, are either closing files without further indictment or ends up as not guilty? The only guilty verdict toward A-bian is the case of Long-Tam Land Deal, which sentence is highly contentious under a seemingly politically-motivated judge, regardless of the witness' testimony that he was instigated by Special Investigation Division to submit untrue witness. Many phenomenon and traces tell us that the humiliated indictment and custody of A-bian is a political oppression and cleanse in essence, yet with a human face in the name of justice. Since an image of a corrupt and grafting A-bian has been made stereotyped in the mind of the Taiwanese, who can return justice back to A-bian?

From the very first day A-bian was sent into jail, PCT pastors and believers never stop paying their routine visits and pastoral comfort to our veteran President. Seeing A-bian's health becomes deteriorated day by day, the political opposition between pan-green and pan-blue polarized without ends, PCT's calling to release our former President from a human rights and justice consideration is more and more louder and urgent!

Mariano Rivera, the greatest ever NY Yankee relief pitcher, has stepped down from his pitcher plate and retired from his glorious baseball career. We cannot help but wonder: when President Ma Ying-jeou would release his political relief pitcher "Bian-vera"(A-bian), who was always played as the ace of trumps in the past 6 six years in Ma's crisis but not anymore after KMT's landslide failure of nine-in-one super-election?