By Tim Culpan
Newsweek International
source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7169968/site/newsweek/


March 21 issue - It's a story worthy of a Hollywood thriller—preferably directed by Oliver Stone, with a dash of Monty Python. An incumbent president facing potential defeat in a bitterly fought campaign survives an assassination attempt less than a day before polls open. The election goes ahead, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian wins by a mere 0.22 percent margin and the opposition cries foul. As the first anniversary of the shooting nears, investigators have yet to find a shooter, a motive or even a weapon. So desperate is prosecutor Wang Sen-rong to crack the case that he asks the gods for guidance at a local temple. Their response—in the form of divination cards—is that he'll "reap a crop soon."

And reap he did. Enter Chen Yi-hsiung in the cameo role of the disgruntled voter. Investigators said last week that the unemployed man pulled the trigger at a March 19 campaign rally last year. But they can't question him—because he's been dead for almost a year. Blaming the president for his financial difficulties, Chen (no relation to Chen Shui-bian) supposedly sought revenge, according to family statements. Then he killed himself by drowning the following week. Chen was on an initial list of suspects, but detectives finally fingered him by listening to phone-tapped conversations. In one such call earlier this month, family members reportedly spoke of destroying a confessional suicide note, although Criminal Investigation Bureau Commissioner Hou Yu-ih declined in an interview to identify the speaker, or even to verify that the tapes exist.

The evidence is scant. Chen, it turns out, is the man who was shown in security footage wearing a yellow jacket and running from the scene. Commissioner Hou told NEWSWEEK that Chen's family and friends identified him soon after the video aired, but he wasn't questioned before his death. According to a statement from his widow after the breakthrough phone intercept, Chen left three suicide notes saying he did it. All were destroyed by family members. The family says Chen himself reduced the famous yellow jacket to ashes in the household shrine.

The lack of credible evidence—no note, no jacket, no gun—has sent media and conspiracy theorists into a frenzy. The new police theory "seems like a trap for the Taiwan people because it didn't answer many questions," says Chu Hung-yuan, author of "Shooting the President?" His book, released last June, is part of a mountain of documentation offered by the opposition as evidence that Chen staged the shooting to attract sympathetic voters. Chu and other doubters don't believe official explanations about the bullet's trajectory, or about the grazing stomach wound suffered by the president.

The opposition maintained that the shot swung the election, and led supporters in protest against the shooting and alleged electoral irregularities. Weeks of upheaval and even riots ensued. So determined were they to prove their case that the opposition Kuo-mintang-People First Party alliance launched two un-successful and very expensive high-court cases. Un-perturbed, President Chen pushed ahead with his second term, leaving the opposition flat-footed on day-to-day political issues while they remained fixated on the lost election.

Now that the wound has been reopened, the KMT is back baying for blood. It says that the new information doesn't solve the crime, or that it proves the administration is hiding something. The KMT vows to pursue its own investigation. Even the administration wonders about the latest plot twist. "It's not correct to say [Chen Yi-hsiung] is definitely the gunman," says presidential spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (no relation). Prime Minister Frank Hsieh, a close ally of the president, went further. "I personally think that it is out of the ordinary for someone to attempt suicide in their new clothes," he was quoted as saying. Hou countered that in Taiwan, suicide victims often dress well before killing themselves. Polls indicate that more than half of all Taiwanese don't believe police accounts that Chen Yi-hsiung was the would-be assassin.

Whether Chen the disgruntled was the shooter or not, he has taken the spotlight off Chen the president. Although the hard-core opposition is convinced the shooting was staged, the case has become more of a sideshow than a serious political problem for the president. The public is increasingly apathetic, and one of the chief proponents of the conspiracy theory, PFP Chairman James Soong, has since cozied up to Chen Shui-bian. With the anniversary of the shooting this week, the KMT is hoping to muster a crowd of 100,000 for a protest, a fraction of the estimated 500,000 that turned out right after the election. But even the opposition concedes it may never know just who shot the president. Says KMT legislator Joanna Lei, "I don't think we'll ever find the truth."

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.