Foreign Agent Registration Act disclosures to the Department of Justice reveal that Taiwan Civil Government spent $73,000 to create the Taiwanese American Chamber of Commerce. TCG controls four of the five members of the TACC board. A TCG delegation was at the launch party and occupied a table at center stage.
Neil Hare, TCG lobbyist and registered Foreign Agent, is head of the new Chamber of Commerce chapter. During the launch presentation Hare cited his relationship with Taiwan Civil Government as his qualification to form TACC. It was Hare’s report to the Department of Justice that revealed the $73,000 expenditure.
According to the FARA filing, the money was for “Website, Branding & TACC Incorporation.” Hare’s report includes no itemization for the cost of the fancy launch party. There is one unexplained category called “Advertising, Shipping, and Event Expenses” of $232,047.94. With no further information provided, the Department of Justice cannot say how much TCG actually allocated to form TACC.
The $73,000 payment was made on April 20, 2018, three weeks before the fraud arrests of TCG founder Roger Lin and others. Lin is accused of deceiving group members with false claims about identification cards. At the time of the payment, planning was underway for a meeting with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and a TCG delegation at a Heritage Foundation event in May 2018 sponsored by Taiwan Civil Government. The start-up of TACC would have been a good overture to Ross but the Commerce Secretary abruptly pulled out minutes before the start of the Heritage forum on Asian trade issues.
A Roll Call Live program with two unnamed Representatives the same day, also sponsored by TCG, was abruptly canceled signaling that Washington insiders became aware of the arrests a week earlier.
Taiwan’s longstanding “strategic ambiguity” and imposed rule by the exiled Republic of China have created a multitude of small groups and parties seeking Taiwan sovereignty. Taiwan Civil Government, formed in 2008, has become one of the most vocal, and flush, advocacy groups. Shunned by the larger Taiwan independence movement, TCG members wear uniforms, march in parades, and urge the United States to expel the ROC from Taiwan. The stoutly pro-American group displays portraits of Donald Trump in its offices around Taiwan and sponsored several Trump inauguration events.
In May 2017, at a POLITICO event sponsored by TCG, Julian Lin met with presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway. Julian, wife of Roger Lin, is also accused of making false claims about the TCG identification card and faces trial. Julian has testified that she was able to use her TCG card as identification to enter the United Nations building in New York and the National Press Club in Washington.
Although TCG is hard at work developing a shadow government to replace the ROC, they have been under a news media whiteout about their activities. American media houses, including the New York Times, that have been recipients of TCG spending on events and advertising have failed to report on the ongoing criminal prosecution of their sponsors. The Chamber of Commerce approach through the business community is TCG’s new strategy to gain a foothold of respectability and clout.
Three of the five TACC board members are from Global Vision Communications, Neil Hare’s public relations firm. TCG has pumped over a million dollars into GVC for professional services in the last two years. A Global Vision Communications pay-roller on the TACC board is Shelley Hymes, who has been the recipient of six-figure consulting fees from Taiwan Civil Government. Hymes and Hare both accompanied a TCG delegation to Zurich, Switzerland in January 2018, where they met with the Switz-American Chamber of Commerce.
The fourth TACC board member connected with TCG is William Tseng, who holds the title of Minister of Energy in TCG, and is an experienced international trader. Tseng earlier attended the United States Chamber of Commerce “Global Supply Chain Summit” conference and was part of the Zurich junket.
With a business application fee of $10,000, new members are not exactly rushing to join TACC. Also, the limited Taiwanese connections of the TACC board hampers a word-of-mouth network from developing. Hare has been sending out tips on boosting employee morale to show that the new chapter is alive and well. It is unknown if TCG will continue to subsidize TACC past the current contract with Global Vision Communications.
Attorney Michele Ndoki shot by police (credit: Agbor Balla)
Activist attorney Michele Ndoki was shot four times by police on Jan. 26 at a peace rally in Douala, Cameroon. Ndoki, is a vice president in the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, a political party, and was leading demonstrators in a peaceful protest against the violence wracking the African nation. Anti-riot police fired live ammunition into the demonstrators to disperse the crowd. Ndoki and Celestin Djamen, another prominent member of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, were both shot in the legs.
Agbor Balla spoke with the wounded lawyer at the hospital and posted on the internet: “I just spoke to Michele Ndoki who confirmed that she was shot 4 times by a police officer in Douala. She states further that, the police officer was clearly targeting her as he ran a long distant just to shoot her.”
The day before the shooting, two lawyers were kidnapped by a group of armed men in Buea. Barristers Victor Affah Ndetan and Wilfred Shribe were grabbed off the road by armed men on bikes that forced the pair into the bush. No ransom demands have been made public.
Open fighting in the Ambazonia region of Cameroon between separatists and the government forces of strongman Paul Biya have turned the region into a war zone. Biya has been in power since 1982 and has developed a reputation as an authoritarian dictator. Biya made Parade magazine’s list of the twenty worst dictators in the world.
Cameroon is made up of former British and French colonies leaving the diverse nation with two official languages, English and French, and several hundred aboriginal and tribal languages. The Ambazonia region is English-speaking and seeks independence. Biya, from the French-speaking portion of the country, has resisted the insurgents with bloodshed and burning. In December, Biya began a campaign to kill rebel militia generals who refused to lay down their arms. Search and kill missions are ongoing while Ambazonia leaders face political trials.
Although Amnesty International and other groups have been warning of war crimes and atrocities, the harsh crackdown by Biya’s security forces is ignored and largely unknown in the United States. The news media in Great Britain and France follow the fighting because their languages are at issue in the former colonies but the rest of the world remains uninformed and largely unconcerned.
Ndoki has been outspoken for a peaceful resolution to the dispute and was marching for peace when she was shot. Ndoki’s report that she was targeted by a policeman aiming for her, rather than random fire, may signal that Biya has expanded the hunt for militia generals to peaceful activists.
Taiwan Civil Government calls for treaty with exiled Republic of China to resolve Taiwan’s political purgatory. (credit: Taiwan Civil Government)
Has the elephant in the room finally trumpeted? Taiwan’s longstanding “strategic ambiguity, which was declared “political purgatory” in Roger Lin v. United States of America, is facing its strongest challenge yet from native Taiwanese. Organized as a shadow government, Taiwan Civil Government has called upon the United States to bring the Republic of China in-exile to the negotiating table to resolve sovereignty.
On New Year’s day, TCG held a news conference in Taipei to call for a treaty with ROC, Japan, and the United States to bring resolution to Taiwan’s post-World War II international status. The audacious move, although not politically viable, closely follows the confused legal history of Formosa and international law. Although largely devoid of reporters, the news conference did attract several dozen pro-Chinese protesters from three groups, the Blue Sky Activity Alliance, the Third Force group, and Impeach Tsai. The demonstrators, kept away by TCG’s Black Bear squad, were unable to disrupt the news conference. The Taipei TCG office has previously been attacked by the White Wolves, another pro-China group.
Although news coverage of the call for a treaty was limited in Taiwan and virtually non-existent in the United States, the group’s news release did get reprinted in a variety of Japanese news outlets. The suppression of news is an old game of the status quo to keep new ideas from reaching the public. In this case the May 2018 fraud arrests of TCG leader Roger Lin and others may have contributed to the news whiteout.
The treaty call was made by three members of the group’s executive committee, Yimu Wu, Jianhui Peng, and Yingzhou Hong. One thing not lacking at TCG is chutzpah.
“Formosa (Taiwan) and the Republic of China were both participants in the World War ll. It has been 73 years since the end of World War ll, but so far no Peace Treaty has been signed. It must be put an end now to avoid leaving this problem to the next generation.”
“Recently, North Korea and South Korea have been talking about signing a war-ending agreement and peace treaty to formally close the Korean War, bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula.”
“On behalf of the native Taiwanese, Taiwan Civil Government appealed to the United States, the principal occupying Power, that Taiwan Civil Government should sign war-ending agreement and peace treaty with Kinmen and Matsu’s ROC to conclude World War II, bringing peace to Taiwan and the world.”
So far the United States has issued no response to the TCG appeal. The whole idea seems far-fetched to most people. Yet the steadfastly pro-American group’s request may not fall on completely deaf ears in the White House. TCG’s theory is that since the status of Taiwan is unresolved and the San Francisco Peace Treaty left the United States in charge, then the exiled Republic of China is not the only option. TCG has structured itself as a shadow government, following closely process and protocol from the American military civil affairs manual—a Taiwanese alternative to an exiled Chinese regime.
Roger Lin, founder of TCG, is now alleged to be a criminal mastermind by ROC prosecutors, something that remains to be proven. However, Lin is indeed a mastermind in piercing the strategic ambiguity fog that has clouded Taiwan’s status. Lin’s approach may be unorthodox and has earned TCG a variety of unfriendly comments like “kooky” and “cult-like” but he is like the boy at the parade telling the public that the emperor has no clothes.
Loyal TCG members say that the charges against Lin are baseless and designed to interfere with TCG’s overtures to Donald Trump’s administration. Disgruntled TCG members complain they were allegedly deceived into making donations based on false claims about identification cards.
One thing is certain, don’t expect the Republic of China in-exile to sign a peace treaty with Taiwan Civil Government anytime soon.
Assistant FBI Director Charles Brennan oversaw COINTELPRO operations. (credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation)
On August 17, 1970, at 2:07 a.m., Omaha police received a 911 emergency telephone call from a male who spoke in a deep gravely voice that a woman was screaming at 2867 Ohio Street, a vacant house. Eight policemen responded. While officers searched a tremendous, blinding flash and deafening blast shook the silent neighborhood and ripped through the walls of the vacant house killing Patrolman Larry Minard.
Two men, Edward Poindexter and David Rice (later Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa), leaders of the Black Panther affiliate National Committee to Combat Fascism were targets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the time of the murder and were to be blamed for the crime.
A call was made to FBI headquarters in Washington from the Omaha office at 6:45 a.m. Charles Brennan, Assistant Directer, was informed by memorandum about the call concerning the death of a policeman.
“Omaha Office offered assistance in covering out-of-state leads and FBI Laboratory facilities offered. Omaha advised it had notified military and Secret Service, was following closely, and alerted its racial informants in pursuit of investigation.”
Brennan was also assured, “Pertinent parts will be included in teletype summary to the White House, Vice President, Attorney General, military and Secret Service.”
One of Brennan’s priority duties as head of the Domestic Intelligence Division, which he aggressively pursued, was directing counterintelligence operations under the clandestine COINTELPRO program. Brennan had only been in his new command post for two weeks and was determined to break the Black Panther Party which J. Edgar Hoover had declared was the number one threat to domestic security.
FBI censors have kept the public from learning if Brennan ordered Special Agent in Charge Paul Young to use the bombing to frame Black Panther leadership or if Young first proposed the subterfuge. In any event, Young did make arrangements for the recording of the 911 call that lured Minard to his death to be sent to the FBI Laboratory where a formal would be withheld, eliminating crucial evidence from the homicide investigation. Young wrote the same day to Hoover explaining his actions.
Brennan stayed in the loop with letters and calls from Young to FBI headquarters keeping Brennan updated on the case. Two internal memorandums from William Bradley, a supervisor, detailed the plan to withhold a laboratory report on the 911 recording.
“Omaha Office has advised that the Omaha Police Department has requested laboratory assistance in connection with a bombing which took place in Omaha 8/17/70. This bombing resulted in the death of one police officer and the injuring of six other officers and is apparently directly connected with a series of racial bombings which the Omaha Police have experienced. The Police were lured to the bomb site by a telephonic distress call from an unknown male.”
“If approved, the results of any examinations will be orally furnished the Police on an informal basis through the SAC, Omaha.”
Charles Brennan, only on the job several weeks as Assistant Director in charge of the FBI Domestic Intelligence Division, was on a special typed distribution list. A second Bradley memo, confirming the first, also includes Brennan and bears his initials of approval. Young’s plan, approved by Brennan, worked and the jury that convicted Poindexer and Mondo never heard the killer’s voice on the 911 recording, a voice that belonged to neither man.
Before his death in prison in March 2016, Mondo commented on the memos. “This is pretty clear indication of cloak and dagger stuff. We want you to do the analysis but we don’t want you to put the results in writing. Communicate to us this way. So I suspect that somewhere between that memo and the prior one, the decision was made that the tape would not be part of the trial. A vital issue, a critical issue.”
In March 1971, while pre-trial proceedings occupied Paul Young’s attention in Omaha, a burglary at the Media, Pennsylvania FBI office yielded hundreds of COINTELPRO documents and alarmed Charles Brennan who realized the danger of the secret memoranda becoming public information. By the time the verdict was announced in the Omaha trial clandestine documents had been delivered to multiple news outlets. Ten days after the Omaha trial ended, Brennan made a recommendation.
“To afford additional security to our sensitive techniques and operations, it is recommended the COINTELPROS operated by the Domestic Intelligence Division be discontinued.”
“These programs involve a variety of sensitive intelligence techniques and disruptive activities which are afforded close supervision at the Seat of Government. They have been carefully supervised with all actions being afforded prior Bureau approval and an effort has been made to avoid engaging in harassment. Although successful over the years, it is felt they should now be discontinued for security reasons because of their sensitivity.”
J. Edgar Hoover acted the next day and issued an order. “Effective immediately, all COINTELPROs operated by this Bureau are discontinued.”
After Brennan’s mentor, William Sullivan, lost a power struggle with Hoover for control of the Bureau Brennan was demoted to the Alexandria, Virginia FBI office. While there, Brennan was censured for releasing a FBI report on a policeman’s killer to local police. The censure followed an internal Bureau memorandum that discussed disclosure of FBI reports to local police and Brennan’s action.
“We should not permit the action by the SAC, Alexandria to go unchallenged, for to do so, would give tacit approval to field offices to disseminate FBI reports to their local departments. The potential scope of such dissemination is beyond estimation, since in nearly all of our criminal, local agencies have concurrent interests. If FBI reports were indiscriminately furnished to police departments, they could very possibly become parts of police records which are made available to members of the press, and there is no end to speculation as to what use could be made of information from such reports. It is also pointed out that FBI reports, if allowed to be given to police agencies, would be available to local prosecutors, many of who are politically oriented and would be very happy to quote FBI reports for whatever purpose best suited them.”
Brennan’s actions in Alexandria were a sharp contrast to Omaha, where Brennan approved withholding a report from local police on a policeman’s killer.
In January 1975, the United States Senate created the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations which became known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church. The Church Committee tackled investigation of the assassination of President John Kennedy, a myriad of abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency, Watergate misdeeds, and COINTELPRO crimes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Senator Church chaired the only serious Congressional inquiry into COINTELPRO, however the work stopped short when the Committee adjourned the following year after the public had become weary of unsavory disclosures.
Charles Brennan was questioned by Church Committee staff. A memorandum in Brennan’s FBI personnel file summarized his interview.
“Relative to the COINTELPRO, Brennan advised the Staff Members he couldn’t be very specific regarding COINTELPRO inasmuch as he did not pay too much attention to it. They questioned him about this statement and Brennan stated that when you would compare COINTELPRO to such activities as the Bay of Pigs and the Glomar Explorer, COINTELPRO was “peanuts.” Brennan was asked why he didn’t recommend COINTELPRO be discontinued to which he replied,“If City Hall wants it, you give them what they want.”
The Church Committee, with ten Senators present, convened to question Charles Brennan about illegal FBI activities. Brennan said he became chief of the Domestic Intelligence Division in August 1970. Brennan did not tell the Senators his name was on the distribution list of a memorandum to withhold a report on the identity of an Omaha policeman’s killer that same month.
Brennan was asked if there was “a program of intensification” of investigations beginning August 1970. Brennan admitted Domestic Intelligence did intensify counterintelligence operations.
Brennan was asked if the intensification concerned J. Edgar Hoover over abridgment of individual liberties. Brennan replied, “He hadn’t demonstrated a previous concern of this nature in the past.”
Mondo died in March 2016 serving a life without parole sentence at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary. Edward Poindexter remains imprisoned, in poor health, forty-eight years later for a crime he denies. “I have been unjustly accused of a crime I did not commit.”
Special Agent in Charge Paul C. Young offered to withhold a FBI Laboratory report on day of policeman’s murder to make false case against Black Panther leaders (credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation)
On August 1, 1966, rioting rocked the Near-Northside as Paul Young began his duties as Special Agent in Charge of the Omaha Federal Bureau of Investigation office, his first command. Young could not foresee the awful deed he would commit four years later, allowing a policeman’s killer to get away with murder. Omaha’s explosive racial problems dominated Young’s attention.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, unhappy with President Lyndon Johnson over civil rights legislation, made it a practice of flooding the White House staff with every racial incident in the country that came to the attention of the FBI network of field offices. Hoover submitted a written report to the White House on events in Omaha during Young’s first day on the job.
“Approximately 50 Negro youths gathered in the Negro district of Omaha, Nebraska, during the early morning of July 31, 1966. The group became unruly and broke windows in several business establishments. Before any looting occurred, however, the Omaha Police Department arrived on the scene and arrested six individuals. The group was dispersed and order restored.”
“During the late evening of July 31, 1966, and early morning of August 1, 1966, Negro youths again took to similar activities. Seven stores were looted and at least four stores were the object of fire bombs. Fifty extra police officers were dispatched to the Negro area of Omaha where 17 individuals were arrested on suspicion of burglary and a crowd of about 150 individuals was dispersed. One Negro boy, aged 18, was struck by shotgun pellets as he left a liquor store that had been burglarized.”
Young was summoned to Washington in March 1968, where a “Racial Conference” was convened at FBI headquarters. Led by George Moore from Racial Intelligence and William Sullivan from Domestic Intelligence, forty-one attending field office supervisors received counterintelligence directives from Hoover who warned: “Counterintelligence operations must be approved by the Bureau. Because of the nature of this program each operation must be designed to protect the Bureau’s interest so that there is no possibility of embarrassment to the Bureau.”
While Young was getting his marching orders from Hoover, rioting broke out in Omaha after protesters were beaten at a George Wallace rally. Hoover’s daily report to the White House described events in Omaha.
“Inspector Monroe Coleman, Omaha, Nebraska, Police Department, advised yesterday that as an aftermath of the appearance of former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace at a political rally…several incidents of violence by Negroes took place in Omaha. Among these were the vandalizing of a pawnshop…and the subsequent fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Negro boy by an off-duty police officer during an attempt by the young Negro to loot the pawnshop. Several assaults by Negroes against white persons also occurred after the former Governor Wallace rally and two of the white persons reportedly were seriously injured. Public buses were stoned by Negroes as they passed through Omaha’s north side and yesterday morning Negro students of several Omaha high schools broke windows in business establishments while on their way to school. The students later caused minor damage in the schools by setting fires in wastebaskets in the restrooms and by throwing rocks through the windows of the schools.”
Despite Hoover’s insistence that counterintelligence operations be conducted promptly, Young failed to offer a proposal under the Bureau’s clandestine COINTELPRO program. By December 1969, Hoover had grown tired of waiting. Just days after FBI-orchestrated raids against the Black Panthers in Chicago and Los Angeles, Hoover ordered Young to submit a plan for action.
“While the activities appear to be limited in the Omaha area, it does not necessarily follow that effective counterintelligence measures cannot be taken. As long as there are BPP activities, you should be giving consideration to that type of counterintelligence measure which would best disrupt existing activities. It would appear some type of counterintelligence aimed at disruption of the publication and distribution of their literature is in order. It is also assumed that of the eight to twelve members, one or two must surely be in a position of leadership. You should give consideration to counterintelligence measures directed against these leaders in an effort to weaken or destroy their positions. Bureau has noted you have not submitted any concrete counterintelligence proposals in recent months. Evaluate your approach to this program and insure that it is given the imaginative attention necessary to produce effective results. Handle promptly and submit your proposals to the Bureau for approval.”
Forced to submit written reports every two weeks on his progress against the National Committee to Combat Fascism, the Omaha affiliate of the national Black Panther Party, Young finally got his chance to satisfy Hoover’s demands in August 1970 when a policeman was murdered by a bomb in a vacant house.
Paul Young wasted no time to privately talk with Deputy Chief Glen Gates, who was in charge of the police while Chief Richard Anderson was out of town. According to a confidential FBI memorandum, Young and Gates discussed a piece of crucial evidence, the recorded voice captured by the 911 system of the anonymous caller who lured police. The search for truth was over.
Young set in motion a conspiracy to implicate the leadership of the National Committee to Combat Fascism in the bombing. Young wrote to Hoover, “Enclosed for the Laboratory is one copy of a tape recording obtained from the Omaha Police Department.”
“Deputy Chief [Gates] inquired into the possibility of voice analysis of the individual making the call by the FBI Laboratory. He was advised the matter would be considered and that if such analysis were made and if subsequent voice patterns were transmitted for comparison, such analysis would have to be strictly informal, as the FBI could not provide any testimony in the matter; also, only an oral report of the results of such examination would be made to the Police Department. [Gates] stated he understood these terms and stated the Police Department would be extremely appreciative of any assistance in this matter by the FBI and would not embarrass the FBI at a later date, but would use such information for lead purposes only.”
“It should be noted that the police community is extremely upset over this apparent racially motivated, vicious and unnecessary murder. In slightly over three months this division has experienced more than ten bombings, probably all but a few of them being racially motivated. Of these bombings, four were directed at police facilities with extensive damage.”
“Any assistance rendered along the lines mentioned above would greatly enhance the prestige of the FBI among law enforcement representatives in this area, and I thus strongly recommend that the request be favorably considered.”
Hoover agreed to squelch a laboratory report on the identity of the 911 caller to make a case against Edward Poindexter and David Rice [later Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa] who were leaders of the NCCF in Omaha.
In October 1970, Young became concerned that the FBI Laboratory might forget and issue a report on the 911 recording and wrote a memorandum to Hoover reminding that the 911 tape was not to be used.
“In a preliminary hearing held 9/28/70 in Municipal Court, Omaha, PEAK testified that he had made the telephone call to the Omaha PD telling them that a woman was screaming in a house at 2867 Ohio Street. Police Officer LARRY MINARD was subsequently killed when a bobby trap suitcase exploded as he, with other officers, answered this call.”
“Assistant COP GLENN GATES, Omaha PD, advised that he feels that any use of tapes of this call might be prejudicial to the police murder trial against two accomplices of PEAK and, therefore, has advised that he wishes no use of this tape until after the murder trials of PEAK and the two accomplices has been completed.”
“UACB [Until Authorized to Contrary by Bureau], no further efforts are being made at this time to secure additional tape recordings of the original telephone call.”
The defense was never offered a copy of the 911 recording during pre-trial discovery and the jury that convicted the two Panther leaders never heard the voice of a killer. No analysis was conducted to determine the identity of the anonymous caller.
Poindexter and Rice were convicted in April 1971 after a controversial two-week trial. David Rice died at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary in March 2016 serving a life without parole sentence. Paul Young was rewarded for his role in the case with a promotion to head the FBI office in Kansas City. Ed Poindexter is in his forty-eighth year of imprisonment and continues to proclaim his innocence.
New Year party at Taiwan Civil Government headquarters was masquerade ball. (credit: Taiwan Civil Government)
One of the most unique tales in the annals of crime stories got a little stranger with a surrealistic masquerade ball where Taiwanese activists dressed as seventeenth-century European dandies. The gala event at Taiwan Civil Government headquarters replaced an annual rally where Roger Lin would speak to a fawning audience like a head of state. Lin and his wife Julian face trial with potential long prison sentences for allegedly making false claims about TCG identification cards and vanity license plates to obtain donations from group members.
Out on bond after harsh, incommunicado, pretrial detention, the Lins have stepped away from a public role in the organization. Roger Lin founded the group a decade ago and serves as Secretary General. Lin suffers from progressive prostate cancer and has turned over day to day operations of TCG to six members of an executive committee.
The big ball, where everyone seemed to be having a good time, must have made a small fortune for costume suppliers. These 560 masqueraders were the TCG elite, big donors, junketeers, and titleholders. That so much money and gaiety was flowing at a time when the group’s founder faces prison as large bonds and legal expenses abound is an unexpected development in the ongoing crime story. One can only imagine the kind of party TCG will put on if the Lins are acquitted.
The story of Roger Lin’s prosecution by the exiled Chinese government that he seeks to expel from Taiwan is unknown to most Americans. Although the political overtones of the case shout for attention, the English-speaking news media ignores a story lost in the “strategic ambiguity” that clouds Taiwan’s status. Even media houses that have taken TCG money for advertising or events, like the New York Times, POLITICO, Foreign Policy, and Roll Call Live ignore the ongoing prosecution of the Lins and others and do not report on the case.
One thing that those costumed dancers know that the American public does not is how far up in Donald Trump’s administration TCG influence peddlers reached. Lobbyists Neil Hare and Shelley Hymes set up a meet with Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway and a Heritage Foundation event with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Julian Lin did meet with Conway at a POLITICO event sponsored by Taiwan Civil Government. The session with Ross was abruptly canceled when word of the fraud arrests in Taiwan finally reached Washington. The news whiteout has kept Washington insiders off balance as they wait for details of the case to be revealed. Meanwhile, ROC prosecutors try to make a case over identity cards and vanity license plates while avoiding the group activities in Washington.
Taiwan Civil Government, structured as a shadow government, is strongly pro-American. The group is practically a Trump fan club and has large portraits of Trump in TCG offices. If President Trump ever decides to play the Taiwan card in his international poker game with China he will find eager support from TCG masqueraders for an American takeover.
Key members of TCG believe that the charges against Roger and Julian Lin stem from notice of the Heritage Foundation event which was to feature a session with Secretary Ross. The midnight raid at TCG headquarters in May shortly followed formal announcement of the Heritage event and TCG members believe the arrests were made to stop TCG inroads with the White House.
Flag of the People’s Republic of China and flag of the Republic of China in-exile
Taiwan independence is opposed by both the People’s Republic of China which threatens military invasion and the Republic of China in-exile which forced the Chinese language on Taiwan after World War II. The United States installed Kuomintang dictator Chiang Kai-shek’s regime on the Japanese territory then called Formosa to process surrendering soldiers.
Today, Formosa or Taiwan, the Asian island of 23.5 million residents, is either the Republic of China or Chinese Taipei depending on which Chinese side has your ear. The United States is to blame for the confusion having imposed a seven decade “strategic ambiguity” on the island’s sovereignty leaving everyone confused.
The largest group of people in the world excluded from the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Interpol, the islanders struggle with a Cold War status quo that becomes more dangerously irrelevant daily. The United States also opposes independence for the people of Taiwan keeping them trapped in “political purgatory” and unsure of their future.
The two Chinese governments both pay lip service to a “one China” philosophy that leaves little room for Taiwan. While the PRC threatens military invasion it continues to push a soft power takeover. The recent referendum on what to name the island Olympic team had Taiwan losing to Chinese Taipei by ten percent of the vote. The 2020 elections in Taiwan may give the PRC the victory they seek.
The matter has become so desperate that Mike Kuo, the president of Formosa Association for Public Affairs, has flip-flopped and abandoned FAPA’s mission of independence and instead seeks recognition of the exiled ROC by the United States. If Kuo gets his way, the independence movement will have a much greater difficulty ridding the island of its ROC masters.
Scholars, diplomats, and others fail to recognize that the entrenched ROC government will not go quietly into the night. After the United States installed the ROC as a caretaker government at the end of World War II, and then looked the other away, the 228 Massacre and White Terror period happened. Acquiescence by America to the bloodshed allowed the ROC to gain a foothold on power that makes it now hard to dislodge.
The unsettled status of Taiwan creates instability in Asia and allows for the competing Chinese claims to the island. After four centuries of colonial rule, it is time for Formosa to awaken. If the Taiwanese independence movement does not soon do something, the island future will be again be decided by foreign powers.
For decades the strategic ambiguity protected Taiwan from invasion. Now the strategic ambiguity leaves Taiwan at risk. The FAPA turn-around on recognition of the ROC is a clear signal that it is time for independence activists to act or Formosa will become a footnote to history.
Mike Kuo, President of Formosa Association for Public Affairs (credit: FAPA)
Mike Kuo, the president of the Formosa Association for Public Affairs, called for the United States to acknowledge the “Taiwanese authorities’ legitimate representation” in a Taipei Times commentary. Kuo’s sudden kowtow to the exiled Republic of China has sent shock-waves in the lobby group which is composed of advocates of Taiwan independence.
A space scientist by profession, Kuo appears to be unable to navigate the way forward to sovereignty for Taiwan. Blinded by Taiwan’s “strategic ambiguity” the FAPA leader has committed the fundamental error of equating Taiwan with the ROC.
Compounding his error, Kuo crossed the line into partisan ROC politics with a ringing endorsement for Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party. Tsai recently resigned her party leadership as a consequence of defeat in the municipal elections.
“President Tsai has our complete confidence. She has earned and deserves our full support. She is the only person today who can lead Taiwan across the murky waters that it has found itself in over the past decades.”
Kuo wrote that Tsai “brilliantly” advocated “the Chinese government must recognize the existence of the Republic of China.”
Such partisan talk about an exiled government that most FAPA members view as illegitimate puts Kuo at odds with his membership. FAPA’s motto is to “build worldwide support for Taiwan independence.”
Older Formosans still living remember the bloodshed and terror inflicted on the people by the ROC during the 228 Massacre and the long years of the White Terror period.
To his credit, Kuo has battled pressure from the People’s Republic of China against corporations to call Taiwan by the name Chinese Taipei. However, in a letter to United Airlines over the name issue Kuo ventured his view that Taiwan is the same as the Republic of China.
“It is of course incontestable reality that Taiwan IS a country. Taiwan fulfills all conditions for statehood as laid down in the Montevideo conference of 1933: a territory, a population, a government that exercises effective control and can enter into relations with other countries.”
Kuo’s remarks in the Taipei newspaper were obviously made to influence the outcome of a ROC election and have put him in the wrong direction going away from independence. Decades of ambiguity have left Kuo so confused that he may have lost his way.
Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, in his prison cell (credit: Melissa Rice)
Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, died March 2016 serving a life without parole sentence at the Nebraska State Penitentiary for a crime he says he did not commit. During his life Mondo was a prolific writer and over time shared much wisdom.
“We are living in a society in which people are commonly judged on the basis of how much stuff they have. For an African who may already be operating under the burden of “racial” self-hatred, the added burden of lacking money and the things it buys shakes his sense of self-worth. If one lacks a feeling that he is worth something, his life loses its value. A person who sees life as being worthless is willing to risk that life over practically nothing and may be willing to put the lives of others who look like him at risk as well.”
“When we, as a community, do not help instill knowledge, healthy pride, and wisdom in our children, we are setting them on paths by which they may not live long enough to become men and women.”
“Today, too many of our young people—in particular, males—are slaves to guns, slaves to violence, slaves to the idea that their African lives aren’t worth anything, slaves to the idea that their lives aren’t worth living.”
“Today, we should be reflecting on what to do to counter the messages being delivered to our children and youth by school curricula, television, movies, video games, the music industry, and other institutions that are making slaves of our youth to violence, materialism, etc. Today, we should be reflecting on what to do to free ourselves from the invisible chains that bind our heads and spirit.”
“When you have a sense that you do have a worth and that the things you need for value do not come from material things, then you are going out of your house every day to do positive and constructive things for people you love and getting that love back in return, you don’t care whether or not you have good shoes. You are getting your nutrition from the spiritual stuff that is happening. You don’t have that sense of self-worth when material things are eating you up.”
“There is a lot things about life we don’t understand, not only life in general but our own lives and I guess maybe what it comes down to is you. On the one hand, you have to have a sense of your own importance, but at the same time you have to have a sense of your own insignificance. There is a balance there….But at the same time, I believe in the traditional African idea in this regard, that I don’t get my meaning from me, but that I get my meaning from my community.”
David Rice, later Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, was arrested in July 1968 for loitering in Omaha and fined twenty-five dollars. (credit: Omaha Police Department)
“What were we but strangers to the land where we were born.” -Mondo
Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, former David Rice, was a poet, artist, writer, and civil rights activist. Mondo was also affiliated with the Black Panther Party as Minister of Information for Omaha’s chapter of the National Committee to Combat Fascism. Mondo’s activism with the Panthers led to his conviction for the 1970 bombing death of an Omaha policeman.
Before Mondo’s arrest for murder in a case manipulated by the infamous COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation he was arrested by Omaha police for loitering. Mondo and ten other people were picked up during a police sweep to empty a parking lot. The July 7, 1968 arrest went to court a month later. The ten other people all had their cases dismissed for insufficient evidence. Mondo, who was covering the police action for the Buffalo Chip newspaper, went before a different judge who found him guilty of failure to disperse and fined him twenty-five dollars.
Mondo died in March 2016 at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary serving a life without parole sentence for a crime he said he did not commit. Edward Poindexter, a co-defendant and Chairman of the NCCF chapter, remains imprisoned, forty-eight years later. COINTELPRO was terminated by J. Edgar Hoover ten days after the Omaha Two trial ended in April 1971. Before his death Mondo, in a prison interview, described growing up black in Omaha.
Mondo was educated in Catholic schools and was one of the few black students in class during high school. Mondo attended St. Benedict’s grade school and Creighton Preparatory High School, an all-boys school. “While I was at Creighton Prep I did become aware of some things. I was a member of Young Christian Students that started to become aware of civil rights issues.”
Mondo asked a white girl from another school that was in his youth group to attend the homecoming dance. “That weekend she apparently told some friends. By the time I got to school on Monday it was all over Creighton Prep. Being naive and thinking I was one of the boys I’m not feeling it was a big deal but there were quite a few people at Prep that thought it was a big deal. People were talking about what they were going to do to me or to her. In one class they used the class time to talk about me. They were talking about bringing rifles and this kind of stuff. Eventually what happened was her parents told her if she went to the dance she would need to find new parents.”
“So there were things like that I had to learn about. You can turn back the hands of time on the clock but you can’t turn real life back. Sometimes I wish I had gone to a predominately African high school but I didn’t and I had to learn some things. I had to deal with inner conflict, but my attitude is the things that you live bring you to where you are.”
“I was, I think a junior in high school when I began to truly see that racism and injustice generally might be more than just aberrations….I was convinced that the oppression of African people, and other people of color, in this country was no accident, no mere flaw in the system.”
“I was in Omaha all my life up until the time I got convicted and I had been involved in rights kinds of issues when I was in high school, probably seventeen, maybe a little younger and so by the time I was eighteen I had already started being watched by the police….I had become accustomed to being occasionally followed, seeing cars and police cars go up and down in front of where I was staying. I had gotten really good at being able to identify those unmarked cars because there would be a certain way they’d be driven and they had certain colors. Colors that were supposed to be inconspicuous, but you know nobody in the neighborhood would actually buy a car that color, like a funny brown and brownish green and so forth, almost solid camouflage colors, gray. We knew who it was.”
In March of 1968, several months before the loitering arrest, George Wallace came to Omaha and held a large rally at the Omaha Civic Auditorium. Inside the auditorium, five thousand supporters gathered to place Wallace on the Nebraska ballot. Fifty black protesters, including Mondo, were given delegate passes by Wallace’s security personnel and allowed onto the arena floor where they took up position standing in front of the podium, blocking the view of those seated in the front rows.
Wallace delayed his entrance for an hour while tension mounted between the protesters and the seated Wallace supporters. Jeers, shouts, and booing greeted Wallace from the protesters when he started to speak. Wallace snorted: “These are the free-speech folks you know. And these are the kind of folks the people in this country are sick and tired of.”
The crowd roared in agreement while the demonstrators began tearing up their protest signs and throwing the bits of cardboard and stick at the podium. Police moved in on the group while Wallace crowed, “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to say that you ought to be thankful for the police of Omaha.”
Mondo was in front of the podium when the police assault began. Mondo was spotted by one of the policemen he regularly taunted. “We were up front sandwiched between the stage and the Wallace supporters. We were heckling, a good line of heckling. Then I saw Duane Pavel come out with a can of Mace and gets me right in the face. It knocked me out. Some people rushed me and picked me up and took me out of the auditorium. I could hear all hell breaking out but I didn’t know what was going on.”
The Buffalo Chip described the frenzied scene. “The unarmed demonstrators turned to flee, and the police followed them, beating them on the back of the head as they ran. As the demonstrators tried to escape, people picked up folding chairs and beat them as they ran by, or threw chairs at them.”
The blood rage spilled out of the auditorium into the streets and turned to riot. Mayor A. V. Sorenson said in an interview that the police were quick to use their clubs. “Their procedure was to use their clubs at the slightest provocation.”
The next night Mondo was out talking to angry black residents of the city. Mondo wrote an account of his own angst and the mood on the streets for Buffalo Chip. “As I prepare to retire to the bed, I consider the animal activities of the Omaha Police Department, the unabashed lying of our news media, and the unlimited stupidity of Mayor Sorenson. And I hope that the metal Citizens’ Protection sticks, which I am passing out, will help the police get the kind of justice they have asked for.”
Mondo’s taunting of the police marked him for harassment. After Mondo joined the Black Panthers and took on local leadership he was targeted by COINTELPRO agents of the FBI. In December 1969, J. Edgar Hoover ordered Special Agent in Charge Paul Young to get Mondo off the streets. The bombing murder of Patrolman Larry Minard in August 1970 was pinned on Mondo and Ed Poindexter despite a confession from a fifteen year-old that planted the bomb. The two men were never again to walk Omaha streets and spent the rest of their lives behind bars.
This article contains excerpts from the new book FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story. The book is available in print from Amazon and also in ebook format. Portions may be read online free at NorthOmahaHistory.com. Patrons of the Omaha Public Library also have access to the book.
Richardson Reports 