In early March, former French foreign minister Roland Dumas gave an interview to the French media to publicize his latest book, L'Epreuve, Les Preuves (The Trial, the Proof). In his book, Dumas revealed that the sale of Lafayette class frigates ten years ago involved kickbacks of "US$400 million that benefited 'the secretariat-general of the party in power in Taipei' and US$100 million that benefited 'the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.'" But in his dispatch to Taipei, the Paris-based correspondent of the Central News Agency incorrectly translated "secretariat-general" (the office of the secretary-general) as "secretary general," turning the long buried Lafayette scandal into a raging storm.

Taiwan's political leaders have been seriously rocked by this bombshell. Members of the Democratic Progressive Party's Legislative Yuan caucus have demanded that James Soong, secretary-general of the Kuomintang when the scandal occured and now chairman of the People First Party, step forward and explain his involvement. They have even raised the name of Lee Teng-hui, who at the time was ROC president and KMT chairman, but who has more recently aligned himself closer to the DPP.

The new revelations also revive speculation that current president Chen Shui-bian has not pursued the case with all the vigor one would have expected, seeing as he led calls for a full investigation of the case when it first occurred (he was then a legislator); there has been no major break in the case since Chen became head of state.

Presidential Office spokesman James Huang insisted that President Chen Shui-bian has never wavered in his determination to investigate major cases of corruption thoroughly. But, said Huang, Taiwan has a specific system and procedures for investigating corruption cases, these require concrete evidence, and no one can bypass the system.

In fact, when the scandal over the purchase of Lafayette frigates erupted, no one paid closer attention to it than Chen Shui-bian. In March of 1994, when Chen was convener of the National Defense Committee of the Legislative Yuan as a member of the opposition, he delivered eight separate reports on the Lafayette frigate, the minesweeper, and the oceanographic research vessels arms purchase scandals. During a subsequent legislative interpellation session, Chen Shui-bian declared that because the Lafayette frigate case involved kickbacks of more than NT$5 billion the state must find out who received the money.

This arms-purchase scandal is once again front-page news. In addition to the US$400 million in kickbacks, there is suspicion of administrative mishandling involving the case of arms dealer Andrew Wang. Although the special Taiwanese task force in charge of the case issued an arrest warrant against Wang for suspected homicide, he managed to get documents notarized by ROC representative offices in London and Geneva.

Andrew Wang was the Taiwan agent of Thomson-CSF, the French company that built the Lafayette frigates, and he was also a key figure in the case of the murder of navy captain Yin Ching-feng. The media has speculated that because huge deposits held by Wang in Switzerland and elsewhere have been frozen by Swiss authorities, he was in a hurry to have documents notarized to recover those kickbacks. It is also widely surmised that the huge kickbacks given to Taiwan are in all likelihood still in Wang's Swiss bank account. A United Daily News editorial opined that such a large amount of money cannot be moved around without leaving some kind of a paper trail, and that if investigators focused first on how the money was moved around, they would have enough to go on to clear up some of the facts of the case.

At a session of the Legislative Yuan's Defense Committee on March 10th, Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming stated that President Chen Shui-bian and Premier Yu Shyi-kun have agreed to offer a reward of NT$100 million from the Ministry of National Defense to whoever comes forward with leads that will help investigators crack the Lafayette frigate case as quickly as possible. The government would also ensure the safety of, and ask the President to grant an amnesty to, such persons if they agree to be material witnesses.

As soon as Chen Shui-bian assumed the office of the president, a special task force was set up to investigate the Lafayette frigate corruption case. But over the past three years, other than the indictment of a few mid-ranking military officers, the investigation has yielded confusion from beginning to end. As to the charge that the "investigation has been less than thorough," State Public Prosecutor Lu Ren-fa revealed the other day that since the special task force was formed, it has been in continuous contact with the countries involved. Under pressure from mainland China and scrutiny from other countries involved, investigators had to keep a low profile and meet in a third country. One prosecutor was exposed and failed to obtain a visa. Nevertheless, thanks to pressure brought to bear on Interpol, Taiwanese investigators found out that before he left the United States and gave up his green card, Wang had lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles. When Wang made his way to London, the special task force's investigators contacted the local Interpol branch, but they were unable to acknowledge this publicly so as not to compromise their foreign colleagues.

The Lafayette frigate scandal, which has been the focus of investigations under the previous and present governments, has raised doubts about the soundness of Taiwan's arms procurement system and has hurt Taiwan's image. Public opinion hopes that Taiwan's judicial and investigative authorities will not let this fleeting opportunity to solve the case slip through their fingers and will thus restore the people's trust in the rule of law.