Please e-mail this letter (input your name) to Ban Ki-Moon. On 8/6/07, fapawenyen@aol. com wrote: Dear all: We have drafted the following petition letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon along the lines of the letter we sent to BKM last Friday protesting the way he dealt with Taiwan's membership application. Fill out the NAME and ADDRESS fields at the bottom of the letter and e-mail your petition to inquiries@un.org Ask as many of your friends and family to do the same. Wen-yen * * * H.E. Ban Ki-moon Secretary-General United Nations New York NY 10017 USA Your Excellency, As Taiwanese American citizens of the United States, we take strong exception to your decision not to relay the request to admission of Taiwan as a member of the United Nations -- submitted by the democratically- elected government in Taiwan led by President Chen Shui-bian -- to the General Assembly and the Security Council. In particular, we reject your argument that under General Assembly Resolution 2758, the UN took the position "that Taiwan is part of China." This is contrary to the facts: Resolution 2758 doesn't even mention Taiwan. The issue under consideration in Resolution 2758 was which government represented China. Until that time, the Chinese Nationalists had represented China, and in 1971 their seat was granted to the government of the PRC in Beijing. The flaw in your argument is that you equate the "representatives of Chiang Kai-shek" with Taiwan. But Chiang and his representatives were expelled in 1971 because they claimed to represent China; they never claimed that they represented Taiwan. In fact, anyone suggesting that the government in Taipei should only represent Taiwan was arrested and imprisoned in those days. Note that after the democratic transition in Taiwan in the late 1980s early 1990s, they were also expelled from office in Taiwan -- through democratic elections. Today, Taiwan has a democratic government, led by the President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party. This government clearly reflected the wishes of the large majority of the people on the island when it submitted its membership application to you on July 19th 2007. If the United Nations wants to be a truly "universal" organization, it should accept Taiwan as a member. Taiwan is a democratic nation. It fulfills all criteria for a nation-state as defined in the 1933 Montevideo Convention: a defined territory, a permanent population, and a government which is capable of entering into diplomatic relations with other states. We urge you to live up to the basic principles of human rights, democracy and self-determination which lay at the foundation of the establishment of the United Nations, to reconsider your position, and facilitate the entry of Taiwan into the United Nations. The Taiwanese people have worked long and hard for their democracy, freedom and independence, and should gain a full and equal place among the international family of nations. Only then can peace be secured. Sincerely yours, Name [XXXXXX] Address [XXXXX]