President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of May 18 with participants in a training course organized by the Ministry of National Defense for officials from friends and allies in Latin America and the Caribbean. The president extended a warm welcome to the visitors on behalf of the government and people of the ROC.
President Ma noted that the officials taking part in this course, come from Honduras, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. These nations have on many occasions helped the ROC participate in international affairs and activities. They supported the ROC's participation in the World Health Assembly, for example, which is currently being held in Geneva. Remarking on the inappropriate name used to refer to the ROC in internal documents in the World Health Organization (WHO), the president said that many of the ROC's friends and allies have joined in lodging protests with the WHO, which shows the sincere support of our friends and allies for our participation in international affairs. In the future, the ROC will continue to seek to participate in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the International Civil Aviation Organization. President Ma encouraged the high-ranking military officials to take advantage of their time in Taiwan to understand the government's policies and achievements in promoting cross-strait peace and expanding its role in the international community.
The president furthermore said that over the past three years he has visited Latin America and the Caribbean four times, and pointed out that Vice President Vincent C. Siew was in Paraguay a few days earlier to attend that nation's bicentennial celebrations. The vice president is also making a trip to Panama while in Latin America, which demonstrates the close relations between the ROC and the region, he said. The president pointed out that a rescue team from Taiwan was the earliest to arrive in Haiti after a devastating earthquake that hit there in January last year. Besides immediately joining the rescue effort, the ROC continues helping that nation in its reconstruction by, among other things, building permanent housing, providing vocational training and public health education, and adopting orphans, he remarked. This highlights the ROC's role as a "provider of humanitarian aid," said the president, adding that the ROC has signed free trade agreements with five Central and South American nations, thus generating significant growth in bilateral trade. The president expressed his hope that economic and trade cooperation would continue to be strengthened in the future, further enhancing bilateral friendships.
The visitors were accompanied to the Presidential Office by Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Ko Kuang-yueh (葛光越).