Bobby Fletcher: In The News

Amazing how Bobby Fletcher gets around...so much so that he's in the news now! He's been to my blog several times.... to bad the article did not address the other pro-communist comments that have come out of Bobby.... i.e. Wen Ho Lee, Chi Mak, etc. etc.

Western Standard (Alberta): Sowing Confusion; Embarrassed by reports of live organ harvesting, China's sympathizers launch a high-tech disinformation campaign

Copyright 2007 Western Standard
All Rights Reserved
Western Standard (Alberta)

April 9, 2007 Monday
Final Edition

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 24

LENGTH: 699 words

HEADLINE: Sowing Confusion; Embarrassed by reports of live organ harvesting,
China's sympathizers launch a high-tech disinformation campaign

BYLINE: Kevin Steel, Western Standard

BODY:


He posts his messages everywhere under several different names on Internet
blogs and discussion groups. He writes letters to the editor anywhere and
sends e-mails to anyone--anyone who might take seriously shocking evidence
that the Chinese government "harvests" and sells live organs from political
prisoners. His main message is that the Falun Gong--the group which first
brought evidence of live organ harvesting to light--and the Epoch Times
newspaper that broke that story are spreading propaganda against China's
Communist government. And he's not even Chinese. He is Charles Liu, a
40-year-old Taiwanese-born technology consultant who lives in Issaquah,
Wash., and does business in China.

Liu has been so active and so pro-Beijing in his writings that some Falun
Gong supporters--in particular Epoch Times reporter Jana Shearer--have
accused him of being an agent for the Chinese government, waging a
disinformation campaign against them, trying to confuse people, and
deliberately wasting everyone's time.

It's a charge that upsets Liu, who dismisses it as "a bunch of kooky friends
making unfounded accusations. It's just a bunch of blog BS." As for why he
devotes so much energy to attacking the Falun Gong and the organ harvesting
allegations, he says, "My position is that I simply don't agree with their
brand of politics, because I observed their politics turning from
anti-Communist party, to anti-China, . . . and recently it's morphed into
this anti-Chinese hysteria and that's going to be hurting people," he says.
As an Asian-American, he says he decided to speak up.

He doesn't really explain, when asked, why he started a blog last year
called "The Myth of Tiananmen Square Massacre" under the name of Bobby
Fletcher (one of his online aliases, which he also uses to comment on the
Western Standard's online blog). On that blog, he pushes the minimal 250
casualty figure that the Chinese government has always maintained died that
night in 1989 (more reliable estimates put the figure at at least ten times
that).

Liu's actions mirror disinformation campaigns waged by the Chinese
government in the past. Typically, these include the deliberate spreading of
false or misleading facts to sow confusion or doubt among the conflicting
accounts. The classic example is the Tiananmen Square massacre; the Chinese
government has maintained that no one died in the square itself, that there
was only pushing and shoving on the streets around the square, resulting in
a few military casualties. Overseas, the CCP relies on its United Front Work
department, part of the Chinese intelligence service, to propagate its
message. During the Cold War, the Soviets employed many overseas flunkies
through their Disinformation Department.

Former Canadian MP David Kilgour, who co-authored a report on China's
macabre organ harvesting industry, has received many propaganda e-mails from
Liu. For instance, Liu has written repeatedly that a U.S. congressional
committee looked into the organ harvesting allegations and found nothing.
"[David] Matas and I gave evidence to that subcommittee and got support from
both the Republican chairman and the Democratic vice-chair," says Kilgour.
"I just came to the conclusion he was trying to waste my time, and I have
other things to do."

Winnipeg-based human rights lawyer, and Kilgour's co-author, David Matas,
really doesn't know what to make of Liu. "I don't know who he is, but what
he does is spend a lot of time replicating nonsense to defend the Chinese
government," Matas says.

The only concern Matas has is that Liu seems to know who he and Kilgour met
with in the United States to discuss their report. Matas discovered Liu had
sent e-mails to politicians--and their staff--prior to the meetings. "The
only people who would have that information would potentially be the Chinese
government. I can't imagine how Liu would know we were meeting with those
people," Matas says. "We're not super-secretive, but you can't find
information on the Internet or in any public place about who we're meeting
with, where and when." He himself has received at least 10 e-mails from Liu,
all of which he's ignored. Maybe Matas is onto something with that approach.

GRAPHIC:
Colour Photo: CP, Dave Cahn; David Kilgour (left) and David Matas,
co-authors of a report on China's organ harvesting industry: How does Liu
know who they're meeting with? ;

LOAD-DATE: March 29, 2007