Posted on 03/24/2004 3:58:52 AM PST by witnesstothefall
TAIPEI - Fighting back tears, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian recalled yesterday how he survived an election-eve shooting that brought back memories of his worst fear - permanent separation from his wife.
'As I lay there, and after I found out it was a gunshot, my first thought was 'what a coincidence!',' he told a government meeting in his first public appearance since he claimed victory in last Saturday's presidential vote.
'It was very painful,' said Mr Chen, who lifted his shirt to show his colleagues the abdominal wound which required 14 stitches. 'It was really very painful.'
The attack appeared to have garnered him sympathy votes, helping him win re-election by a wafer-thin margin of just 0.22 per cent of the 13 million votes cast.
Describing last Friday's shooting for the first time, Mr Chen recalled that this was not his family's first brush with death. His wife Wu Shu-chen was run over by a truck in 1985 and is paralysed from the waist down.
Madam Wu had been thanking her husband's supporters after he lost a county election. Mr Chen accused the then ruling KMT of an attempted assassination, which it denied.
'I almost could not say a thing to my wife on the phone,' the President said. Officials released a photograph of Mr Chen on the operating table, holding his mobile phone to his ear while surgeons tended to his wound.
'Nineteen years ago, we almost were separated forever. Nineteen years later, I almost could not live to speak to my wife again. I felt many different emotions.'
Coincidentally, both incidents took place in Tainan - Mr Chen's hometown - and wife and husband were treated two decades apart in the same hospital.
Mr Chen said that when he first felt pain on Friday, as he and Vice-President Annette Lu campaigned in an open jeep, he thought he had been hit by a stray firecracker. He continued waving to supporters until he felt his jacket was wet and looked down to see a bloodstain.
The shots gouged a cut on Mr Chen's abdomen and notched Ms Lu's right knee.
Mr Chen said he had insisted on walking unaided into the emergency room to maintain the image of a head of state. It was an action that fuelled speculation he had not been shot at all.
He said he regretted that some people doubted that he had been wounded, saying that he would welcome an inquiry into the assassination attempt. -- Reuters
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