There was music and cries, laughter and tears, placards and banners as more than 2,000 people — including farmers, farming activists and their supporters — protested on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office last night, voicing their opposition to a series of recent land takeovers by the government.
“Farmers from Dapu [大埔], raise your hands! Farmers from Wanbao [灣寶], raise your hands! Farmers from Erchongpu [二重埔], raise your hands! Farmers from Jhubei [竹北], raise your hands! Farmers from Siangsihliao [相思寮], raise your hands! Farmers from Tucheng [土城], raise your hands!” called out Taiwan Rural Front spokeswoman Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧).
The farmers raised their hands as their village was called, while the rest of the crowd cheered and applauded.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Farmers from Dapu Borough in Jhunan Township (竹南) and Wanbao Borough in Houlong Township (後龍), both in Miaoli County, Jhubei City (竹北), Erchongpu in Hsinchu County's Jhudong Township (竹東), Siangsihliao in Changhua County's Erlin Township (二林) and Taipei County’s Tucheng (土城), gathered in front of the Presidential Office last night as all these communities have faced, or may be facing, land expropriation by the government in order to make way for various development projects.
Although farmers across the country have been fighting land expropriation for years, their campaign did not gain much public attention until the Miaoli County Government last month sent in excavators escorted by police to dig up rice paddies in Dapu.
Images and video clips of what took place in Dapu were quickly spread via the Internet and media outlets, shocking the public.
“The government is not protecting our interests as it should be, instead it only cares about the interests of large corporations,” Erchongpu farmer Liu Ching-chang (劉慶昌) told the crowd. “One village alone is not powerful enough, we farmers across the country must stand in solidarity to fight for our rights.”
Dozens of civic groups joined the farmers in their struggle.
“I feel sad to be here today, seeing how these farmers are suffering,” Losheng Self-Help Association chairman Lee Tien-pei (李添培) said. “The police surrounded Dapu and destroyed the farms, just like how the police surrounded Losheng Sanatorium and demolished buildings two years ago.”
The Losheng Sanatorium was built in the 1930s in Taipei County to isolate patients with Hansen's disease, more commonly known as leprosy. A large part of the sanatorium campus was flattened to make way for a mass rapid transit maintenance depot despite a years-long campaign against the plan.
Former Council of Agriculture minister Tai Chen-yao (戴振耀), who is also a long-time farmers’ rights activist, was in the crowd.
“The land expropriations nowadays are the same as they were decades ago, the government's mentality has never changed,” he said. “They think industry is better than agriculture in terms of production value, but they’re not factoring in farmers’ rights to survival, to live and to work, as well as the positive contributions of farms to the environment.”
Some people in cars that drove by cheered for the farmers, while donations continued to pour in.
“I’ve donated NT$2,000 because I think farmers are suffering too much, they shouldn't be treated this way,” a woman said right after putting in two NT$1,000 bills into the donation box.
A number of bands and artists also expressed their support through their performances.
The demonstrators stayed out overnight on Ketagalan Boulevard.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
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