Aboriginal rights campaigners yesterday condemned the government for having not carried out a promise to reinstate traditional Aboriginal territories, and they demanded that an independent agency be established to restore Aboriginal rights to land and transitional justice.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 1 last year delivered a landmark apology to Taiwan’s Aborigines for their deprivation of rights in the hundreds of years since the mass migration of Han people began.
She promised to reinstate land rights, self-determination, economic development, cultural and language preservation and other rights protection.
Photo: CNA
Tsai yesterday said the government has worked to preserve Aboriginal languages and culture by immersing Aboriginal preschoolers and students in a learning environment where their native languages are spoken.
Aboriginal campaigners who have been staging a camp-out near the Presidential Office Building in Taipei for 160 days said Tsai had failed to keep her promises to restore Aboriginal rights.
They criticized the guidelines the Cabinet released on Feb. 14 on the delineation of traditional Aboriginal territories, which would restrict the application of the “traditional area” label to government-owned land, explicitly excluding private land.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
It would reduce recognized traditional territories from 1.8 million hectares to 800,000 hectares while companies would be allowed to develop traditional Aboriginal land that is now in private hands without the consent of local Aborigines, they said.
“Tsai promised that the government would prioritize the issue of traditional territories, but it turns out it is only limited to government-owned land,” Amis activist Panai Kusui said.
Documentary filmmaker Mayaw Biho, an Amis who has been an active member of the camp-out, called on the government to legislate an Aboriginal transitional justice law and establish an agency similar to the Cabinet’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to investigate the deprivation of Aboriginal rights.
Photo: CNA
That would be a way to achieve understanding and reconciliation, he said.
The Presidential Office’s Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee, which was established last year to understand the history of Aboriginal rights deprivation and reinstate those rights, does not have the necessary executive or investigative powers to perform its functions, Mayaw said.
“It is an irresponsible reform if the ruling party acts like it has done a lot and put in a great deal of effort in an effort to convince the public it is trying to tackle a problem,” Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fang (林飛帆) said.
Lin criticized Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Yao Jen-to (姚人多) and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kolas Yotaka for saying that the protesters do not respresent the nation’s Aborigines.
“Why can a person in power [Yao] be so careless about his authority, but treat protesters in quite a different way? What is the difference between the government and the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT]?” Lin said.
The Executive Yuan said that efforts are under way to provide further protection to Aboriginal languages, land and resource rights.
The president has held talks with Aboriginal delegates, and the traditional territories delineation guidelines and landmark Aboriginal Language Development Act (原住民族語言發展法) have been promulgated, while legal rulings have been made to ensure that Aborigines could practice traditional hunting, fishing and harvesting, the Executive Yuan said.
The Cabinet has also completed the preliminary investigation into a government decision to deposit nuclear waste on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) without the knowledge and consent of the local Tao community when Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Sun Yun-suan (孫運璿) were premier.
The Cabinet will create an institutional environment for the development of Aboriginal cultures and achieve transitional justice and harmony between ethnic groups, the Executive Yuan said.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary