Despite shouting, cursing, tears and physical clashes, the Taipei County Government demolished 11 homes in the Sanying Aboriginal Community (三鶯部落) yesterday and vowed to remove the rest by the end of the month.
"Where am I going to sleep tonight? Where am I going to sleep tonight?" the elderly Pan Chin-hua (潘金花) shouted as she burst into tears and sat on a stool in front of her house made of old wooden boards and canvas, like most of the other homes in the community.
She was quickly and forcefully removed by police officers before a hydraulic shovel moved in and demolished her house in five minutes. Similar scenes occurred during the two-hour demolition.
"We are here to enforce the policy of demolishing buildings built without permits in a flood area," a county Water Resources Bureau official surnamed Chang (張) told reporters.
The Sanying Community, located on the east bank of Dahan River (大漢溪) close to the Sanying Bridge that connects Sansia (三峽) and Yingge (鶯歌) townships, consisted of an estimated 30 households, mostly Amis Aborigines.
Amis men, who moved to Taipei to work as coalminers and construction workers and could not afford housing, began building their own houses on the site in around 1980, community chief Lien Ta-ching (連大經) said.
The Taipei County Government conducted a census of the community in 2002, then built apartments nearby and asked the Sanying residents to move there, Yang Cheng-pin (楊正斌), chief secretary of county's Indigenous Peoples Bureau, said by telephone.
Some residents have moved, but many have not, including those who did not qualify for the relocation project because they were not living in the community at the time of the census, or who cannot pay the rent.
On Feb. 14, the county government posted a notice telling residents they had three days to move. On Monday, 15 vacant homes were demolished and the remaining residents were asked to sign an agreement promising to tear down their houses and leave by the end of the month.
"All houses with occupants who refused to sign the agreement will be torn down today, while for those who signed the agreement, nothing will happen until the end of the month," Chang said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS