Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday refused to promise to attempt to halt plans to demolish the Sanying (三鶯) and Sijhou (溪洲) Aboriginal communities and the Losheng Sanatorium.
Protesters staged a demonstration that blocked the entrance to a press conference at Ma's campaign headquarters in Taipei. Holding placards that read "[We want the right to] live on the site," the demonstrators asked Ma to sign a pledge that the sanatorium and the two communities would not be demolished by force.
Ma refused.
"I can't promise to do what you're asking," Ma told the activists. "If I'm elected [president], I'll be heading the central government, but I would still have to talk to the local governments before any decision could be made. Of course I can make the promise, but I may not be able to fulfill it -- is that what you want?"
Ma said he would "act according to the law" when handling the issues and said he would "try to understand what's going on through the local government."
"I'm a caring person -- I tore down a lot of illegal homes as Taipei mayor and a lot of the residents came back and thanked me," he said.
Sanying and Sijhou communities are both located in Taipei County.
The two communities' residents are Amis Aborigines who moved to Taipei to work as construction workers or miners decades ago. Not able to afford housing in the city, they built homes themselves on unused land on riverbanks.
Both communities are facing forced demolition by the county government, since both the sites are classified as "flood areas."
Most of homes in the Sanying Community were torn down by the County goverment last week.
Losheng is a sanatorium complex in Taipei County that was completed in 1930 during the Japanese colonial period and was used to keep patients with Hansen's disease in isolation.
A plan to demolish most of the complex to make way for a mass rapid transport maintenance depot has met with opposition, as preservationists believe it is of important historical value.
Ma's response the their requests angered the demonstrators.
"A large part of the KMT's assets were stolen from the Aborigines," yelled Pan Chin-hua (潘金花), a Sanying resident whose home was torn down last Thursday.
Pan said the lands belonging to his father in Taitung County were taken by force by the KMT government after they came to Taiwan in 1949.
"I'm bleeding inside -- what happened to my father is now happening to me," she said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
President William Lai (賴清德) should protect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), and stop supporting domestic strife and discord, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote on Facebook yesterday. US President Donald Trump and TSMC on Monday jointly announced that the company would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next few years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US. The TSMC plans have promoted concern in Taiwan that it would effectively lead to the chipmaking giant becoming Americanized. The Lai administration lacks tangible policies to address concerns that Taiwan might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps, Ma wrote. Instead, it seems to think it could
A man in Tainan has been cleared on charges of public insult after giving the middle finger during a road rage incident, as judges deemed the gesture was made “briefly to express negative feelings.” In last week’s ruling at the High Court’s Tainan branch, judges acquitted a driver, surnamed Cheng (程), for an incident along Tainan’s Nanmen Road in September 2023, when Cheng had spotted a place to park his car in an adjacent lane. Cheng slowed down his vehicle to go into reverse, to back into the parking spot, but the car behind followed too closely, as its driver thought Cheng
DEFENSE: The purpose of the exercises is to identify strategies for the government to control risks during tensions, prevent war and bolster national resilience A tabletop exercise series has begun simulating possible scenarios if the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched a war against Taiwan in the guise of a military exercise. The exercise series is jointly organized by National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations, Taiwan Center for Security Studies and Asia-Pacific Policy Research Association. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Yeong-kang (陳永康), former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director William Stanton and Taiwan Center for Security Studies director Liu Fu-kuo (劉復國) attended the event in Taipei yesterday. Scenarios that would be simulated include changing political circumstances in the US during US President Donald Trump’s tenure
RSS