Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday defended the government's relocation policy for areas threatened by natural catastrophes and denied it had forced victims of last year's floods and mudslides to leave their hometowns against their will.
“The relocation policy is both ideal and practical. The government fully respects the victims,” Wu said.
The Taiwan Aboriginal Tribes Action Alliance, a coalition of groups of victims of Typhoon Morakot, accused the government on Sunday of forcing the victims to move out of their native land.
“The government never considered the lifestyle of Aborigines when drawing up its reconstruction policy. [The government] has resorted to all sorts of tactics to forcibly relocate [the victims], including designating [their hometowns as] dangerous areas, building houses to relocate the victims, passively repairing infrastructures [in the areas hit by the typhoon] and blocking reconstruction work at Aboriginal land,” the alliance said in a press release.
Morakot triggered massive flooding and mudslides in August last year, killing 619 people and leaving 76 unaccounted for.
Wu said the government would relocate residents living in dangerous areas only if they agreed to do so.
For those who refuse to be relocated, Wu said the government would only evacuate them before a natural disaster.
Wu said some Aboriginal activists who did not live in areas devastated by the typhoon had spoken out against the government’s relocation policy to preserve the Aborigines’ unique lifestyle.
The good intentions of government and civic groups could be misinterpreted as malice because of that “obsession,” Wu said.
Wu also dismissed speculation that a government planned subsidy to encourage small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to hire new employees was meant to help bring the unemployment rate to below 5 percent by the end of the year.
The Executive Yuan said on Sunday it would earmark NT$900 million (US$28.3 million) to encourage SMEs to hire personnel.
The government plans to grant companies NT$10,000 per month for every new employee the firms hire for a period of six months.
The Chinese-language United Daily News said the measure was proposed to save Wu, who said he would step down if the unemployment rate failed to drop below 5 percent by the end of the year.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said the subsidies were part of a scheme to ensure that Wu stayed in power.
“He's trying to break past the 5 percent using these measures,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said, adding that the premier was the only person who would benefit from the program.
“Everything they are doing to lower the unemployment rate is not to solve the root of the problem, but instead it's all to protect Wu’s position,” she said.
Wu said the government had decided to postpone implementation of the plan until January to prevent the media from making “false accusations.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO
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