Failure to include private land within the government’s legal definition of Aboriginal “traditional areas” will entrench historical oppression and injustice, Aboriginal campaigners said yesterday, blasting the government’s failure to meet its promise of transitional justice.
More than a dozen people associated with the Aboriginal Transitional Justice Classroom (原住民轉型正義小教室) gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building and shouted for villages to be allowed to declare their own traditional areas.
“Excluding private land amounts to an acknowledgement that the past behavior and policies which led to the theft of Aboriginal land were legitimate,” said Salone Ishahavut, a Bunun and a professor of indigenous development at National Chi Nan University.
Photo: CNA
She said that the 800,000 hectares which the Council of Indigenous Peoples has estimated will be covered under traditional area delineation guidelines published last week is a drastic reduction from the 1.8 million hectares it estimated should be included following a survey completed in 2007.
New guidelines restrict application of the “traditional area” label to government-owned land, explicitly excluding private land.
While it is not clear what portion of the reduction is attributable to the exclusion of private land, much of the prime real estate in traditional areas is now in private hands, Salone said.
“While this delineation of traditional areas was supposed to be about protecting our land rights, excluding privately owned land will mean the final and complete loss of original lands and their related memories,” she said.
Including privately owned land in the “traditional areas” would give Aboriginals a voice in development projects, while leaving formal ownership unchanged, she said.
“This policy is effectively saying that the system of private property can address many delicate questions and complicated processes,” said Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), a Sunflower movement leader.
Lin said the council is using its administrative discretion to avoid tackling difficult aspects of transitional justice.
“Traditional areas should refer to the real-life space of our ancestors, but the council is focusing on the ‘status quo,’ which has already diverged from tradition. These delineation rules amount to an acknowledgement that our nation is unable to face the real history of indigenous peoples,” Amis singer-activist Panai Kusui said.
Including private land would spotlight the injustices involved in its acquisition, and could spark a national conversation, she said.
Another Amis, Mayaw Biho, a documentary filmmaker and a former head of Taiwan Indigenous TV, said the government has failed to follow through with promises to push for indigenous transitional justice in parallel with transitional justice efforts aimed at other abuses under Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authoritarian rule.
“The Presidential Office committee on indigenous justice held its first meeting in December [last year] and that was just an initial meeting which did not result in anything — but just look at all the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee has been doing,” Mayaw said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS