In an eight-hour long clash that lasted until 4:30am yesterday, hundreds of Thai and Filipino laborers fought with rocks, pipes and gasoline bombs at the Formosa Plastic Group's Sixth Naptha Cracker site in Mailiao, Yunlin County, injuring over 20 people. Four Filipino workers were hospitalized with severe head injuries and dozens of others suffered minor injuries in the brawl, police said. Two remain hospitalized late last night.
It was the worst clash of its kind in Taiwan, but the third such incident at the Formosa Plastics complex since construction began there in 1993.
The fight erupted around 9.30pm Sunday, following disputes over the use of telephones, police said. But there was already some tension between the two groups, following a smaller-scale fistfight earlier in the evening. Three Thai workers were reportedly beaten up by their Filipino counterparts after mistakenly getting on a bus carrying Filipinos, as workers from both groups were returning from health checkups in Taichung.
PHOTO: LIN KUO-HSIEN, LIBERTY TIMES
The Formosa complex -- the largest employer of foreign laborers in Taiwan -- has over 12,000 foreign workers at the site. Some 7,000 are from the Philippines and about 5,000 are from Thailand.
Around 200 to 300 workers were reportedly directly involved in the massive fight. Television reports said Thai workers began attacking Filipino dormitories with pipes and rocks. Home-made firebombs were then thrown by both sides, sparking several small blazes that were quickly put out, Chinese-language newspapers reported.
Undermanned local police were unable to halt the violence. After reinforcements arrived from other substations, a police crackdown began around 1:30am. But it took another three hours to bring a halt to the running battles -- and separate the feuding groups.
But tempers remained high throughout the day. Groups of Thais fought with police later in the morning, as they tried to break through police lines separating the groups. Formosa Plastics then relocated a large number of the Filipino workers, after threats were made to gather all the Filipinos for an attack on the Thais. Some 2,000 Filipinos were sent to nearby temples to spend the night, pending more permanent arrangements for their housing.
Additional police reinforcements were brought in throughout the day to guard against further clashes. Some 500 police were still at the site as of press time last night.
However, as of 11:30pm, the chief of the Yulin county police station said, "It's okay now."
High-ranking officials from the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) as well as the Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei flew to Yunlin yesterday evening to try to help ease the situation. "We don't know who started the fight yet. But we'll try to ensure their (the workers) safety first, and then to find out the causes of the fight," Eliot S. Cojuangco, MECO's labor representative, told the Taipei Times.
A reconciliation meeting has been scheduled for this morning at 10am, with Philippine and Thai officials on hand to supervise representatives from the two groups of workers.
Meanwhile, just who is responsible for overseeing the Filipino and Thai workers at the Mailiao site is the subject of debate.
Su Hsiu-yi (蘇秀義), deputy director of CLA's vocational training administration said, "The council will investigate to see whether Formosa Plastics and Samsung Engineering and Construction Company (one of 44 subcontractors at the site) have enforced their management over foreign workers there. If Formosa is found responsible for insufficient management, we won't rule out the possibility of cutting its labor import quota."
Lin Chin-tzu (林慶賜), deputy manager of the Management Department at the Formosa complex, admitted that there is room for improvement. "There is only one interpreter for every 200 foreign laborers," Lin said. "Because of language barriers, we don't understand what they are trying to tell us."
Formosa officials in Taipei, however, said the contract between the two companies states that Samsung is responsible for managing foreign laborers working for it, while Formosa is in charge of the workers' entrance and exit control only.
But the CLA's Su disagrees. "Despite the fact that these workers are hired by Samsung, it's Formosa that had applied to us to import these laborers. Formosa should supervise its subcontractors," he said.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS