Residents of the Atayal Aboriginal village of Hagay in Taoyuan County’s Fusing Township (復興) yesterday protested the county government’s 10-year delay in rebuilding their village after the original one was destroyed in a natural disaster.
“We want to go home! We want to go back to a real home!” Hagay residents, accompanied by rights advocates and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), shouted during a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
“It’s been 10 years and we still live in temporary housing units,” said Tai Li-chuan (戴禮娟), a spokeswoman for the village.
Photo: CNA
“The county government never fulfilled its promise to rebuild the village for us according to our wishes,” Tai added.
The location of the original Hagay Village along the Dahan River (大漢溪) was put in danger in the 1990s because the construction of a dam altered the river’s course.
The dam collapsed in 2001 when Typhoon Nari dumped a massive amount of water in the river’s catchment area, which the dam could not handle, leaving the downstream Atayal Baling Village in ruins.
The government then resettled members of the community in Shangsule — originally only for three years — while promising to build new homes for them there. However, the houses were never built.
In addition to the delay in the reconstruction process, Hagay villagers are also not satisfied with the county government’s plan to build 17 ping (56m2) houses consisting of one room, one bathroom and one living room for each family, saying that was insufficient space for their families, Tai said.
Villagers then put forward their own plans for two or three-story houses last year, but the county government turned down the request, she said.
“The government was quick to demolish the homes of the Wangs in Shilin District (士林), Taipei City, yet it is taking so long to rebuild houses for disaster victims,” Taiwan Association for Human Rights executive member and Soochow University law professor Wu Hao-jen (吳豪人) said, referring to the Taipei City Government’s forcible eviction of a family named Wang (王) on Wednesday last week to make way for a new housing complex.
“The government always says that it acts according to the law, but if our laws are only causing people to become homeless, we don’t know what we need laws for,” Wu said.
However, Taoyuan County’s Indigenous Peoples Bureau Deputy Director Lin Ji-lung (林日龍), who also attended the news conference, rebutted the accusation.
“We have worked hard to fulfill our promise. It took us five years — from 2003 to 2008 — to complete the process of changing the land category of the planned reconstruction site from ‘forestry land’ to ‘building land,’” Lin said.
As for turning down the request to build bigger houses, Lin said that the construction method to be used in the plan initiated by the Hagay residents “is meant for transitional housing units, but we’re looking to build permanent houses.”
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to