Amis singer Panai Kusui yesterday said at a protest against the extension of Asia Cement Corp’s mining rights that the nation’s Aborigines have no hope, accusing the government of being insincere in its vow to protect Aboriginal land from exploitation.
Following a protest at the Executive Yuan in Taipei on Monday, environmental groups yesterday gathered in front of the Legislative Yuan to raise concerns about what they called an illegal extension of Asia Cement’s mining rights approved on March 14.
They urged lawmakers to review 13 proposed amendments to the Mining Act (礦業法) in the current extraordinary legislative session.
Photo: CNA
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) on Tuesday last week instructed the Ministry of Economic Affairs to explain within one week how the decision was made to extend Asia Cement’s permits, saying the amendments would be reviewed in the next legislative session in September.
On Monday, the ministry said that its extension approval was not illegal.
In previous protests, the groups had cited Article 21 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法), which stipulates that development on Aboriginal land must be approved by the communities that would be affected.
However, the ministry said that the article did not apply to the extension of mining rights, citing a conclusion reached by the Executive Yuan in a meeting on Nov. 7 last year.
Panai, who has spent the past 118 days camped on Ketagalan Boulevard to protest regulations relating to Aboriginal land, said the government has repeatedly deceived Aborigines over the Asia Cement case.
“This generation of Aborigines is without hope, because the nation uses laws to persecute us time and again,” she said.
“Are the laws really aimed at protecting people?” she asked. “How can ministers without portfolio Chang Ching-sen (張景森) and Lin Wan-i (林萬億) forcefully deprive us of our rights?”
Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association lawyer Hsieh Meng-yu (謝孟羽) said the ministry was distorting the law, citing its position that “land development activity” defined in the Geology Act (地質法) does not include the extension of mining rights.
The association has helped a few Aborigines reacquire their land from Asia Cement, Hsieh said, but added that they are still unable to use their land.
As Article 47 of the Mining Act enables companies to take pre-emptive action, “only when those people saw the [news on] TV did they know their lands were to be exploited by Asia Cement for another 20 years,” he said.
Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan researcher Pan Cheng-cheng (潘正正) said there are 188 active mines nationwide, but only 25 of them have been subject to environmental impact assessments.
Asia Cement’s mining activity in Hualien County’s Sincheng Township (新城) has come under renewed public criticism after aerial footage by filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林) appeared to show that the company had expanded its operations at the site, even though the firm said it had reduced them.
Chi died in a helicopter crash in Hualien on June 10 while filming a sequel to his documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan From Above (看見台灣).
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but