Aborigines shoot down candidate's proposals

Aboriginal took aim at Taiwan's presidential hopefuls yesterday for what they said were their largely-identical Aboriginal policy proposals.

They said politicians should have a clearer understanding of predicaments faced by the country's indigenous peoples before chasing aboriginal votes.

As the presidential election race comes down to the wire, the Aboriginal People's Committee, under the National Teachers' Association (全國教師會), held a panel discussion yesterday to invite Aboriginal critics to comment on the presidential hopefuls' policies.

Representatives the five candidates also joined the discussion, to defend the respective policy proposals.

Amid views on policy proposals over improving the lives of Taiwan's 400,000 indigenous peoples, Aboriginal critics said it was a shame the candidates for national leadership lacked a clear understanding of what really worried Aborigines.

"These policy proposals are largely identical, they have only minor differences ... and such proposals, which lack details and specifics only reflect one thing: these candidates have failed to understand the vital predicaments faced by Aborigines," said Dianav Jenror (丹耐夫. 景若), a producer of an aboriginal news program at the Public Television Station.

Jenror unemployment as one of the main problems facing Aborigines and said none of the candidates had expended much energy addressing this problem.

"Although the DPP's Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) touched upon this issue, his proposal was still very vague," he said.

Defending KMT's Lien Chan (連戰), Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川), vice chairman of the cabinet-level Council of Aboriginal Affairs, presented a check Lien had recently issued.

To upgrade the overall standards of living among Aboriginal peoples, the Executive Yuan would spend NT$10 billion over the next three years as a "development fund" for the Aboriginal community, he said.

But Sun's check was ridiculed by legislator Tsai Chung-han (蔡中涵), who was representing James Soong's (宋楚瑜) campaign on the panel.

"While Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) [now KMT vice presidential candidate] turned down the committee's proposal to raise these funds in 1998, his decision to revive the proposal was simply triggered by his intention to lure the Aboriginal vote," Tsai said.

Isak Afu (以撒克. 阿復), chairman of the Taiwan indigenous Labor Association, ridiculed the policy proposals as being works of fiction presented in "a composition competition."

Although Aborigines urgently want to reclaim their lost lands -- occupied by late-comers to the island, either during the Japanese occupation or the KMT's rule -- Afu said such issues were largely absent from the candidate's proposals.

"Although Chen claimed that he would inspect the issue of lost lands, he still failed to articulate ways in which these lands should be returned to the Aborigines," he said.

Alice Takewa-tan (亞磊絲), a teacher from the Bunun tribe, said officials should learn the essence of Taiwan's Aboriginal cultures before dealing with Aboriginal affairs.

"I am sure none of the officials really know what the Ami tribe is really about ... They should make some effort to understand Aboriginal peoples instead of showing their faces during some Aboriginal annual festivals wearing our Aboriginal vests," she said.

She also urged politicians to adopt an alternative vision of saving the precious Aboriginal culture and languages, instead of just talking about compensation and sympathy.

Meanwhile, Lin Ming-teh (林明德), executive secretary of the committee of the National Teachers' Association, predicted that Soong was likely to get about 48 percent of the Aboriginal vote, followed by 35 percent for Lien and 16 percent for Chen.