The sufferings of Taiwan's farmers and fishermen did not begin today, but these good people are often misled and abused by those with ulterior motives. Government reforms of the credit departments of farmers' and fishermen's associations have been criticized as a plan to annihilate them. This misunderstanding has driven President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) government into a corner, prompting a number of Cabinet ministers to tender their resignations.
Taiwan's farmers and fishermen deserve respect and gratitude for their past contribution to Taiwan's economy. However, the difficulties they face today are a result of government policies that overemphasized industry at the expense of the agricultural sector. Another factor was the KMT's practice of gaining control over the associations by manipulating their board elections and appointment of executives. Most of these KMT-cultivated cadres hail from local factions and gangs.
The KMT turned a blind eye to their abuses of power -- such as lending to their cronies without sufficient collateral -- because these cadres campaigned for the KMT during elections. This has led to today's high non-performing loans (NPLs) ratios at these grassroots credit units -- far higher than the overall average in Taiwan's financial industry. These institutions are losing at least NT$10 billion a year due to corruption by board members and managers.
Faced with this, the government needs to adopt heavy-handed measures to implement reform and to stop people sucking dry the farmers' and fishermen's savings. However, the government has obviously underestimated the power of a counterattack by corrupt forces among the normally oppressed farmers and fishermen, with assistance from ambitious politicians. Because these politicians are controlling all the farmers' and fishermen's organizations, they know how to use the latent dissatisfaction to add fuel to the fire, saying that the government -- by taking over the management of credit units with excessive NPL-ratios -- is aiming to terminate all 344 farmers' and fishermen's associations. By doing this, these politicians have awoken deep-seated fears among the farming and fishing population that they will not be able to find credit in the future and that this will have a serious impact on their livelihood. This is why they are participating in the demonstrations and protests to such a degree.
We should severely condemn the politicians who hide behind the scenes and their parties to engage in political wrangling at the cost of social stability. Their target is nothing less than the presidential elections, more than one year away. Some of them are also trying to pave the way for their party candidates in the fight against the DPP candidates in the upcoming mayoral elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Some have pointed out that about 300,000 farmers and fishermen originally planned to participate in the protest -- the biggest of its kind in Taiwan's history. More than 100,000 showed up yesterday, and if each of them spent NT$1,000, the cost of the protest would be about NT$100 million. At a time when both farmers' and fishermen's associations are complaining about their financial difficulties, where did such a large sum of money come from?
While the helplessness of the local farmers and fishermen who protested on the streets is understandable, it is unacceptable for any political parties or politicians to use the issue to their own political advantage. Politicians should let them air their grievances -- not distort the development of Taiwan's democratic politics.
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