Bowing to pressure from Aboriginal lawmakers, Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) yesterday agreed to visit Orchid Island tomorrow to show his sincerity in wanting to deal with the nuclear waste dumped there.
But local residents said they would not end the protest until they saw a concrete plan stating when and how the government would remove the radioactive waste.
Seeking to put pressure on the authorities, Aboriginal legislators from across party lines called on Lin at noon, asking him to personally visit Orchid Island, where residents have been protesting since Wednesday to demand the removal of nuclear waste.
The island, with a population of 3,100, has received some 98,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste produced by the three nuclear power plants and from medical, industrial and academic institutions.
"The minister acquiesced to fly to the island Saturday, though he at first regarded such a trip as unnecessary," said independent legislator Walis Pelin (瓦歷斯貝林) after emerging from the closed-door meeting.
He added that Lin, who took office in March, appeared at a loss over what to do about the radioactive waste.
The Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), under the ministry's supervision, promised in 1990 to relocate all the waste by the end of this year.
But Premier Yu Shyi-kun has admitted publicly it will be impossible for his Cabinet to honor the pledge made by the then KMT administration. Taipower has sought unsuccessfully to find alternative repository sites at home and abroad since the promise was made.
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Scores of residents from the Yami tribe have been staging their protest in the scorching sun at the site where the nuclear waste has been deposited.
"They may burn down the [nuclear waste] repository if the authorities continue to ignore their grievances," Chin said. "The government must quit thinking it can treat Aborigines as second-class citizens."
The lawmakers demanded, among other things, the establishment of a task force to handle the relocation of radioactive waste from the island, where most of the residents earn their living from fishing.
Lin promised to set up a panel, but didn't commit to a timetable.
Pastor Steven Chang (張海嶼), who has helped organize the protest, said the islanders would contemplate more drastic measures if the government continued to deny them a safe living environment.
Some residents claim that the government built the storage facilities under the disguise of a canning factory. But the Atomic Energy Council insists it never masked its intentions when building the site in the 1970s.
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