Thousands of Aboriginal citizens from around the island demonstrated in front of the Presidential Office yesterday to push for a return of their "traditional territory."
The mass rally followed an overnight sit-in on the plaza in downtown Taipei by about 100 Aboriginal youths under the leadership of Aboriginal legislators from both the ruling and opposition parties that began at 10pm Friday.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The activity was organized to coincide with Taiwan's Retrocession Day on Oct. 25 which celebrates Taiwan's return to the Chinese fold in 1945 after 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. Aboriginal rights activists said Taiwan originally belonged to the island's indigenous people, not the immigrants from the Chinese mainland. They organized Friday's sit-in and Saturday's mass demonstration to highlight their call for a return of their "traditional territory" or self-governance of Aboriginal tribes.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Legislators May Chin (
The demonstrators urged President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to honor his campaign promise to allow for Aboriginal self-governance. In addition, they voiced strong opposition to the plan to make the Chilanshan area in the northeastern county of Ilan, which is the traditional homeland of the Atayal Aboriginal group, into a national park.
The demonstrators also deman-ded that the nuclear waste stored on the offshore Orchid Island, home to the Tao Aboriginal people, be moved off the island as soon as possible.
Chen Chien-nien (陳建年), chairman of the Cabinet-level Council of Aboriginal Affairs, showed up at the demonstration site to express his concern for their appeal.
Chen, himself an Aboriginal citizen, said aboriginal self-governance is a complicated issue which involves the revising of many statutes.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS