Despite the Cabinet's goodwill gesture to the farmers' and fishermen's associations by suspending its three-tiered risk-control mechanism for the associations on Sunday, managers of fishermen's and farmers' associations announced yesterday that they would still be holding a protest in Taipei this Saturday.
"It's too late. Why didn't the government say this two months ago?" managers of the associations shouted at a rally held in a co-op office in Tien-mu yesterday.
"Rice has cooked," they said.
Taiwan Agro-Fighters United (TAFU), an organization composed of fishermen and farmers' associations, yesterday rallied some 400 managers of the associations to pledge their resolve to march in Taipei Saturday, following the Cabinet's announcement of indefinitely suspending its three-tier risk-control mechanism for financial reform Sunday night.
"There are so many uncertainties of the Cabinet's indefinite suspension. We have doubts about the policy, and we do not agree with it," TAFU's press release said.
Following yesterday's rally, former president Lee Teng-hui (
With the former president's coordination, TAFU reached a consensus with the Cabinet's secretary-general, Liu Shih-fang (
The Ministry of Finance's plan to overhaul the credit departments of farmers' and fishermen's associations because of their high non-performing loan (NPL) ratios, which stand at an average of 21.5 percent, has been attacked by opposition parties and many of the associations' staff who fear that the associations will be shut down.
At yesterday's rally, the TAFU said that they support financial reform, but the government has failed to respect their opinions during the policy-making process.
Chan Chao-li (詹朝立), one of TAFU's high-ranking organizers, said "The government never gave us a clear response to our questions during three separate negotiations."
The organization listed 10 demands that it will voice during the Saturday march: including allocating a total of NT$250 billion in funds for the development of agriculture and possible damages from imported agricultural products; allowing other farmer associations to take over the associations that go bankrupt; and setting up the national agricultural bank.
They will also ask the government to return the 36 farmers associations that have already merged with commercial banks, and amend the current regulations to allow these associations to be under the sole direction of the Council of Agriculture.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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