Vowing to protect their land, dozens of residents from New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) yesterday protested a government land seizure plan to make room for a development project in the coastal area.
“We, the people of Gongliao, have lived there for hundreds, or even thousands of years as the indigenous Ketagalan tribe — we are not giving up the land that’s been passed down from our ancestors,” Lin Sheng-yi (林勝義), a native of Gongliao, told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
“The Construction and Planning Agency [CPA] is collaborating with big corporations to take over our land — they have no right to seize our land by force,” he said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Lin, who is a descendent of the Ketagalan Aboriginal people that inhabited Gongliao and most of the Greater Taipei area before Han immigrants from China arrived in Taiwan, said the people of Gongliao had already suffered when plots of their land were taken over by the government decades ago for the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
“We’re not going to allow this to happen again,” Lin said.
According to an official document detailing the project released by the CPA, there are 11 project sites in Gongliao with a total area of 102.56 hectares. The different sites would be turned into commercial, residential and hotel zones.
Chien Fung-jung (簡豐榮), president of Hemei Community Development Association, accused the government of trying to destroy the village by taking over the best farmlands in the community.
“According to the government’s plans, they would take over 40 hectares of the best flat land in the village and turn it into hotels and residential complexes,” Chien said. “After the planned expropriation, only land on the hills that is not arable would be left to us. We cannot grow anything there, the villagers would be forced to leave and the village would be dead.”
The most common agricultural produce in Gongliao includes rice, watermelon and green asparagus — all cultivated on flat land.
Goo Tshun-jiong (吳春蓉), a member of the Taiwan Northeast Coast Concord Alliance, said it did not make sense to build commercial and residential districts in the area, since some of the sites are very close to the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
“The CPA says that it is trying to bring about 9,500 residents into the area, but all the sites [they want] are in the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Who would want to live next to a nuclear power plant?” Goo asked.
“And isn’t it in the safety handbook that nuclear power plants should be built in low-density areas away from residential neighborhoods?” she added.
Gongliao is a tourist attraction for its landscape, hiking trails in the mountains and beach, Goo said, adding that “urbanization as the CPA plans to do is not suitable for Gongliao, because it would turn it into just another ordinary small city without character.”
“If the government really cares about Gongliao’s development, it should tailor-make a plan for Gongliao, with the participation of all residents,” she said.
“So far, residents have never been consulted in the process of planning such development projects,” she added.
Goo called on the CPA to suspend the development project until it had held negotiations with local residents and farmers.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS