Farmers’ advocate Yang Ju-men (楊儒門), who gained notoriety as the “Rice Bomber” in 2003 and 2004, has been appointed to the board of directors of Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co, a firm established by Taipei City’s Department of Economic Development.
His appointment was announced on Wednesday.
The city government said that in keeping with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) desire to utilize non-conventional recruiting processes it had saved a board seat for Yang, even though it had first planned to select all five candidates from the public sector.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
A Taipei City Government recruiting committee member who recommended Yang said that as a “younger generation” farmer and a long-time proponent of reforming the market for fresh produce, Yang represents the much needed new blood for the nation’s agricultural sector.
Yang has frequently complained about what he says are the many shortcomings in the current marketing efforts for agricultural produce.
Farmers are powerless against an inequitable market, and often bear the burden of price volatility, he says.
However, Yang declined on Wednesday to say what he hopes to accomplish by being on the board, saying only that he would not do what politicians do: accomplishing little of what they promise.
Yang was convicted in 2005 of planting 17 bombs in parks, telephone booths and trains from November 2003 onward in a bid to arouse public awareness of what he said was the government’s neglect of farmers and changes to agricultural import policies as a result of the nation joining the WTO in 2002.
He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail and received a fine of NT$100,000, although the Taiwan High Court later reduced the sentence to five years and 10 months, saying that Yang had not acted maliciously.
Only two of the devices exploded, causing limited damage, but no injuries. Yang mixed small amounts of rice in with his homemade explosives, which is where his nickname came from.
In June 2007, then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) pardoned Yang, saying that he had behaved well in prison and he did not think Yang would break the law again.
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