Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) yesterday called on all the presidential candidates to recognize the significance of returning the nation’s forests to Aborigines and to attach importance to the protection of nature.
Tien made the remarks at a press conference in Taipei, where she was joined by pastor Kavas, a Bunun Aborigine, who accused police of having encroached on his freedom when he tried to show three academics his work advocating Aboriginal rights and the reclamation of forests that once belonged to his people.
Kavas said that while guiding National Taitung University professor Liu Chiung-shi (劉炯錫) and his assistants through the forest near Jiaming Lake (嘉明湖) in Taitung County, they were stopped by a dozen police officers, who arrested the academics, citing a breach of national security.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Despite an investigation by prosecutors confirming that the lake had been designated a restricted area by the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior in 1993, the area has become a popular tourist destination in recent years.
Kavas said the lake is part of the Bunun people’s traditional territory and that he has the right to introduce the area to academics, adding that the police’s alleged restriction of his personal freedom and officers’ request that he testify against his friends was “beyond belief.”
Liu said that Aborigines’ right to their traditional territories is a basic human right stipulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Indigenous Peoples’ Basic Act (原住民基本法), and he called on the government to reinstate those rights to Aborigines and to lift any unreasonable restrictions on Aboriginal lands.
The four yesterday refused to appear at the Taitung District Court in protest against what they called improper law enforcement.
Tien said it is imperative that Aborigines’ reclaim their rights to nature, as without them they would be powerless against those who damage the environment.
She called on all the presidential candidates to deliberate over reinstating land rights to Aborigines.
Meanwhile, the Taitung District Prosecutors’ Office said that the restrictions near Jiaming Lake are likely outdated and — with the increasing number of tourists in the area — it would ask the relevant government agencies to explain whether the lake is still considered off-limits.
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