Aboriginal rights groups yesterday called on Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to move beyond promises of apology and return Aboriginal lands to their owners.
Representatives from the Millet Foundation, Association for Taiwan Indigenous Peoples’ Policy, Indigenous Peoples’ Long Term Care Alliance and several other groups read a declaration out loud in unison, saying that while they welcomed Tsai’s recognition of Aboriginal people as the most important component of Taiwan’s cultural diversity, she needed to do more to recognize the invasion and occupation of Aboriginal lands, as well as stop exploitation and repair damage caused by the government.
The nation must acknowledge Aboriginal sovereignty and pay NT$100 billion (US$3.09 billion) annual compensation, as well as take action to return Aboriginal land, demonstrators said.
They said legal changes are needed to clearly delineate Aboriginal rights, adding that new government bodies are also needed to push forward the restoration of rights and facilitate communication with the government.
This year’s annual budget for the Council of Indigenous Peoples, which draws and executes policies related to Aboriginal communities, is NT$7.48 billion.
“The concept of compensation is crucial,” said Daya Dakasi, a National Chengchi University associate professor of ethnology and a member of the Atayal community, who helped prepare the statement. “Talks of apologies and reconciliation should not just become insignificant slogans. An apology is not real unless you follow through on your promises — you have to pay the price,” Dakasi said.
Tsai has promised to issue an official apology to Aborigines at this year’s Indigenous People’s Day in her official capacity as president.
Indigenous Peoples’ Long Term Care Alliance member Yunaw Sili, also of the Atayal community, said that land rights were crucial to addressing poverty among Aborigines and the breakdown of traditional society, which resulted from governmental “land grabs” during Japanese colonial rule.
The vast majority of lands in which Aborigines reside are national property as a result of Japanese colonial government claiming all lands not covered by formal property deeds.
“Because we have been stripped of land rights, we have not been able to freely develop and cope with difficulties in adjusting to economic development, this has resulted in most young people being forced into cities to look for work, altering the demographics and economy of villages,” he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods