The Executive Yuan yesterday vowed to legislate on Aboriginal domains and languages, adding that it would help to reclaim Aboriginal lands illegitimately occupied by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the authoritarian White Terror era.
Speaking to reporters at a post-meeting news conference yesterday, Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said that the Executive Yuan has rubber-stamped a transitional justice plan for the nation’s Aborigines drafted by the Council of Indigenous Peoples that would deal with their land, languages and cultural issues.
“President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will formally apologize to the nation’s Aborigines in her capacity as president and Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said during the meeting that bills on Aboriginal traditional domains and languages should be passed within three years,” Tung said.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Briefing the media, Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod said that, after the Aboriginal Basic Act (原住民族基本法) was passed in 2005 to set a framework for the protection of Aboriginal rights, other laws on the details — including a draft bill on Aboriginal land and water, as well as the development of Aboriginal languages — were never passed by the legislature when the KMT had a majority.
Although the act stipulates that any development projects within traditional Aboriginal domains should receive prior consent from the local Aborigines, since the law defining Aboriginal domains was never passed, such articles in the act have been ineffective.
“For example, the construction of a resort on a beach in Taitung County’s Beinan Township (卑南), the mining issue in Taroko National Park and Taiwan Power Co’s selection of a permanent nuclear storage site should all have consulted local Aborigines in advance,” Icyang said. “However, without the legislation on Aboriginal land, the council had no legal basis to intervene.”
In addition, Icyang defended the Democratic Progressive Party’s draft bill on transitional justice, which has been criticized by some Aboriginal rights advocates as excluding Aborigines, since it would deal with what happened during the Martial Law era.
“We never excluded Aborigines, because the bill would also deal with Aboriginal victims of political persecution during the 228 Incident and the White Terror era,” Icyang said.
“Meanwhile, the draft bills on transitional justice and on the KMT’s ill-gotten party assets would also help reclaim Aboriginal land illegally seized by the KMT, such as the KMT’s office in Pingtung County’s Laiyi Township (來義) and the China Youth Corps’ office in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池), which were both built on Aboriginal land,” he said.
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