Aboriginal rights activists yesterday poured red ink on a statue of Koxinga (鄭成功) in Tainan’s North District (北區) to demand justice and autonomy for Aborigines, saying that the public should not revere a historical figure who massacred Aborigines and calling on President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to prioritize Aboriginal justice issues.
The activists, carrying banners, gathered by the statute near Tainan Station and poured red ink on the the statute’s feet and pedestal, to symbolize that Koxinga had “trampled on the blood of Aborigines.”
Police arrived at the scene to stop the demonstrators, resulting in an argument.
Photo: CNA
The protesters said they are instructors at universities such as the National Cheng Kung University and Chang Jung Christian University (CJCU), adding that they are members of the Justice for Aborigines Alliance.
Lo Yung-ching (羅永清), an assistant professor of Taiwan Studies at CJCU, told reporters that Koxinga was “responsible for massacres and persecution of Aborigines,” adding that the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) draft bill to promote transitional justice “does not give due consideration to the Aboriginal historical perspective.”
Lo called on the Tsai administration and DPP lawmakers to draft a transitional justice bill to specifically to address Aboriginal groups, establish a committee for Aboriginal justice and work toward state reparations, self-governance and a restoration of “dignity and sovereignty” for Aborigines.
Although Tsai’s campaign platform included many of the alliance’s demands, including granting Aborigines substantive autonomy, Lo said it is time for Tsai to fulfill those promises.
“President Siao Ing should not think that an oral apology is enough to put the matter to rest,” Lo said, using Tsai’s nickname.
Tsai has promised to officially apologize to Aborigines in her capacity as president on Monday, Aborigines Day.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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