Aboriginal rights campaigner Panai Kusui and other advocates yesterday relocated dozens of potted lilies from their protest site at the 228 Peace Memorial Park to an art museum as the Taipei City Government prepares to demolish their camp next week.
After the government announced the Guidelines for Demarcating Aboriginal Land or Tribal Areas (原住民族土地或部落範圍土地劃設辦法) in February 2017, Panai and other advocates camped on Ketagalan Boulevard, in front of the Presidential Office Building, in protest and were later forced to move to the nearby park.
The guidelines restrict Aboriginal domains to government-owned plots and exclude areas owned by private landowners, enabling businesses to launch controversial development projects on Aboriginal land, such as the Miramar Resort Hotel (美麗灣渡假村) project, advocate Liao Hsing-yu (廖幸渝) said yesterday.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
Under the slogan “No one is an outsider,” the campaigners yesterday had camped in the area for 696 days, Liao said.
However, the municipality has said that it would remove their belongings on Tuesday, she said.
The government might have timed the removal to take advantage of the absence of other key campaigners, such as filmmaker Mayaw Biho and singer Nabu Husungan Istanda, who have left for other events, she added.
RELOCATION
The activists yesterday invited members of the public to help them relocate some of the nearly 300 pots of Taiwanese indigenous lily sprouts to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, where they have an exhibition area at the Taipei Biennial, which this year is titled Post-Nature — A Museum as an Ecosystem and ends on March 10.
Lilies are a sacred symbol for the Rukai people and campaigners from different Aboriginal communities have expressed the hope that they could return home by the time the plants blossom.
VITALITY
Taiwanese indigenous lilies are full of vitality and people who care for them should not rush to weed their pots, Panai said, before transporting some of the lilies by MRT along with nearly 20 participants.
The Democratic Progressive Party government has defended Taiwanese dignity in the face of Chinese pressure, yet it is insensitive toward the pain of Aborigines, who were deprived of their ancestral lands, languages and cultures, she said in a previous TV interview.
She added that she would continue to fight for Aborigines’ rights and raise public awareness about their predicament.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS