A coalition of Aboriginal rights groups yesterday rallied outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei to oppose a request by Han farmers to loosen regulations on Aboriginal reservations.
About 50 advocates from a dozen Aboriginal rights groups attended the demonstration, which featured a fire ritual administered by a Bunun shaman to invoke the spirits of tribal ancestors.
The Han farmers’ demand is “an injustice to us Aborigines,” Taiwan Association for the Promotion of the Indigenous Rights president Hai Sur said. “We are opposed to abolishing Aboriginal reservations and all improper land use in the reservations.”
Photo: CNA
The Taiwan Association for the Rights of Non-Aboriginal Residents in Mountain Indigenous Townships — which consists mostly of Han farmers living in Aborigine-majority townships — on April 18 protested outside the Legislative Yuan to demand the same rights as Aborigines.
“For years, the government has been caring for Aborigines at the expense of Han farmers’ rights by allowing the Council of Indigenous Peoples to take away their homes and groves,” association president Wu Tien-yu (吳天祐) said at last month’s event.
Many Han farmers lost their land after the council confiscated it for Aboriginal reservations and pressed charges against them for breaching soil conservation laws, Wu said.
“The government should amend the law to ensure that Han farmers and Aborigines have equal rights,” he added.
Han residents in townships outnumbered by Aborigines have long complained about what they say are unfair privileges enjoyed by local Aborigines.
Under current laws, non-Aborigines cannot own land in Aboriginal reservations. Although they can rent land, they typically have strict building codes and standards.
Moreover, only Aborigines can run for mayor in the 55 townships where Aborigines are the majority.
While the Han farmers’ association said it would stage a rally of more than 3,000 people in front of the council on Tuesday next week, Hai Sur said that Aboriginal rights groups are also preparing for larger protests.
“The reservations are on land historically owned by Aboriginal peoples. We need the land to pass on our culture and to live,” he said. “We will not give an inch.”
Aborigines’ demand that they keep the existing reservations is “both reasonable and legal,” said Chen Ying (陳瑩), a Puyuma legislator of the Democratic Progressive Party. “It is a very humble request. We have no intention to start an ethnic war.”
Aborigines originally owned more than 1 million hectares of land, before it was reduced to 240,000 hectares under Japanese rule, she said.
Although 260,000 hectares have been designated as Aboriginal reservations since 1997, it is still far from what Aborigines used to have, she said.
Considering that their land has already been drastically reduced, “how can it be wrong to insist on keeping that?” Chen asked.
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