The mining rights under which Asia Cement’s Hualien quarry, which gained notoriety following the death of Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), director of the documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan From Above (看見台灣), has been operating for the past 20 years expired last week.
The government has approved a 20-year extension, even though the issue is shrouded in controversy, a petition was signed by more than 200,000 people and the environmental impact assessment has yet to be approved, and despite the government’s failure to adequately communicate the process to the Truku Aborigines.
Then-premier Lin Chuan (林全) promised speedy amendments to the Mining Act (礦業法), but the legislation remains stuck at the Executive Yuan, even after Lin’s successor, Premier William Lai (賴清德), took over.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs last week presented its report to the Executive Yuan and Lai’s decision, having communicated with the management of Asia Cement, was to revisit the issue in an extraordinary session.
In light of how the government has sided with corporate interests in its revisions to the “one fixed day off and one flexible rest day” system, with scant regard for the opinions of workers, it is clear that Lai will not care for Taiwan’s ecology and will allow Asia Cement to continue mining.
Details about political contributions for last year’s legislative election campaigns have been published. The biggest corporate donor by far — at NT$54 million (US$1.8 million) — was Asia Cement’s parent company, Far Eastern Group, whose chairman is Douglas Hsu (徐旭東).
The report shows that the Democratic Progressive Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) both benefited from these donations.
Another cement company, TCC Group, was behind the third-largest donation of NT$18.4 million.
Although the donations were legal and were declared to the tax authorities, when political donations this large are made, a proportion could be diverted to serve a political agenda.
In addition, data on political donations are often kept at the Control Yuan and not easily checked, but one would expect links between the funding of many powerful politicians and prevarications over amendments to the Mining Act.
The Truku have run out of patience. If the government does nothing to prevent the extension of the mining rights, they might have to take matters into their own hands and seal off the roads to Taroko.
Tetsuya Takahashi has talked about the “sacrificial system.” People are taught from an early age the value of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but too often, people expect others to make sacrifices for development.
Indeed, the Fu-shih (富世) tribal area in Hualien County's Sincheng Township, which Asia Cement's quarry overlaps on, and the communities in Hsinchu County's Guansi Township, are beholden to the sacrificial system mentality, with the cement industry being considered a basic industry imperative for national security.
Communities cannot go back to where they were before the arrival of the cement industry. Residents are forced to choose between making a living and being safe. The development policies of the past allowed the cement industry to reap the rewards of exploiting land rented at extremely low prices and to enrich itself.
Asia Cement insists that it is a model environmentally responsible company within the industry, despite constantly opposing policies stipulated in the draft amendment to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) that require mines that have not passed environmental impact assessments to be subject to assessment.
If the company is confident that everything is aboveboard, it should have no reason to fear having its data scrutinized.
Meanwhile, the government’s abdication of responsibility and corporate greed have put people’s lives and the environment at risk.
The Truku say that the land is their blood and the forests are their home.
The quarry, which Hsu claims can be deepened and turned into a lake for fish farming, is on land that was once cultivated by the Truku.
Taiwanese must unite and work toward a society that does not require sacrificing others. Only then will things change.
If closing roads is the only way we can fight for our rights, then that is what we must do to reclaim the land that is rightfully ours.
Tsai Chung-yueh is Taiwan consultant for environmentalist group Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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