At a public meeting on Monday to discuss reconstruction efforts for Guangfu Township (光復) in Hualien County, the town recently struck by the barrier lake overflow and flood that resulted in 19 deaths, descended into chaos after Hualien County Council Speaker and Guangfu resident Chang Chun (張峻) — protesting at not being invited — stormed into the meeting and kicked the table of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator and local kingpin Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). The meeting had been organized by Fu and another KMT legislator, Sra Kacaw (鄭天財).
Fu and Chang detest each other. In the recent recall election, Chang supported the recall against Fu. Chang controls a faction of independent legislators who have a plurality in the local county council.
The meeting was intended to focus on a special reconstruction bill under legislative review. It was attended by Hualien County government and township officials, as well as several county councilors. Local media reported that many Guangfu residents stood outside the meeting hall and banged on the windows, saying they had not been notified of a meeting.
Photo: CNA
Fu blamed the township office, saying the county and township governments had been inactive even before the disaster. Earlier in the month, Fu had attempted to deflect criticism of the Hualien County government — run by his wife Hualien County Commissioner Hsu Chen-wen (徐榛蔚) — by claiming that evacuations were the sole responsibility of township and village offices. Township offices typically have the fewest resources of any level of government and should have been robustly supported with an obvious disaster looming. Fu also, more reasonably, contended that the meeting space was too small to hold the thousands of local residents affected by the reconstruction program.
The reconstruction budget for Guangfu was an add-on to an existing disaster budget of NT$60 billion passed in July for a previous typhoon. That budget was amended to add another $25 billion and extend the legislation’s effecting period through Dec. 31, 2028, with some measures lasting until the end of 2030. The government has declared Hualien County a disaster area.
What is at stake? The money, first of all. According to the Cabinet, the NT$25 billion is intended for barrier lake management (NT$10.7 billion), water resource facilities (NT$4 billion), roads and transportation (NT$3.25 billion), housing and public works (NT$2.65 billion), agricultural facilities (NT$500 million) and social and industrial recovery (NT$478 million). One portion, NT$3.42 billion, acts as contingency funds.
Photo courtesy of the Hualien Forestry Administration
RECONSTRUCTION
Roughly half of Guangfu’s population hails from the indigenous Amis community. Indigenous communities have long, bitter experience of getting wrecked by typhoons and then shafted by the government. Though there are numerous local cases, the reconstruction effort in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in 2009 has generated an enormous literature on how post-disaster reconstruction robs indigenous people of their lands and rights.
After Morakot, the government argued that human activities in environmentally sensitive areas were preventing the natural environment from exercising its protective and regenerative functions. Mountain residents, largely from indigenous communities, were blamed for the flooding, landslides and other problems. But as Kuo Yung-hua (郭詠華) observed in a 2023 piece in Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal, this attitude was driven by the Han Taiwanese belief that “indigenous people were unable to wisely manage land,” a belief that not coincidentally justifies Han settlement and land theft. Kuo added: “this claim disregards the fact that the majority of the mountain lands was [sic] controlled by the government and developed by enterprises.”
Photo courtesy of the Hualien branch of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency
Kuo’s narrative is a tale of woe. The reconstruction law, seemingly intended to move indigenous people out of the mountains, gave the government “broad discretion” to designate areas as special zones due to their hazards. The government then spent 30 days surveying 80 areas of non-indigenous communities for hazards, eventually designating 60 as unsafe. By contrast, just 10 days were spent surveying 64 indigenous communities, all of which were found either unsafe (33) or conditionally unsafe (31).
The process of defining land risk continued into 2009. Readers will not be surprised to learn that while the reconstruction act ostensibly included regard for indigenous rights, in practice indigenous communities who objected to the findings of the government surveys had no say. Kuo reports that indigenous people blocked roads to protest when the government held public meetings in affected areas. The eventual relocation was compulsory under the rules the government adopted.
‘DISASTER COLONIALISM’
Photo courtesy of the Hualien branch of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency
Lin Hui-nien (林慧年) and Sasala Taiban termed this relocation process “disaster colonialism” in a 2023 paper describing it. Protests by indigenous communities eventually forced the government to soften its position, they observe. Tabulating the government’s effort, they note that “43 permanent housing sites were constructed, with indigenous people occupying 80.6 percent (2,871 households) of them. Of these units, 82.9 percent (2,379 households) were far from traditional lands — constituting the most extensive Indigenous displacement since Japan’s colonial-era ‘collective relocation’ policy.”
The indigenous peoples in mountainous areas were thus hit by two devastating disasters: Typhoon Morakot and the government’s response. Note that the government’s policy, with its numerous unanswered questions and unclear directives, left communities divided into those staying put and those leaving, another tragedy.
The people banging on windows outside of the meeting hall in Guangfu were well aware of this history. They know that Fu Kun-chi, pointing to nearby sediment accumulation, has already mentioned that some villages should be relocated. Local media reported that the people trying to force their way into the meeting criticized the planning and communication of the local government for “ignoring the victims and lacking transparency,” a repeated issue with a broad range of government actions in local areas.
Why were locals upset? After Chang’s outburst, Fu said that the meeting’s purpose was to accelerate aid to Guangfu’s people. No doubt that much was true, but there was more.
According to local Chinese-language media reports, the meeting that Fu convened was not to discuss the budget already allocated, but instead to discuss a bill introduced by Sra Kacaw, the other KMT legislator present. This bill would establish “Special Regulations for Post-Typhoon Danas and July 28 Heavy Rain Recovery and Reconstruction.” Article 6 of the proposed bill calls for — surprise, surprise — Morakot-style special zones designated by the government “in consultation with the original residents,” a phrase that could mean anything to administrators. In those zones, limited-term forced relocation may result. We all know what “limited term” means in emergency contexts.
The word “resilient” is often bandied about in these circumstances, a sort of consolation prize awarded to decimated communities: hey, you got obliterated, but look how resilient you were! There would be less need for “resilience,” if locals had a much greater and more meaningful say in how aid monies and land zoning were applied in local communities.
Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.
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