Several Changhua County residents and activists yesterday accused Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) of breaking a promise he made last year to allow them to keep their houses amid fears of forced evictions.
During a morning press conference in front of the Construction and Planning Agency (CPA), residents from Siangsihliao (相思寮) in Erlin Township (二林) said Wu appears not to have acted on his promise.
“President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) praised Wu as a ‘merciful person’ in his dealings with the land expropriation controversy in Dapu (大埔) and Siangsihliao,” said Hsu Po-jen (許博任), a member of the Siangsihliao Support Group. “However, 10 months have passed [since Wu’s promise] and there are still residents who may face forced eviction.”
Yesterday’s press conference was timed to coincide with a meeting of the agency’s regional planning committee to discuss the future of three Siangsihliao households that face eviction to make way for the Erlin branch of the Central Taiwan Science Park.
Although the situation in Dapu, a borough of Jhunan Township (竹南) in Miaoli County, was not discussed at the meeting, several Dapu residents showed up to support Siangsihliao residents, since both communities face an uncertain future.
In July last year, more than 1,000 people — including farmers from communities that faced forced land seizures for development projects nationwide, students and farming activists — staged an overnight protest against the seizures on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in front of the Presidential Office.
The following month, Wu met representatives of the groups and promised that the farmers in Dapu and Siangsihliao would be able to keep their houses on the site, while the government would find other plots of land to compensate for the farmland seized by the government.
However, the expropriation orders have yet to be revoked, which the farmers said meant that the evictions could proceed as planned.
“I am very sad to see Wu not keeping his promises,” said Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮), chair of National Chengchi University’s department of land economics, a long-term participant in farming rights movements and opponent of land expropriation.
“Wu is premier and is the Chinese Nationalist Party’s [KMT] vice presidential candidate. How could he not keep his promises?” he asked.
The government “made a show” when media were after them over the issue, “but when the cameras turned away … nothing happened,” he said.
Siangsihliao residents and science park representatives failed to reach an agreement after about two hours of discussions and Deputy Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎), who presided over the meeting, said the science park should come up with a solution to settle the matter with the three Siangsihliao households before the next meeting.
No date has been set for that meeting.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS