Sun, Oct 01, 2000 page2

• Finding a home for the stateless

  After years of illegal residence in Taiwan, children of soldiers conscripted by the Kuomintang during the Chinese Civil War may soon acquire legal status

  • By Liu Shao-hua / STAFF REPORTER
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  Winning Taiwan nationality after many years of struggle is not an ending, but a beginning. Just ask the children of KMT soldiers from the Chinese Civil War, who may soon be given legal status.

  "I want to find a girlfriend," said the 21-year-old man.

  "I'd like to open a small grocery store in Taipei," a high school graduate, A-mei, replied.

  

  Descendants of KMT troops that settled in northern Thailand and Burma recently demonstrated outside the Legislative Yuan. The protestors are seeking legal status in Taiwan, including work rights and permission to return home to visit relatives.

  PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES

  "I can't wait to go home to see my parents," 31-year-old Chang Ming-chu (張明珠) said with a smile and tears in his eyes.

  Going home, after being away for years without knowing when they would return, has been a dream for Chang and others. He and around 100 other stateless young people in Taiwan are the children of veterans who were conscripted during the Chinese Civil War but retreated from China to northern Thailand and Myanmar in 1949.

  The government's decision on Friday this week to relax the eligibility criteria for Taiwan citizenship may soon make their dreams come true.

  

  Children of KMT soldiers protest for legal residence outside the Legislative Yuan on Sept. 11

  TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO

  At least 10 people from the group will be eligible for nationality immediately after the new regulations take effect. With Taiwan passports in their hands, they will return to their former refugee villages in north Thailand and reimmerse themselves in a piece of history that most Taiwanese haven't been aware of.

  Back to history

  As communist victory loomed ever larger in 1949, many nationalist soldiers in the southwest of China, particularly from Yunnan Province, retreated to Thailand and Myanmar.

  In 1951, the Republic of China was a member of the UN and promised the UN that it would evacuate KMT soldiers fighting Chinese communists as guerillas on the borders of Thailand and Myanmar.

  Some groups of soldiers known as "Yunnan Anti-communist Volunteers (雲南反共志願軍)" were asked by the government to remain in northern Thailand in order to interfere with China's borders and her intelligence collection efforts, while guarding the border for the Thai government at the same time.

  They were unable to travel to Taiwan to obtain citizenship, nor were they recognized by Thailand as nationals. They only acquired a certificate written in Thai, stating, "Kuomintang Soldier Identity Card (中國國民黨軍人證) Ethnicity: Chinese. Nationality: None."

  These soldiers lost their nationality because of their loyalty to the Republic of China.

  They started to establish isolated villages in remote Thailand, but their lack of Thai citizenship prevented them from moving freely from these villages. One of the villages, Maesalon (美斯樂), is well-known and is often listed on tourist itineraries for Taiwanese interested in the history of the Chinese Civil War.

  Taiwanese may freely travel in and out of these villages. But the villagers cannot leave and yearn to come to Taiwan some day. Worse still, they never imagined that their children, the children of rightful Taiwan nationals, would become stateless in the country for which they had risked their lives.

  It is with cruel irony indeed that history has buried their dreams and their children's formative years, placing them at the bottom of Taiwan's society as stateless citizens.

  Stateless in Taiwan

  In the early 1980s, officials from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission and the Ministry of Education started travelling to northern Thailand and Myanmar to encourage the descendants of veterans to study in Taiwan. Before 1985, youth from these places were granted both entry permits and admission to local schools with all the paperwork necessary to enable them to come to Taiwan.

  But the situation changed in 1985 when the entry permits ceased to be issued, making passports necessary for their entry into Taiwan.

  "How could we get passports? Taiwan's government knew perfectly well that we were born isolated and stateless. We didn't even know what passports were," Chang said.

  Many said their parents tried to buy passports in order to send them to Taiwan.

  "My parents sold all their land to get me a passport," said one girl, Ting, graced with the distinctive facial features of a Taiwanese.

  Many said a passport cost around 50,000 to 60,000 Thai baht. "A reasonable monthly income for households in my village at the time was around 1,000 to 1,500 baht," Chang said.

  "But our parents said Taiwan was the only place in which we had a future since we could do nothing in Thailand," he said.

  They came to Taiwan to study in high schools mainly between 1988 and 1998. But after graduating from high schools in Taiwan, they could not go back to Thailand since their fake passports had "expired."

  "We have no passport, no identity card, no insurance, no right to work," Chang said. Chang himself was seriously injured on a construction site last year. "I was hospitalized for three months," he said, "But the employer told me, `You have no identity cards and hence no standing on which to demand compensation.'"

  A social worker in the hospital put Chang in touch with the Taiwan Association for Victims of Occupational Accidents and Diseases (工作傷害受害人協會) and he eventually acquired medical compensation with the organization's assistance.

  All these young people are currently aged between 20 to 30 and work illegally and without job security, mostly on a part-time basis. Some said their employers did not pay a fair salary and even retained their salaries, aware that their employees could have no legal recourse.

  They didn't even dare to develop romantic attachments. "We are afraid of being cheated," said a girl. "Would any girl marry a stateless man like me?" asked an agitated 28-year-old man.

  Evasive government

  But their difficulties may be over shortly. Two days ago, the Ministry of the Interior finally decided to amend the regulations, precisely because of the plight of the veterans' children, and shorten the existing legal prerequisite for eligibility for citizenship from a minimum of 12 years of residence in Taiwan to eight years.

  The new regulation will stipulate that all persons must stay in Taiwan for five years in order to be eligible for nationality. Only after having continuously resided in Taiwan for a further three years may they apply for permanent residency.

  More importantly, the five-year period will be designated -- in the case of these stateless young people -- as having started from the time of their initial arrival in Taiwan as students.

  "I am disappointed with the KMT," said KMT lawmaker Apollo Chen (陳學聖), with a sigh after a two-hour meeting with the ministry concerning these young people's statelessness held two days ago. Chen became concerned with this issue over a year ago.

  The critical factor in resolving this issue is a "change of attitude," Chen said.

  Amendment of the Immigration Act last year gave these young people cause for hope that a solution might be at hand. Article 16 of the act reads, "Stateless people from Thailand, Myanmar or Indonesia who entered Taiwan before the enactment of this act may remain in Taiwan."

  Detailed regulations associated with the act, however, stipulated that they must stay in the country for five years to acquire the right of residence. Only after having resided lawfully for another seven years would they have been eligible for citizenship, making a compulsory minimum of 12 years' residence in Taiwan prior to application for identity cards.

  Moreover, in order to apply for residence they were required to submit a passport, entry permit, bill of indictment or non-indictment, birthplace certificate, evidence of date of entry or "other documents testifying to ROC citizenship."

  Officials from the National Police Administration (警政署) told them that, in the absence of any such documentation, a certificate to attest to their statelessness was necessary.

  "You have to testify that you have no nationality or have renounced your nationality. Otherwise, how can we know that you are stateless?" said an official of the police administration, who declined to be named.

  "There is nothing in the world called a `certificate of statelessness,'" said Chen's legislative assistant Connie Li (李幼嵐). "But the national police administration said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could help by asking the Thai government whether these people have Thai passports."

  Li said Chen requested the ministry to make such an inquiry in one case last November. The reply was not received until July, over a half year later.

  "It's so sad to be born Chinese," said one time political prisoner, and one of Taiwan's most distinguished writers, Bo Yang (柏楊). "The Chinese government is unsympathetic, having no respect for people's lives and emotions," he said in a slow voice punctuated with sighs.

  Bo Yang was the first to condemn the nationalist govern-ment's abandonment of the veterans and their families. He published his renowned book Alien Lands (異域) in the late 1950s to tell the stories of nationalist soldiers in north Thailand.

  "Fifty years have passed and they haven't yet acquired fair treatment from the government," Bo Yang said, adding, "The American government has not given up searching for the bodies of soldiers' 20 years after the Vietnam war. But our government just dumped those soldiers."

  "It's because the sickness of Chinese culture is beyond cure," Bo Yang said, adding that, "a sick culture produces bureaucrats without consciences."

  A 50-year fraud

  "I am Chinese. But I am not Taiwanese," Chang said.

  "I always think of myself as both Taiwanese, and Chinese," said another named Ma.

  Others among the group of young people expressed confusion about their national identity. One said she never thought about whether she was "Taiwanese" or "Chinese."

  "I only know that I should belong to the Republic of China," she said.

  So what is their homeland?

  "My parents have always considered the homeland as wherever the nationalist government is. So, it must be Taiwan," Chang said. "Perhaps our homeland was lost a long time ago but we didn't know."

  Chang's words highlight the cruel reality of isolation and ignorance in which he grew up.

  "The government is about to celebrate the birthday of the Republic of China on Oct. 10. We are going to stage a protest called `Deceived for 50 Years' (被騙五十年)," they said.
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