Although the military is preparing to withdraw troops from most of the outlying islands of the frontline Kinmen group in the coming months, the Coast Guard Admin-istration is not yet ready to take over the protection of the islands, an official with the administration said yesterday.
The coast guard does not have enough personnel and equipment, especially ships, to maintain the security of these islands or safeguard surrounding territorial waters, the coast guard official, who is a member of the public relations office, said.
"The Coast Guard Administration has not been officially assigned the task of taking over these islands. Frankly speaking, it is beyond our capability," the official said.
"The Kinmen police can do the job as well as we can. They might be better suited for the task," he said.
The six islands in the Kinmen group include Tatan, Erhtan, Menghuyu, Tungting, Peiting and Shihyu, which are scheduled to be demilitarized and opened for tourism early next year.
The Executive Yuan announced its plan to demilitarize the six islands in August.
The military initially did not support the plan, saying the six outlying islands are still very important in the defense of Kinmen County. The islands are heavily armed with weapons of various kinds, including cannons, tanks and missiles. They could be used to reduce the Chinese military's firepower in case of an attack.
The military's combat plans have met with opposition after calls from the public that the islands be opened for tourism.
Tatan has gained most media exposure after a visit by President Chen Shui-bian (
The wall has become a tourist attraction. Although civilians are not allowed to land on the island, tourists from both sides of the Taiwan Strait have undertaken boat trips to have a look at the wall from the sea.
Tatan has the most possibilities for tourism. Most other islands in the group are valuable only as military outposts and are relatively inaccessible to tourists.
The demilitarization of the islands is expected to save the military a lot of money, but this burden will be passed on to the coast guard. The military now guards each of these islands with a minimum force of 30 soldiers. The coast guard does not have that many people at its disposal.
The coast guard would probably only be able to assign ten people to each island, a defense official said.
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