More than 100 people — including farmers from Miaoli County's Jhunan Township (竹南) — yesterday staged demonstrations outside the Presidential Office and the Control Yuan to protest against a county government plan to take over their land to expand a science park.
“I'm not good at talking, I just wanted to say that I've lived there my whole life and I want the county government to leave my home alone, I want them to leave my farmland alone,” 84-year-old Chen Tan Yin-mei (陳譚銀妹) told the crowd in front of the Control Yuan.
Chen-Tan is one of the farmers in the Dapu (大埔) neighborhood in Jhunan Township who have refused to give up their land so the county government can expand Jhunan Science Park.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
The county government's original plan, announced in 2004, was to take over 23 hectares of land in the area; however, it was expanded to nearly 28 hectares in 2008 when Chimei-Innolux Corp petitioned for more land to expand its plant.
Although the Miaoli County Council adopted a resolution last month banning the county government from starting construction before reaching a consensus with local residents, Chen Tan and others who oppose the takeover are worried, after more than 200 police officers surrounded the community a little after 3am on June 9 and brought in more than 20 excavators to destroy rice paddies that were only about a month to harvest.
The scene not only shocked Dapu residents, but also residents in the Erchongpu (二重埔) neighborhood of Jhudong Township (竹東) in Hsinchu County.
The Hsinchu County Government is also planning to take over land in the area to make way for an industrial park.
“I couldn't sleep well since I saw what happened in Dapu on TV,” Peng Song Ching-mei (彭宋清妹), a 73-year-old farmer from Erchongpu, breaking into tears while talking to the media.
“I want to beg President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to help me, I want to stay where I’ve lived my whole life,” she said, kneeling down.
Thomas Chan (詹順貴), a lawyer and member of the Taiwan Rural Front, questioned the legality of the county government’s move despite its insistence it had acted in accordance with the law.
“The Administrative Enforcement Act [行政執行法] says that when the government is to carry out a task, it should be done with the least harm to the people — I don't know why it's such in a hurry it had to destroy crops that were about to be harvested in a month,” Chan said.
“I also wonder why the county government ignored the [Miaoli] county council's resolution,” Chan said.
In a telephone interview, Miaoli County Government secretary-general Yeh Chih-hang (葉志航) defended the county government's move.
“We’re doing what the county council asked us to do,” Yeh said, adding that the government also had “to defend the interests of the majority of the landowners.”
He said as many as 98 percent of Dapu landowners have agreed to the takeover and are awaiting compensation.
“We have to defend the majority’s interests, we can't let just a handful of people block the whole thing and leave the majority waiting for what they are entitled to,” Yeh said.
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