Farmers from several locations across the country, including -Miaoli County’s Dapu (大埔), yesterday accused the government of lying and failing to fulfill promises it made last year on land expropriation.
“Article 15 of the Constitution protects people’s right to survival, work and to property. However, the current Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例) respects none of those rights,” Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮), chair of National Chengchi University’s Department of Land Economics, told a press conference at the legislature.
EXPLOITATION
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“The land expropriation system in Taiwan is a system that deliberately exploits the disadvantaged, because one of its criteria in choosing land for expropriation is to find a location where there will be only ‘minimum resistance,’ which is why most land takeover deals happened to farmers or other disadvantaged groups,” Hsu said.
Last year, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Minster of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) all promised representatives from farming rights advocates — including Hsu — that the government would seek to revise the Land Expropriation Act to better protect farmers’ rights.
“It’s been quite a while and this legislative session is about to end — and yet, still the government has failed to submit any draft amendments to the law,” Hsu said.
“During a press conference to celebrate the third anniversary of his inauguration, Ma talked about human rights; it’s a joke,” Hsu said.
“What about the rights of these farmers? He should stop lying,” he added
Moreover, the government has also broken its promises to the farmers from the farming village of Dapu.
The expropriation of Dapu farms sparked controversy last year when the Miaoli County Government sent excavators escorted by police into rice paddies belonging to landowners who were opposed to a land expropriation deal early in the morning without warning.
AGREEMENT
After a series of protests, Wu intervened and the government agreed to allow 19 households to keep their houses, while compensating landowners with new farmland that came with much needed irrigation systems.
“Both the central and local governments agreed to allow us to keep our homes. However, they changed their mind and now [four] of the houses will be pulled down,” a Dapu resident and spokeswoman for the Dapu Farmers’ Self-Help Association, Yeh Hsiu-tao (葉秀桃), said.
STANDING TOGETHER
Although not all houses would be torn down, they all stood together in solidarity, Yeh said.
Chang Huan-chang (張煥昌), a farmer from Wuri District (烏日), Greater Taichung, whose farmland is also scheduled to be expropriated for an urban development project, said the government should abandon its “economic development first” mentality.
“We need to think about food security,” Chang said. “Taiwan is a country with limited resources, but agriculture is something in which we really should be self-sustainable. As we grow more dependent on food supplies from other countries, we’re placing our future in the hands of others.”
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said the name of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania was agreed by both sides, after Lithuania’s prime minister described a 2021 decision to let Taiwan set up a de facto embassy in Vilnius as a “mistake.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, who entered office in September last year, told the Baltic News Service on Tuesday that Lithuania had begun taking “small first steps” aimed at restoring ties with Beijing. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan and Lithuania are important partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. Since the establishment of the
Taipei Zoo welcomes the Lunar New Year this year through its efforts to protect an endangered species of horse native to central Asia that was once fully extinct outside of captivity. The festival ushering in the Year of the Horse would draw attention to the zoo’s four specimens of Przewalski’s horse, named for a Russian geographer who first encountered them in the late 19th century across the steppes of western Mongolia. “Visitors will look at the horses and think that since this is the Year of the Horse: ‘I want to get to know horses,’” said zookeeper Chen Yun-chieh, who has been
RSS