One year after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) apologized to Aborigines on behalf of the nation, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has not made any progress protecting Aborigines’ rights, rendering Tsai’s pledge an empty gesture, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers said yesterday.
Tsai apologized mainly because the government did not enforce the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法) to create or amend laws to demarcate Aboriginal territories and grant Aborigines autonomy to hunt in areas that historically belonged to their ancestors, KMT Legislator Sra Kacaw, an Amis, said at a news conference in Taipei.
The Executive Yuan has not delivered its draft bill governing Aborigines’ land and waters to the legislator, which hampers legislative efforts to determine the territories, Sra Kacaw said, adding the DPP caucus’ draft to promote transitional justice does not include rules on the reinstatement of Aboriginal territories, while the KMT’s version does.
Photo: Cheng Hung-ta, Taipei Times
The DPP has not amended the Forestry Act (森林法) to allow Aborigines to utilize natural resources in their historical territories — a right given to them under Article 19 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act, he said.
KMT Legislator Yosi Takun, a Sediq, blasted the DPP caucus for repeatedly blocking bills on protecting Aborigines’ rights with its legislative majority.
Tsai a year ago made eight promises to Aborigines, but she only scraped the surface of those policies in a speech yesterday, Yosi said, attributing to the lack of progress to the DPP caucus taking a contrary policy direction to that of the president.
The KMT submitted a proposed amendment to the Wildlife Preservation Act (野生動物保育法) in a bid to decriminalize non-profit hunting by Aborigines, but the proposal was vetoed by the DPP nine times during plenary sessions, Yosi said.
A bill he proposed on curbing racial discrimination was voted down 11 times by the DPP, which said that the bill’s definition of race and ethnicity should be clarified, he added.
“President Tsai, you apologized at the Presidential Office Building, but no one outside the office paid any attention, because the DPP caucus has been the first to oppose [the KMT’s] motions,” he said.
The government has given Aboriginal affairs little importance as evidenced by the “paltry” NT$2 billion (US$66 million) budget earmarked under the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program for Aboriginal policies, he said.
Former minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples Mayaw Dongi said the DPP’s only achievement was passing the Aboriginal Language Development Act (原住民族語言發展法), the body of which was finished by the former KMT administration.
“Only a few articles were added. The content was largely the same as the draft the Executive Yuan approved during the Ma administration,” he said.
Similarly, the KMT in 2015 said it would compensate Aboriginal villages NT$20,000 per hectare of forest over a logging ban previously placed on 80,000 hectares of Aboriginal reserves. The DPP last year raised the amount to NT$30,000 per hectare, he said.
“The council under Tsai has not really furthered Aborigines’ rights. For the most part, it merely pushed our work forward,” Mayaw said.
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