Fri, Aug 04, 2017 page3

• Aboriginal group tracking Tsai’s promises

  • By Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter
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  President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) still has a long way to go before she fully realizes her campaign promises, Aboriginal rights advocates said yesterday, announcing the establishment of an online platform to track the government’s progress in fulfilling its pledges.

  “We feel that a big picture perspective has been missing in most discussions of Aboriginal rights, and that has created space for the government to ignore the main issues, while using minor benefits as evidence of its accomplishments,” said Kai, a Paiwan member of the Indigenous Youth Front. “We hope that this platform can cut through pretty slogans to make the monitoring of government policy and progress more transparent.”

  The group’s online Aboriginal Policy Monitoring Platform features a clock counting down the remaining days of Tsai’s presidential term and tracks progress on 37 election promises, the majority of which it described as “in planning” or “just beginning to move forward.”

  

  Members of the Indigenous Youth Front pose at a news conference in Taipei to announce the launch of the group’s new Web site, the Aboriginal Policy Monitoring Platform.

  Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

  Elements of the administration’s cultural education and transitional justice policy are the only promises listed as fulfilled, including Tsai’s apology to Aborigines last year and the holding of regular meetings to push implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law (原住民族基本法), as well as the passage of the Aboriginal Language Development Act (原住民族語言發展法) and new requirements that cable companies carry the Taiwanese Indigenous TV channel.

  Seven promises are categorized as having made no progress, including adding new Aboriginal articles to the Constitution and realizing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

  Delineation of Aboriginal “traditional areas,” restoring the Aboriginal identity of Pingpu communities and establishing an independent Aboriginal media environment were flagged as important controversial issues.

  “There are definitely points where Tsai deserves praise, but there are even more where the administration has not made nearly as much progress or direction as you would expect from official statements,” said Muni, a Rukai member of the Indigenous Youth Front.

  Another member, Savungaz Valincinan, an Amis, said that while rights campaigners affirmed Tsai’s election platform on Aboriginal issues as a whole, the Executive Yuan and the Council of Indigenous Peoples have taken a narrow or skewed approach to their implementation.

  “The issue should be the restoration and implementation of rights, not subsidies to individuals,” she said, adding that the council had failed to notify and consult civic groups before announcing new policies.

  While the council has said it will hold 13 consultative meetings on important policies across the nation, it has not provided information on where and when they are to be held and has kept a tight control over the meetings’ agenda, she said.

  Kai urged the Tsai administration to focus its efforts on leaving a lasting legacy by enacting legislation such as an Aboriginal land and sea area law to give teeth to the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law.

  While the basic law outlines the legal basis for restoring traditional Aboriginal rights, implementation has been stalled because of the legislature’s failure to pass additional measures for the provisions to take effect.

  The council has become focused on offering new minor benefits, such as providing additional educational subsidies while ignoring the need to support an independent education framework, such as kindergartens providing instruction in Aboriginal languages, she said.

  In response, the council published a list of 48 policy accomplishments and said the group’s standards for monitoring government progress on fulfilling its promises were overly subjective and lacking in substance.

  Citing the group’s claims about the controversy over Pingpu rights as one example of misrepresentation, the council said there has been broad consensus on the proposed changes among Pingpu representatives at council-sponsored hearings.
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