Taiwan's First Settlers Camp out in City for Land Rights

16 Established 1961 Health Tuesday, June 12, 2018 Taiwan’s first settlers camp out in city for land rights Indigenous challenge exacerbated by island’s small size TAIPEI: Taipei’s Peace Memorial Park is an oasis of calm in claimed. “The legislation allows us to take back control of the bustling city, home to morning walkers and lunchtime most of our ancestral land. It’s a big deal,” Kolas told the strollers - along with a camp of indigenous protesters Thomson Reuters Foundation in her office. “No one is dis- demanding justice. For several months, the small group has puting that we are the original owners of the land. But lived in tents in a corner of the park, with a makeshift today, 98 percent of the population is non-indigenous, and kitchen and a cluster of painted rocks, photographs and we cannot go back to how it was 400 years ago,” she said. posters tracing Taiwan’s indigenous history and their fight for land rights. They want the repeal of regulation, First to come, last to prosper announced last year, which they say denies their right to Taiwan’s first inhabitants are believed to be ancestral land. Austronesian tribes who hunted and farmed on the island The guidelines are on the delineation of traditional terri- thousands of years before Han settlers from mainland China tory and its return to indigenous people. But they are limit- arrived in the 17th century. With the arrival of settlers, ed to state-owned land and do indigenous people faced vio- not include private land - lence and loss of land, and their which the group says denies marginalization continued at them a sizeable piece of terri- the hands of Japanese coloniz- tory. “We have been betrayed Tsai has ers in the 19th century. by the government,” said Panai After the Kuomintang took Kusui, an indigenous leader acknowledged control in 1945, indigenous and singer. “We are the origi- people’s access to traditional nal inhabitants of this island, past failures lands was further limited, as the collective custodians of all authorities built modern cities, land before the concept of high-speed rail lines, and cre- public land and private land. ated national parks and tourist This regulation denies us what facilities. The Indigenous is rightfully ours,” she said. Peoples’ Basic Law, passed in Taiwan’s indigenous people 2005, granted a wide range of make up about 2 percent of its 23.5 million people, and rights to Taiwan’s tribal people. But its implementation was TAIPEI: Indigenous activist and singer Panai Kusui has camped out for months in a park, protesting against have long suffered marginalization that has left them poor- stalled, said Panai, who was joined at the protest site last a regulation that delineates traditional territory on the island. — Reuters er, less educated and more jobless than their Chinese year by English singer Joss Stone on the latter’s tour of counterparts. Taiwan. “Indigenous leaders would like to see a return of all traditional territories,” said Scott Simon, co-chair in Taiwan for us to define our land and get it back,” she said. size; it has a total area of just under 14,000 sq miles. Kolas Centuries of pain studies at the University of Ottawa. “But any legislation is has drafted the Indigenous Land and Seabed Act that com- In an unprecedented move, newly elected President Tsai always subject to negotiation and compromise.” Sacred territory prehensively defines land and sea rights. It passed its first Ing-wen in 2016 apologized to the indigenous people for President Tsai has acknowledged past failures to imple- Indigenous land rights are contentious the world over. In reading on May 25. “We need jobs, we need opportunities “centuries of pain and mistreatment” and promised to ment the Indigenous Peoples law, and has promised a justice poorer countries in Asia and Latin America, tribal people to improve our economic status,” she said. “If we kick out improve their lives. One step was to recognize their ances- commission, as well as better education, healthcare and lack property rights and face violence from state officials, the hotel or the mining company without negotiating for tral land: the government’s Council of Indigenous Peoples economic opportunities. The CIP has asked the nearly 750 miners and loggers eyeing their land. In wealthy nations better terms, what’s the option? We have to demand more (CIP) in February 2017 declared 1.8 million hectares - about indigenous communities in Taiwan to apply for recognition such as Australia and Canada, indigenous people are nego- rights, but we have to do it smartly,” she said. But activists half of Taiwan’s total land area - to be traditional territory. of their traditional territory under the 2017 legislation. More tiating with governments for a greater say over land and say they must have rights over all traditional territory to About 90 percent of this is public land that indigenous than 250 have already submitted their claims, said Kolas. resources. In Taiwan, which China claims as its sacred terri- ensure “environmentally friendly and culturally sensitive” people can claim, and to whose development they can con- “There are divisions even between the indigenous people tory, focusing on indigenous people may also be a way to developments that also create opportunities for them. “The sent, said Kolas Yotaka, a legislator with the ruling over the legislation, but a majority have welcomed it,” she establish a cultural identity that is different from China’s, deterioration of our culture and economic status are tied to Democratic Progressive Party who belongs to the Amis said. “We’ve been neglected for so long - we are losing our analysts say. the loss of our land. We will not stop protesting until the tribe. The remainder is privately owned and cannot be language, our tradition. But at least there is now a process But the challenge is exacerbated by the island’s small regulation is repealed,” said Panai. — Reuters .

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