Aborigines protest guidelines dividing traditional lands

By Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

About 200 Aborigines yesterday held a demonstration on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei to support three campaigners staging a sit-in protest against recently announced guidelines on the delineation of traditional Aboriginal territories.

The demonstrators from the Indigenous Youth Front performed traditional songs and danced for more than an hour before dispersing.

The Council of Indigenous Peoples announced the guidelines on Feb. 14, but they were opposed by Aboriginal rights groups and lawmakers, as they stipulate that private land would not be recognized as traditional Aboriginal territories.

Aboriginal folk singers and rights campaigners Nabu Husungan Istanda and Panai Kusui and documentary filmmaker Mayaw Biho started a sit-in protest in front of the Presidential Office Building on Ketagalan Boulevard on Feb. 23.

“The guidelines exclude private lands and will cause traditional territories to become fragmented,” the front said. “The council says that this is a step forward from zero to 800,000 hectares [of traditional Aboriginal territories], but we can foresee various land development cases in villages that no longer need to respect local tribes and unable to hear the land weeping.”

The front said the three campaigners have been staging a sit-in for more than 10 days, so it is time for them, mostly university students, to show their support and show the government that many young people are also concerned about the issue.

They said that the integrity of the traditional territories can help Aboriginal communities learn traditional ecological knowledge and allow them to develop the most suitable culture and lifestyles for living in the area.

A member of the front, Mo’o, who is an undergraduate student at National Taiwan University, said the exclusion of private lands will harm the integrity of traditional Aboriginal territories, and Aborigines will not have the right to express their opinions in land development cases.

Aborigines demand rights to land

MAINTAINING PRESSURE:Activists who have been staging a ‘sleepout’ on Ketagalan Boulevard used the anniversary of 228 to call for transitional justice for all

By Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

From left, singers Nabu Husungan Istanda and Panai Kusui and documentary filmmaker Mayaw Biho yesterday take part in day six of an Aboriginal land rights protest on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei.

Photo: CNA

New regulations announced by the Council of Indigenous Peoples that exclude privately held land from being recognized as traditional Aboriginal territory perpetuate the injustices done to Aborigines for more than a century, Aboriginal rights advocates said yesterday in Taipei.

A group of protesters, who have been staging a “sleepout” on Ketagalan Boulevard down the street from the Presidential Office Building since Thursday last week, offered lilies to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 228 Incident and called for the restoration of traditional Aboriginal territories and transitional justice for all Taiwanese, regardless of ethnicity.

Several of the protesters had planned to attend a commemoration ceremony at the 228 Peace Memorial Park to offer condolences to families of the victims of the 228 Massacre, but were prevented from entering the venue.

The council on Feb. 14 announced guidelines on the delineation of traditional Aboriginal territories that would restrict the application of the “traditional area” label to government-owned land, explicitly excluding private land.

The exclusion has sparked heated debate. A large amount of Aboriginal territory has been privatized and the exclusion would deprive Aborigines of the rights to participate in the development of traditional territories that were seized and privatized by the Japanese colonial and the Republic of China (ROC) governments, campaigners have said.

Much of the land owned by state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp and private hotel chains in eastern Taiwan was the hunting grounds of Amis communities for hundreds of years, and the new guidelines would only serve to legalize and entrench the misappropriation of Aboriginal land, said documentary filmmaker Mayaw Biho, an Amis and a former director of the state-run Taiwan Indigenous Television.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) apology for the historical oppression of Aborigines in August last year gave them hope, but the government has once again rejected Aborigines’ rights to their traditional territories, Mayaw said.

“Half a year has passed since the apology, but the ROC government has continued to ignore the plight of the Aborigines,” he said.

“The ROC government takes advantage of Aborigines when it wants to promote the image of Taiwan, but it never relents when it comes to sacrificing their interests,” said singer Nabu Husungan Istanda, who is a Bunun.

“Although it is absolutely correct that the government has sought to address the 228 Incident and the issue of transitional justice, the nation has yet to make an equal effort to redress the injustices done to Aborigines,” said singer-activist Panai Kusui, who is an Amis.

The guidelines are a political expedient agreed between Minister Without Portfolio Chang Ching-sen (張景森) and Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod, which override Aboriginal rights by using the Han Chinese concept of private ownership, said Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), one of the leaders of the Sunflower movement in 2014.

“Many Aborigines are willing to negotiate with the government about the conflict between private ownership [and the delineation of traditional areas], but I want to ask if the government is willing to offer such an opportunity,” Lin said.

228 Incident book launch disrupted by violent protest

By Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

Historian Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) yesterday unveiled a new book on the 228 Incident ahead of today’s 228 Peace Memorial Day, but the media conference was disrupted by a violent protest.

Chen introduced his latest book, The Sky Is Still Dark: Truth, Commemoration and Responsibility of the 228 Incident (天猶未光：二二八事件的真相、紀念與究責), an anthology of his research on people’s experiences, and the legal and political ramifications of the massacre.

Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was primarily responsible for the massacre, Chen said, adding that declassified documents show that Chiang approved then-Taiwan governor Chen Yi’s (陳儀) request for military intervention to stem nationwide protests following the Incident.

In the aftermath of the massacre, members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed removing Chen Yi from office and subjecting him to punishment, but Chiang rejected the proposal and protected Chen Yi, Chen Yi-shen said.

“Chiang should be held responsible for ordering troops to repress protests, and failing to take remedial measures following the massacre and the ensuing ethnic conflict,” he said.

The book also discusses a group lawsuit filed by the author and Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and for 108 victims of the Incident and their relatives against the KMT, to seek compensation for mental and reputational damages, which was rejected by a court on technical grounds.

The chairman of the 228 Memorial Foundation, Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元), said the truth about the Incident has yet to be uncovered, adding that some victims are still unaccounted for.

“Because people have not agreed on who is responsible for the massacre, the [public understanding of] the Incident is still focused on ethnic conflict rather than large-scale state violence against civilians,” Hsueh said.

“The KMT has never paid any real compensation or made an apology for the Incident. All it did was use taxpayers’ money to comfort the victims and their relatives,” Koo said.

“It has to be re-examined so people can decide if the apologies of Republic of China presidents to the families of victims are sufficient,” Koo said.

The KMT’s ill-gotten assets, if confiscated, could be used to compensate victims and their relatives or to establish a memorial, but it would have to be authorized by a transitional justice act, Koo said.

Protesters disrupted the book launch and questioned the validity of Chen Yi-shen’s research, saying that the Incident was started by “violence inflicted on Mainlanders by ethnic Taiwanese” and what academics presented was “the Democratic Progressive Party’s [version of] the 228 Incident.”

Protesters said Chen Yi-shen skewed the research and downplayed the number of Mainlanders killed, and challenged Koo and former presidential adviser Peng Ming-min (彭明敏), who was also in attendance, over their political stance.

The ceremony was canceled after the protest erupted into a scuffle.

Peng departed without making a speech.

Chen Yi-shen said the protesters’ claims are not true, but some people support them because “society does not understand the basic facts of the 228 Incident.”

“President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should not delay her administration’s effort to further transitional justice because of radical elements,” Chen Yi-shen said.

Hundreds walk to mark 228 Incident

UNKNOWNWithout truth there can be no forgiveness, one activist said, calling for government action on transitional justice reforms, rather than empty gestures

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Campaigners wearing straw hats march in Taipei yesterday to remember victims of the 228 Massacre.

Photo: Wang Yi-song, Taipei Times

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Hundreds of campaigners marched in Taipei yesterday to commemorate the 228 Incident, calling for the government to officially assign responsibility for the massacre which followed a 1947 protest.

Escalating protests swept Taiwan on Feb. 28, 1947, after Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents confiscated contraband cigarettes from a woman outside Taipei’s Tianma Tea House (天馬茶房) on Nanjing W Road on Feb. 27. When the woman was hit on the head by an officer holding a gun, the crowd surrounded the agents, who responded by fleeing with one agent shooting into the crowd and killing a bystander.

A subsequent bloody crackdown by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime systematically killed many Taiwanese.

Only partial documentation of the events and victims has been recovered, with the government-funded 228 Memorial Foundation officially recognizing more than 2,200 victims.

More than 26 groups were represented at yesterday’s march through key historic sites, but no individual banners were raised.

Campaigners solemnly read out the names of those who were killed or went missing in the Incident.

“As the victims are gradually forgotten, Feb. 28 has diminished into a holiday lacking emotion,” Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation managing director Cheng Tsing-hua (鄭清華) said. “We are still at the starting line in terms of discovering the truth, because the identities of many victims and perpetrators are unknown.”

He called for the government to hasten passage of transitional justice legislation, which would establish a special committee with powers to investigate the Incident and other injustices under the then-KMT authoritarian rule.

Government discussions over the fate of the National Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) Memorial Hall were “more symbolic than substantial,” he said.

“The victims of the 228 Incident are not just those listed, its greatest victim was Taiwan itself, including the descendants of the perpetrators,” he said. “Without the truth, we do not have the preconditions for forgiveness.”

Cheng is a brother of democracy movement pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), who in 1987 spearheaded a national campaign for Feb. 28 to be designated a national holiday shortly after the lifting of martial law.

Veteran activists Chen Yung-hsing (陳永興) and Lee Sheng-hsiung (李勝雄), who collaborated with Deng, led yesterday’s procession as it wound its way from Nanjing W Road to the Executive Yuan, where troops fired into a crowd of protesters during the massacre. The building served as the headquarters of then-Taiwan Governor Chen Yi (陳儀).

The march also passed the former site of a Tobacco Monopoly Bureau office which was sacked the same day, and a radio station building which was occupied and used to spread word of the protests.

The procession concluded with a prayer and singing while participants scattered satin flower petals over white cloth to symbolize mourning.

Series of events set to cast light on 228, White Terror

Staff writer, with CNA

A Ministry of Culture is planning a series of events starting in April to promote transitional justice.

A series of activities in Taiwan and overseas, including seminars, artistic performances, film festivals and exhibitions, is aimed at starting public discussion about Taiwanese history through arts and culture.

This year is the 70th anniversary of the 228 Incident and the 30th anniversary of the lifting of martial law. The 228 Incident lasted until early May 1947, and the White Terror era lasted until 1987.

Both are symbols of Taiwan’s authoritarian past, in which thousands of people were killed or imprisoned without due process. Taiwan has not come fully to terms with this period of its history.

The ministry said it will hold seminars on Germany’s transitional justice experience with the hope of using Germans’ experiences as a reference.

A concert in Taipei’s Liberty Square featuring Taiwanese composers such as Kuo Chih-yuan (郭芝苑), Hsiao Tyzen (蕭泰然), Uongu Yatauyogana and Chin Shi-wen (金希文) is to be held. Several of the compositions are to reference the 228 Incident and the White Terror era

Martial law was lifted on July 15, 1987. The ministry said it would stage shows around July 15 in commemoration of the event.

The Public Television Service Foundation is to air a series of domestic and foreign films and TV programs related to human rights and transitional justice issues, including the Taiwanese film Super Citizen Ko (超級大國民), the ministry said.

The Jing-Mei National Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park in New Taipei’s Xindian District (新店) in cooperation with local governments is to host tours of historical sites related to the White Terror era from July 15 until December.

Academia Historica in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正) has a 228 Incident exhibition and is to hold a special exhibition to mark the 30th anniversary of the lifting of martial law at the end of the year.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York is to sponsor a series of events, including a contemporary art show, film festivals and music performances between September and December so that Taiwanese overseas can also explore transitional justice issues.

228 evidence indicts Chiang: academic

IN THE KNOW:Chiang Kai-shek read and approved a document requesting troops to quell protests and promoted officials involved in the crackdown, a researcher said

Staff writer, with CNA

Academia Historica director Wu Mi-cha, center, chairs a conference on the 228 Incident at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica yesterday.

Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

Evidence shows that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) should be held responsible for the 228 Incident, an academic said on Thursday.

A document dated March 2, 1947, requesting the dispatch of at least a regiment to help quell protests, which was read and approved by Chiang, and the fact that then-Taiwan governor Chen Yi (陳儀) and Peng Meng-chi (彭孟緝), a major-general at the Kaohsiung garrison, were promoted after the crackdown demonstrates that Chiang has ultimate responsibility for the incident, said Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History.

Chen Yi-shen made the statement at a conference in Taipei to launch six more volumes of the Collected Files of the 228 Incident published by Academia Historica.

The 228 Incident was triggered by a clash between government officials and an illegal cigarette vendor in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947. The event quickly turned into an anti-government uprising and was put down by the then-Nanjing-based Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in China.

An estimated 18,000 to 28,000 people were killed during the crackdown, which lasted into early May, according to an investigation commissioned by the Cabinet in 1992.

The six volumes — Vol. 19-24 in the series — include files about the incident from the Presidential Office, the Changhua County Government and what was at the time the Taichung County government.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has promised to publish a report on transitional justice within three years and ordered the collection of government documents detailing political and other types of persecution, Academia Historica director Wu Mi-cha (吳密察) said.

The National Archives Administration has identified about 13,000 cases relating to the 228 Incident and political persecution, Wu said.

Tsai said that her administration has an obligation to determine the truth of the incident in an open and transparent manner so that responsibility can be more accurately apportioned.

Documents relating to the 228 Incident include a telegram issued on March 6, 1947, released in 1992, and two others dated Feb. 28 and March 4, 1947, released in 2008, National Taiwan University history professor Chen Tsui-lien (陳秀蓮) said.

However, the March 2, 1947, telegram by Chen Yi, which was referenced by later documents, makes it clear that Chiang was aware what the Taiwan governor was planning to do, Chen Tsui-lien said.

A report on the 228 Incident published in 2006 said that Chiang was primarily responsible for the crackdown, with Chen Yi and Peng directly responsible for the behavior of troops in Taiwan, Chen Yi-shen said, adding that the document released as part of the newly published files offered more evidence of the 2006 report’s accuracy.

A cult of personality is not proper in a democracy and on that basis alone the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall should be redesignated as either a national human rights museum or a memorial museum for former presidents of the Republic of China, Chen Yi-shen said.

Protesters decry Aboriginal land policy proposal

LEGITIMIZING THEFT?Panai Kusui, Mayaw Biho, Salone Ishahavut and Lin Fei-fan were among those who gathered to criticize the omission of private land

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Lin Fei-fan, front, a leader of the Sunflower movement, speaks yesterday during a protest on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei to back calls for transitional justice for Aborigines as Amis singer-activist Panai Kusui, third right, and Amis filmmaker Mayaw Biho, fourth right, and others look on.

Photo: CNA

Failure to include private land within the government’s legal definition of Aboriginal “traditional areas” will entrench historical oppression and injustice, Aboriginal campaigners said yesterday, blasting the government’s failure to meet its promise of transitional justice.

More than a dozen people associated with the Aboriginal Transitional Justice Classroom (原住民轉型正義小教室) gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building and shouted for villages to be allowed to declare their own traditional areas.

“Excluding private land amounts to an acknowledgement that the past behavior and policies which led to the theft of Aboriginal land were legitimate,” said Salone Ishahavut, a Bunun and a professor of indigenous development at National Chi Nan University.

She said that the 800,000 hectares which the Council of Indigenous Peoples has estimated will be covered under traditional area delineation guidelines published last week is a drastic reduction from the 1.8 million hectares it estimated should be included following a survey completed in 2007.

New guidelines restrict application of the “traditional area” label to government-owned land, explicitly excluding private land.

While it is not clear what portion of the reduction is attributable to the exclusion of private land, much of the prime real estate in traditional areas is now in private hands, Salone said.

“While this delineation of traditional areas was supposed to be about protecting our land rights, excluding privately owned land will mean the final and complete loss of original lands and their related memories,” she said.

Including privately owned land in the “traditional areas” would give Aboriginals a voice in development projects, while leaving formal ownership unchanged, she said.

“This policy is effectively saying that the system of private property can address many delicate questions and complicated processes,” said Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), a Sunflower movement leader.

Lin said the council is using its administrative discretion to avoid tackling difficult aspects of transitional justice.

“Traditional areas should refer to the real-life space of our ancestors, but the council is focusing on the ‘status quo,’ which has already diverged from tradition. These delineation rules amount to an acknowledgement that our nation is unable to face the real history of indigenous peoples,” Amis singer-activist Panai Kusui said.

Including private land would spotlight the injustices involved in its acquisition, and could spark a national conversation, she said.

Another Amis, Mayaw Biho, a documentary filmmaker and a former head of Taiwan Indigenous TV, said the government has failed to follow through with promises to push for indigenous transitional justice in parallel with transitional justice efforts aimed at other abuses under Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authoritarian rule.

“The Presidential Office committee on indigenous justice held its first meeting in December [last year] and that was just an initial meeting which did not result in anything — but just look at all the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee has been doing,” Mayaw said.