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DOCUMENT: TAIWAN.TXT
A L L I A N C E O F T A I W A N A B O R I G I N E S
5th Fl. 7 Cheng Kuong Rd. Sec 2
Yung Ho. Taiwan
Tel: (02) 9286120
Fax: (02) 9286120
REPORT OF ALLIANCE OF TAIWAN ABORIGINES
PRESENTATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS
WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS
FROM 19th to 30th OF JULY
GENEVA (SWITZERLAND)
Name of Organization: Alliance of Taiwan
Aborigines
Address: 5F; 7 Cheng Kuong Rd., Sec.
2, Yung-Ho, Taipei, Taiwan
Tel: (02) 928 6120
Fax: (02) 928 6120
Name of President: Mao Lung-Chang
Aboriginal Name: Panu Chapmumu
Title and Periodicity: Alliance of Taiwan
Aborigines
Date of Publication
Taipei, July 16, 1993
Report of Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines in
the World Conference
on Human Rights, Vienna, 14-25 June, 1993
FOREWORD:
---------
Greetings to the representatives
of Indigenous People
from all over the World, and also to the participants
from
NEG. And I would like to thank all of You
for sharing our
experience on the issues of Aborigines to
each other in this
Conference.
INTRODUCTION:
-------------
Now I will give You a brief
introduction to my
Organization -- "Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines"
(ATA). ATA
was organized and established on December
29, 1984 by a
group of Taiwan Aborigines, missionaries and
the Han-People
who have the qualification of humanitarianism.
We foresee
that Taiwan Aborigines have suffered for a
long time the
unequal treatments from the economic exploitation,
social
discrimination, political oppression and negligence
of
culture. Taiwan Aborigines are really encountering
on a
crisis of the racial extermination. This Alliance
is a
social movement group who strives for the
economic benefits,
political rights and social position.
Taiwan's total area is 35,981 square
kilometers: 394 km in
length and 144 km in width. Surrounded by
the Pacific Ocean,
its neighbors are China to the west, the Philippines
to the
south, and Japan to the north.
Before 1620, only Indigenous Peoples
occupied Taiwan. What
follows is a summary of the colonial governments
that have
ruled Taiwan from 1624 to 1992:
1) THE DUTCH AND SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD (1624-1661)
In 1624 and 1626, respectively,
Holland and Spain invaded
Taiwan with government-backed forces. They
sought to
subjugate the Indigenous Peoples with their
superior
material power and their fervor of religious
Indoctrination.
During this time, some of the Pinpu People
lost their
autonomy, but the vast majority of other Indigenous
Communities remained unaffected.
2) THE CHENG RULE AND THE MANCHU COLONIAL PERIOD (1661-1895)
Cheng Chen-Kong waged war against
the Dutch in a struggle
to lay claim to Taiwan, and his subsequent
victory ensured
his position as colonizer. At the same time,
the Chinese
rulers were Non-Han Manchus, another ethnic
minority within
China. During Cheng's rule, his forces occupied
the Western
plains of Taiwan and a small part of the mountainous
areas.
Attempting to protect their land and tribal
territorial
lines, the Indigenous Peoples had countless
conflicts with
the Han, who were gradually invading the territory
of the
Indigenous Peoples and assimilating them.
In 1885, without
obtaining the consent of the people of Taiwan,
the Manchu
regime annexed Taiwan. In 1895, the mountains
and the
Eastern plains were still under the effective
control of the
Indigenous Peoples.
3) THE JAPANESE COLONIAL PERIOD (1895-1945)
In 1895, the Manchu government
lost the Sino-Japanese War
and signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceding
Taiwan to
Japan. The Japanese government began to exploit
Taiwan's
economic resources through a systematic, capitalistic
style
of management; it was during this period that
the
subsistence lifestyle of the Indigenous Peoples
began to
crumble. In order to obtain control over Taiwan's
forests,
mineral resources, water and tourism potential,
the Japanese
rulers contained the Indigenous Peoples in
"Mountain
Reservations" thus slashing the traditional
territory of
2,000,000 hectares down to 24,000 hectares,
to which the
Indigenous Peoples had only utilization rights
but could not
claim permanent possession. In order to squash
resistance
from the Indigenous Peoples, the Japanese
colonial
government launched a large number of massacres.
During the
"Five-Year-Expedition" between 1910 and 1914,
10,000 Taroko
People were massacred. In 1930, in the Wushe
Rebellion, the
Japanese attacked six Taroko Villages with
airplanes,
canons, machine guns and chemical weapons
and massacred
virtually all the men, women and children
of the Villages.
In order to assimilate the Indigenous Peoples,
the Japanese
government encouraged the Indigenous Peoples
to use Japanese
Names, and forced the children to speak Japanese
under their
compulsory elementary school program. It was
during this
Period that the traditional political, economic,
cultural,
and social systems of the Indigenous Peoples
began to
collapse.
4) THE NATIONALIST (KMT) COLONIAL PERIOD (1949-PRESENT)
After its defeat in World War II,
Japan accepted the San
Francisco Treaty and its stipulation that
Japan renounce its
rights to "Formosa and the Pescadores" on
September 8, 1951,
ending 50 years of colonial occupation. In
1949, the
Nationalist (KMT) militarist regime, after
its defeat by the
Communist government, fled to Taiwan. In order
to
consolidate its rule, the Nationalist government
massacred
thousands of Indigenous, Minan, and Hakka
intellectuals in
the early 1950 and imposed martial law, which
was not lifted
until 1987. In its Policies toward the Indigenous
Peoples,
the KMT is the direct heir of its totalitarian
and colonial
Japanese predecessor, and indeed surpasses
the latter in
planning and implementing its policies. More
discussion will
be devoted to this subject in the next section.
After this short introduction to
the history of Taiwan's
colonial governments, and before proceeding,
we, as members
of Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples, have the obligation
to
inform the governments and Indigenous Peoples
representatives who are attending this World
Conference, as
well as members of the United Nations, of
the fact that, as
the government of the People's Republic of
China (PRC) has
never ruled Taiwan. Taiwan belongs to the
20 million people
of the island -- Taiwan does not belong to
China.
THE CURRENT HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION OF THE
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN TAIWAN:
1) HUMAN RIGHTS AND KMT POLICIES
The government that rules Taiwan
today is named the
"Republic of China", known as the KMT regime
by both
Indigenous activists and the opposition party.
The KMT
Constitution, implemented in 1947, was legislated
in China
and is therefore, we have no right to self-determination
and
no collective rights as a group. The basic
Policy Of the KMT
government toward the Indigenous Peoples is
one of
artificial assimilation, aiming at the complete
effacement
of the Indigenous Peoples' consciousness of
their own
history, culture and language. Taiwan's government
does not
recognize the ethnic status of the tribes
and our
historical position in Taiwan; it has deprived
our
traditional right to the land and our traditional
sovereignty.
2) POLITICAL RIGHTS
Taiwan's government has deprived
the Indigenous Peoples of
our political, cultural, economic, educational
and social
autonomy. In terms of Political Participation,
it has
designed a system of "protective quotas",
symbolically
handing the Indigenous Peoples a few seats
in Taiwan's
legislative bodies. In the parliament, where
the majority
rules, the rights and welfare of the Indigenous
Peoples are
completely at the mercy of the Han majority,
a fact which
renders our quotas little more than political
ornament. The
parliament can give no real expression to
the Will of the
Indigenous Peoples. The rights of Political
Participation
for the Indigenous Peoples are manipulated
by the KMT regime
in specific and the Han people in general.
Therefore,
Taiwan's political system is entirely under
the control of
the KMT and the Han people; Indigenous Peoples
have
absolutely no voice, let alone autonomy, in
such a political
system.
3) LEGAL RIGHTS
When Indigenous Peoples have asserted
their original
rights, colonial governments have always been
quick to
negate these rights with the laws that they
themselves have
created. To this day, Indigenous Peoples have
no legal
status; many laws claim to protect the interests
of
Indigenous Peoples when, in really, they are
wielded to
destroy the Indigenous Peoples as ethnic groups
and take way
our rights.
In 1987, the KMT government lifted
martial law, and put in
its place "National Security Law", which continues
to impose
many restrictions upon the mountain areas
inhabited by
Indigenous Peoples. Martial Law continues
to rule these
areas, Nothing illustrates the pervasive ignorance
and
oppression prevalent in this legal system
more accurately
than the complete absence of any multicultural
consideration
in Han law. All the laws of Taiwan are legislated
according
to the values of the Han people. The common
laws of the
Indigenous Peoples are neither incorporated
into nor
acknowledged by the laws of this land. The
legal system,
only serves the Han people at the expense
of the Indigenous
Peoples.
4) LAND OWNERSHIP AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS
In recent years, under the current
government's policy of
massive development of the areas in question,
demand and
exploitation has occurred on several fronts:
forested land
has been assigned to the management of the
Bureau of
Forestry, land with mining potential has been
claimed as
national property; areas noted for their natural
beauty and
tourism potential have been designated national
parks; and
the Ministry of Defense has appropriated vast
tracts of land
from the Indigenous Peoples under the pretext
of national
security. The last pieces of land upon which
the Aborigines
rely for their survival have been taken away,
and their
consent was never sought in the process. In
order to build
national parks, industrial zones, and reservoirs,
the
government forcibly relocated Aborigine tribes
such as Fu-
Shih village of Shou-Lin County, Hualien,
in the case of the
Taroko National Park; Mei-Shan Village of
Taoyuan County,
Kaohsiung, in the case of the Yu-Shan National
Park; the
ancestral graves of the Bunun tribe in Tong-Pu
Village,
Shin-Yi County, Nantou; the village within
the Ho-Ping
cement industrial district in Shou-Lin county,
Hualien; and
the Hao-Cha village in Wu-Tai county, Pin-Tung,
in the case
of Wu-Tai Reservoir; to name only a few. After
government
policy is formulated, the Indigenous People
involved have
absolutely no channel through which to express
their
opinion, indeed lacking the very right to
do so. In a word,
virtually all land with development value
has been occupied
and exploited.
Every year Indigenous Peoples from
various parts of the
island, uninformed of or unable to obey these
laws, are
punished legally and often must serve 2-3
year prison
sentences. Deprived of their resources and
lands, Indigenous
Peoples can no longer take out a living in
their traditional
tribal villages. Large numbers of those who
are capable of
physical labor have flowed toward the industrial
towns and
cities to become laborers.
According to the official statistics
in 1989, 48.8% of the
Indigenous People are agricultural workers,
while the rest
work in Non-agricultural Professions. The
vast majority of
the Indigenous Peoples who become city-dwellers
enter labor-
intensive jobs that require little or no technical
training
and tend to be low in both status and pay.
The men are
primarily workers in wood and steel manufacturing,
truck
drivers, miners, and deep-sea fishermen, while
most women
become electronic and textile workers. These
industries are
among the most labor-exploitative industries
in Taiwan. Many
Indigenous Workers frequently find that their
pay is
withheld without reason. They have neither
labor insurance
nor a pension, and are constantly threatened
by
unemployment.
5) CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS
The Indigenous Peoples were not
only unable to reclaim
their ancestral names, but under the assimilationist
policy
of the Taiwan government, they were denied
even the right to
register their citizen identification with
their traditional
names. The family organization of each Indigenous
People,
once perfectly clearly described by our traditional
system
of names, has completely disappeared.
The Cultural Gardens of the Indigenous
Peoples, designed
as a museum, is being built and managed by
the KMT
government. It is being built upon land bought
at a price
far below market value from the local Indigenous
Population,
and its commercial attraction is to put existing
Indigenous
Cultures on display for tourist consumption.
For the last forty years, children
have been forbidden to
speak their own language in the schools, let
alone learn
that Language as part of their education.
All the textbooks
for elementary and middle schools are homogenized
and edited
by the government, and thus are devoid of
any references to
the culture, history and ethnic consciousness
of the
Indigenous Peoples. Only 0.3% of the Indigenous
Peoples had
received a college education in 1989, while
5.8% of the Han
population already had college degrees in
1978. All in all,
the educational system systematically discriminates
against
the children of the Indigenous People.
6) SOCIAL RIGHTS
In 1978, the government, in a blatant
deception of the
Yami people of the island of Lan-Yu, announced
the
construction of a military harbor and widely
publicized the
employment opportunities such a project would
bring. The
unsuspecting Amis joined the construction
project willingly,
only to find out after its completion that
the project was
actually a nuclear waste dump. Currently Taiwan
has three
nuclear plants -- the construction of a fourth
one is
pending -- and all of Taiwan's nuclear waste
is dumped on
Lan-Yu. Since this site has reached full capacity,
the
government is now planning expansion of the
site. The Yami
people are putting up stiff opposition, and
the conflict is
still unresolved. Without garnering the benefits
of nuclear
power, the Yami are yet tricked into shouldering
the immense
risk of a nuclear disaster - this is a classic
case of
racial discrimination and deserves international
censure.
Last of all, a significant portion
of Indigenous girls and
young women have absolutely no human rights
whatsoever.
Bought and sold as child prostitutes, they
are in every
sense the victims of an established system
of slavery with
which the entire Han society is complicitious.
Aged from 9
to 18, these girls are estimated to account
for 20% of the
child and adolescent prostitutes in Taiwan,
a prosperous
market that is part of the vast and ubiquitous
Taiwan
industry which thrives upon the sexual exploitation
of
women. Given hormonal shots, beaten, tortured,
and
repeatedly raped on a daily basis, these girls
live entirely
outside modern society and the rudiments of
Human Rights by
which such a society supposedly defines itself.
The survival
of our race are reduced to commodities and
denied their
right to existence as human beings.
THE ACTIVITIES OF TAIWAN ABORIGINAL MOVEMENT
From 1984, there are a series of
campaigns raised by
Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines (ATA) on the
following issues:
1) NAME CORRECTION MOVEMENT (ON DEC. 1984 AND MAY. 1992)
We raised the issue to the public
of deciding who are the
Aborigines of Taiwan, also developed the campaign
to request
to be called Aborigines in the official documents
and in
general usage, instead of the discriminative
slangs like
mountain people and mountain fellows.
2) SAVE THE YOUNG ABORIGINAL WOMEN IN PROSTITUTION
(ON JAN.
1988)
Because there are so many young
Indigenous women were sold
to the city as prostitutes by the illegal
bargainers, the
women organization and ATA developed the campaign
to raise
the public concerns and to push our government
to face the
problems of the Human Right violations and
social-economic
inequality to the Indigenous People.
3) RECOVER OUR ABORIGINAL NAME SYSTEM (ON JAN. 1987)
The name system of Taiwan Aborigines
and Han people are
very different, though that, the government
forced us to
change our traditional one and accept the
letter 40 years
ago. Because the confusion of the name system,
it causes
that there are different last names in the
same brotherhood.
So we push our government to return our Aboriginal
name to
be used in the national affairs and in the
society.
4) GET NUCLEAR WASTE OUT OF LAN-YU (ON FEB./APR.
1988/MAY.
1993)
The government ignored the living
rights of the Indigenous
People in Lan-Yu, and began to dump the wastes
of the
Nuclear power plants to their land 10 years
ago. And the
thing is Still going on. We have developed
several local
campaigns to protest, also seeked the concerns
from the
International Indigenous People. So we now
propose to draft
a brief declaration under the name of NGO
to accuse of the
evil of our government.
5) RETURN MY LANDS (ON AUG. 1988/SEP. 1989)
The most of our ancestral lands
have been occupied by the
brutal force of State for 40 years. Foreseeing
that lands
are the most important resources of the Indigenous
People,
we have developed a series of campaigns to
fight for our
lost lands and to protect the land right by
our traditional
custom laws. And the fight is still going
in the Parliament.
5) ANTI-WU-FENG MYTH (ON AUG. 1985/FROM SEP. TO DEC. 1987)
Wu-Feng is a faked hero invented
by the Han People to
distort the humanity of the Indigenous People.
To eliminate
the discrimination and the racism, we request
the Dept. of
Education to delete the Wu-Feng Myth from
the elementary
school textbooks.
7) ANTI-STATE-PARK-ESTABLISHMENT IN THE ABORIGINAL
LANDS
(ON MAY. 1993)
We have hold 2 press conference
in the Parliament to
emphasized that the Indigenous People have
their own rights
to develop their lands and their cultures
without the
intervention of State power. So we also push
our senators to
cut budget of State-Park-Establishments.
8) TO RAISE THE ISSUES ON SELF-DETERMINATION
AND TO PROPOSE
THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ACT
IN NEW-CONSTITUTION-DRAFTING
MOVEMENT (ON DEC. 1992-PRESENT)
Foreseeing the awareness among
the Taiwan Aborigines on
their land right, their cultures and their
humanity, and
also the tendency of International Indigenous
People
Movements. Especially this year 1993 is the
year of
universal Indigenous Peoples, we think that
it is the time
to focus our future on the rights of living
and development
of the Indigenous Peoples, and to push ourself
in a more
radical way. So we, ATA is ready to develop
a series of
campaigns on this issue in the near future.
CHALLENGES
The Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines
faces a number of
Challenges during 1993:
1) The challenge of allowing the
Aboriginal Original Name,
the Aborigines
shall have the right to decide who is
Aborigines.
2) The challenge to upgrade Authorities
of Autonomy and
competent administrative
Authorities of Aborigines
Affairs to the
Central Class.
3) The Challenge of allowing the
Aboriginal People to use
their own original
name in the National Affairs and the
Society.
4) The Challenge of the Declaration
on the rights of Asian
Indigenous/Tribal
Peoples: We are of the Land.
5) The Challenge of the Declaration
on the rights of Asian
Indigenous/Tribal
Peoples: We assert that we know what
self-determining
communities are. We demand that all
recognize that
we have always been self-determining.
CONCLUSION
We, Alliance of Taiwan Aborigines
believe and have
continued to participate with the Taiwan Aborigines
in our
quest for freedom, just, and peace. We give
thanks for the
support and encouragement of many friends
around the world.
APPENDIX
THE
DISTRIBUTION OF TAIWAN'S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
TRIBE POPULATION
----------------
Taroko 30,000
Amis 129,220
Paiwan 60,434
Tayal 48,957
Bunun 38,267
Puyuma 8,132
Tsou 5,797
Saisiat 4,194
Thao 248
Rukai 8,007
Yami 4,335
Total Population: 337,342
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