Taiwan Church News
3428 Edition
November 6 – 11, 2017
Obituary News
Taiwan’s Farmer Rights Campaigner And URM Activist Tai Chen-Yao Died At 70
Reported by Chen Yi-fan
Due to a pancreatic cancer, Mr Tai Chen-yao, a famous farmer rights campaigner and URM activist died in the midnight on November 18. He was once a political prisoner unlawfully put into jail by KMT regime after the eruption of Formosa Magazine Event at Kaohsiung in December 1979. In his prison term, he started to learn and appreciate the evangelical teachings and prophetic voices of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan.
Unafraid of threats and intimidation from KMT’s police and secret agents after being released from the jail, he bravely launched a pioneering “farmer classroom” inviting many social movement leaders to share ideas of democracy. And this farmer classroom became a breeding ground of leader for next generations’ social movement. Afterwards, he was invited to take the training courses of Urban Rural Mission(URM) and started to get acquainted with many friends who were members of PCT, like Prof Albert Lin, Rev Sung Hsin-hsi, Elder Huang Chao-kai, Rev Cheng Kuo-chung and etc.
His engagement in URM movement also went across country border into other nations, like Canada, Korea and Philippine. In 2003, serving as a deputy Minister of Council of Agriculture, he built up a memorial for Mr Chan Yi-hua, a self-immolation martyr for Taiwan Independence movement, at Chu-chi park of Chiayi County. In 2017, he was awarded an Order of Brilliant Star with Violet Grand Cordon by President Tsai Ying-wen for his long terms’ contributions for Taiwan’s agriculture.
Knowing that Mr Tai had come to the end of his life, a baptizing service – moderated by Rev Sung Hsin-hsi, accompanied by two elders, Prof Albert Lin and Elder Huang Chao-kai and witnessed by his families and fiends – was held in his clinic bed of Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital at Kaohsiung on November 2.
After the baptizing service, Mr Tai Chen-yao remarked that under martial law he had always been greatly inspired in the street protests, whenever there was a pastor praying for the oppressed and marginalized among the crowd. And the reason why he decided to accept being baptized as a Christian, Mr Tai said, was triggered by PCT’s unyielding will and strenuous insistence on building Taiwan as a “new and independent country”.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
