June 6-12, 2011
Headline News
Government and organizations in Taiwan at odds on nuclear energy policies
Reported by staff reporters
Written by Lydia Ma
More than 300 Paiwan Indigenous leaders, along with their supporters from other Indigenous tribes in Taiwan, convened to voice their opposition to nuclear wastes and took part in a demonstration on June 4, 2011. Participants gathered inside a softball stadium in Nantien (Lupech) Village in Daren Township near Taitung County. Banners with the words “No to nuclear wastes!” could be seen everywhere throughout the stadium.
Indigenous Christians from East Paiwan Presbytery and Paiwan Presbytery also took part in this protest. They had rented more than 45 cars and had convened at the Morakot Rebuilding Center in Taitung before travelling to Nantien together.
East Paiwan Presbytery General Secretary Rev. Buka, explained that this protest was sparked because there had been plans in the past to store nuclear wastes in beautiful Nantien Village. The village was among the list of possible sites to store nuclear wastes because of its sparse population and weak economy.
Many villagers originally agreed to let the government store nuclear wastes there believing it’d help revitalize the village’s economy. But most villagers’ opinions have changed since they learned about what happened at Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan, said Rev. Buka.
When villagers learned that the Legislative Yuan would revise the budget allocation for Nuclear Power Plant No.4 on June 15, 2011, they decided they would go up to Taipei then and make their voices heard. Hence, this protest in Nantien was merely a warm-up of what’s to come.
PCT Church and Society Committee Secretary Huang Che-yen, a Taitung native himself, said, “Nuclear energy is unsafe and a curse upon our children and grandchildren. We saw how frightening nuclear energy can be after the earthquake in Japan on March 11.”
He reiterated that storage of nuclear wastes ought to be shouldered by the whole nation in proportion to each region’s usage. As Taitung is the region that uses the least amount of nuclear energy, it shouldn’t be the region called forth to store all of Taiwan’s nuclear wastes.
PCT Indigenous Committee Secretary Omi Wilang commented that Indigenous peoples’ rights had deteriorated “as swiftly as ice cream melts under the sun” since President Ma took office. He wondered aloud whether the President placed any value on the lives of Indigenous people.
Ever since the nuclear crisis in Japan began, the Ma administration has used mainstream media on several occasions to reassure the Taiwanese populace that nuclear energy is safe. It now seeks to pass a budget that’d increase the amount allocated to rebuilding the disbanded Nuclear Plant No.4 to NT$14 billion.
Upon hearing this news, more than 100 organizations, including PCT General Assembly Office, came together to form Sunflower Anti-Nuclear Energy Alliance. They organized a protest on the front steps of KMT headquarter offices.
In contrast to Taiwan’s government, many policymakers around the world have begun to change their policies and attitudes towards nuclear energy. For example, Germany recently announced it’d close all of its nuclear facilities by 2022 and Austria made an about-face on nuclear energy plants following a national referendum on the matter.
Ecumenical organizations have also spoken out against nuclear energy and made known their concerns, most notably at the recent International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) in Jamaica.
Attending this convocation on behalf of the PCT was Associate General Secretary Lyim Hong-tiong. He reported that the assembly had a passionate discussion on why the use of nuclear energy should be discontinued. He added that PCT had already issued a statement against nuclear energy in 1992.
