[3099] One year later: Farmers retake the streets against Land Expropriation Act

One year later: Farmers retake the streets against Land Expropriation Act

Reported by Chiou Kuo-rong

Written by Lydia Ma

One year ago, thousands of farmers and farmers’ rights activists staged an overnight rally against the Land Expropriation Act on Ketagalan Boulevard. But in view of this past year’s sluggish pace in revising this act despite promises to do so promptly, and farmlands in Taipei, Taoyuan, Miaoli, Hsinchu, and Changhua areas being continually appropriated, and Taiwan’s own declining food self-sufficiency, farmers staged another overnight rally in front of the Presidential Palace on July 16^th, 2011.  

According to proposed revisions to this act submitted to the Executive Yuan by the Ministry of the Interior, local governments or developers applying for expropriation must clarify the public interests and necessities involved in the development project to a review commission.

In addition, all stakeholders — including residents in the planned expropriation area — must be invited to speak at public hearings before an expropriation application can be approved.

But according to reports from demonstrators, in the time that farmers wait for these revisions to finally become law, processes to expropriate lands are still in motion, a tell-tale sign that the Ma administration’s vows to reform this law cannot be trusted.

Some scholars have speculated whether these land expropriations designed to pave the way for industrial parks are ultimately intended to fill national and local treasury coffers and deficits.

Among those who attended this rally were many PCT pastors and members, as well as youth leaders from India and South Korea participating in this year’s “Youth Conference of the National Fate of Taiwan”. This year’s theme for the youth conference, “Practice the justice of God in the diverse but isolated Taiwan”, seemed eerily appropriate for the occasion.

PCT General Assembly Vice-Moderator, Rev. Pusin Tali, was present at the rally. He underscored that the role of churches was to understand the plight of farmers and help them succeed in life. PCT’s vision has always been to reach out to those who are marginalized and suffering and treasure them as God would.

Pusin Tali remarked that Taiwan’s Veterans Affairs Commission, an office that takes care of retired soldiers who came to Taiwan with KMT in 1949, hands out 100 times more in financial aid to these soldiers than what Taiwanese farmers receive. This disparity was another tell-tale sign that the government had neither the desire to promote inter-ethnic relations in Taiwan nor the interest to treat farmers fairly.