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In Taiwan military,
Aborigines are the tip of the spear * |
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By Max
Hirsch Knife in hand, a Taiwanese commando scales a beachhead cliff and sneaks up on a bored-looking sentry. From a distance, the commando appears to plunge his blade into the sentry's chest, killing him instantly. He wastes no time dragging the sentry into the brush, hiding the body and then signaling to his teammates -- a dozen other commandos who rush out from tall grass, guns at the ready.
If this were a real raid, not a harmless exercise, by southern Zuoying Base's Marine Reconnaissance Battalion, no doubt its troops -- some trained by the U.S. Navy SEALs -- would be a force to be reckoned with. Its deadliness, military officials say, lies in its curious demographic for a Taiwanese military unit -- more than half the battalion are Aborigines, a disadvantaged minority on this island of 23 million.
''Aborigines tend to be physically superior and mentally tough,'' says Marine Corps Deputy Spokesman Han Kou Hua, explaining why Aborigines comprise the majority of the 600-person Special Forces unit. ''Their background as hunters,'' he adds, ''is conducive to spec ops training.''
THE FEW. THE PROUD.
For millennia, Aborigines here -- linked to Austronesian ethnic groups scattered across the Pacific -- were virtually the sole inhabitants of Taiwan. That began to change in the 17th century, when Han Chinese settlers immigrated to the island in force, eventually turning the natives into a minority. Today, Aborigines number some 450,000, comprising about two percent of the overall population.
In the island's 278,000-strong military, the percentage of Aborigines is nearly three percent, according to the Defense Ministry. But where Aborigines' numbers are staggeringly disproportionate is in the Army Special Forces. There, they comprise nearly 18 percent of the island's crack troops, says another senior military official familiar with the matter. ''Han Chinese don't typically have the physical endurance [for Special Forces] that Aborigines do,'' says the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Capt. Chen Wei-chih, a 24-year-old Aborigine from the ''Paiwan'' tribe on the island's east coast, became a career officer in the battalion after peers in his home village convinced him to join the military. ''I enlisted right out of high school,'' he says, adding, ''Our physical abilities are relatively good.''
Han says Chen's case is typical, as Aboriginal youth from poor, rural homes flock to the Special Forces, where they can make up to US$570 more per month than the average infantryman. ''A lot of them,'' he says, ''come from difficult family circumstances -- joining the military represents an economic opportunity.''
GLASS CEILINGS
Indeed, jobs in tribal
communities are so scarce, up to two-thirds of their young adults move to
cities, says Shih Cheng-feng, Dean of the College
of Indigenous Studies at Taiwan's National Dong Hwa
University. But even there, Shih says, jobs are few and tend to be
low-paying, as Han employers are typically loath to hire from a minority
stereotyped as fickle and lazy.
THE JAPAN CONNECTION
Ironically, history
shows it is in the security apparatus -- the bedrock for the social
structure in which Aborigines typically fall behind -- that they find
empowerment.
From 1942 to 1944, some 5,000 Aborigines fought in the Japanese Imperial Army against Allied forces, according to a recent government publication. ''They had twice the physical strength of Japanese troops, an outstanding sense of direction, and were highly skilled at nighttime combat because of their excellent night vision,'' states a report in last month's Taiwan Panorama, a Government Information Office (GIO) magazine. Two of the eight Aboriginal units, it adds, comprised elite marines, the forerunners of today's native commandos.
POLITCS OF INCLUSION
But even in the military, glass ceilings for Aborigines remain. Promotion to high ranks, for example, is rare, with only four natives ever having reached the rank of general, according to the GIO report. ''One of the main reasons that Aborigines are often passed over...is the fact that...they are not skilled at grooming interpersonal relationships with important people,'' it says.
Shih offers a different account, saying Aborigines are typically forced into early retirement because ''the government still distrusts them.'' The military, he adds, seeks to harness Aboriginal combat skills ''without empowering the natives to the point where they could wage guerilla warfare'' against Taipei -- a concern given Aborigines' historic grievances against the Han majority.
''Distrust is a two-way street,'' says Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief for Defense News, a U.S. weekly newspaper covering military news. Asked by Minnick ''what Aboriginal soldiers would do if [mainland] Chinese forces were to invade Taiwan,'' a native commando once joked, ''We'd shoot our own Han officers first and then kill the enemy.''
But for Col. Lee Wen-tsai, an Aborigine who leads the elite 26th Fighter Squadron, distrust and discrimination are myths. ''As long as you fulfill your duties, you can succeed here,'' Lee, 45, says on the tarmac of the Hualien Air Base, over which he roared earlier in the day in an F-16 fighter jet. ''One's ethnic background,'' he adds, ''no longer factors into decisions of who gets promoted.''
Back on the Zuoying military base, gunfire and grenades erupt as Aboriginal commandos storm seaside buildings in exercises open to the press. The soldiers melt in and out of the jungle, riddling paper targets with bullets and shrapnel. Statistically, civilian life holds little promise for these warriors, marginalized by their rural upbringing and minority status. But nothing levels the playing field like the battlefield, and here, Aborigines are some of Taiwan's finest, if unlikely, defenders.
2009/1/1 |
