F:\home.gifhttp://faculty.ndhu.edu.tw/~cfshih/

東華大學 民族發展與社會工作學系教授

施正鋒政治學博士網站政治觀察/其他文稿

F:\mail.gif E-mail: cfshih@mail.ndhu.edu.tw

信箱:106台北市郵政26-447

 

How the ROC Government Mistreats the Indigenous Peoples in Taiwan:

Assimilation under Welfare Colonialism*

 

Cheng-Feng Shih,** Ph.D.

Association for Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Policy

        In essence, the indigenous policy of the current government is assimilation: by means of welfare colonialism, its policy goal is to turn them into “the human beings.”

        Although multiculturalism is enshrined in the Constitutional Amendment, the mainstream society tends to consider Indigenous Peoples objects for cultural consumption, and thus scorns their efforts at rights protection as futile.

        Even if the Indigenous Fundamental Law (2005) stipulated that those law infringing indigenous rights ought to be revised or abolished and that relevant laws are passed within three years, nothing has come into existence.  Worst of all, the government has attempted to sabotage the Fundamental Law in the daft Indigenous Autonomy Bill.  Here are our charges:

1. Rights to self-determination:

(1) Under the daft Indigenous Autonomy Bill, the indigenous governments are nothing but empty shells, devoid of any powers or land.

(2) After the Typhoon Morakot floods, tribal peoples face forced eviction away from their homes.

(3) Five indigenous towns are incorporated into the newly constituted metropolitans, and lost their rights to elect their own administrative heads.

2. Rights to property:

(1) Traditional territories of the Indigenous Peoples are indiscriminately designated as the Public Reserved Lands.

(2) Indigenous Peoples lost control of utilizing national resources on their lands.

(3) The governments at all levels exploit indigenous lands without due consultations or permissions.

3. Rights to culture:

(1) While indigenous languages are becoming extinct, the government has neither made all efforts at revitalization nor development.

(2) The Ministry of Education and the Council of Indigenous Peoples are passing the buck to each other on the lack of indigenous education demanded in the Indigenous Education Law.

(3) The government has failed to pay due attention to indigenous higher education.

4. Rights to economy:

(1) As tribal economy in persistent crisis, the Indigenous Peoples have no choice but to squat in urban areas.

(2) The average income of the Indigenous Peoples is much lower than the national average while that of the unemployment rate is much higher than the latter.

(3) The affirmative action clause in the Indigenous Rights to Work has been largely neglected.

5. Social Rights:

(1) Taking an Oriental perspective, the non-indigenous society tends to deem that the Indigenous Peoples are only fit for such activities singing and dancing or military service.

(2) As government pork barrels are linked to patronage, the Indigenous Peoples have no free will during elections.

6. Rights to identity:

(1) Indigenous Peoples are arbitrarily separated into Hills and Plains ones.

(2) The government has deprived the Plains Indigenes their indigenous status, and thus perpetuated their traditional acrimony with those status ones.

 


* Testified at the Joint Review Meeting for the ROC’s Initial Report under the ICCPR and the ICESCR.  Taipei, Howard Civil Service House, 2013/2/25.

** Professor, Department of Indigenous Development and Social Welfare, Former dean, College of Indigenous Studies, National Dong Hwa University; Inaugurating president, Taiwan Indigenous Studies Association.

 TOP