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Atayal protest
failure to fulfill rebuilding vow
By Loa Iok-sin / Staff Reporter
Dozens of Atayal Aborigines who have been living in temporary housing units for
more than a decade in Taoyuan County’s Fusing Township (復興) yesterday staged a
protest outside the Executive Yuan, urging the government to fulfill its promise
to reconstruct their community after it was damaged by the collapse of a dam in
Dahan River (大漢溪).
“We are not here to plead with the government to give us houses — we had houses
that we built on our own with money we earned from our hard work in the farms
growing fruit, vegetables and mushrooms,” said Tai Li-chuan (戴禮娟), a resident of
the Atayal village of Shangsule (上蘇樂) in Fusing Township.
“But our village was destroyed following the collapse of the Baling Dam (巴陵壩),
and the government promised that it would reconstruct our village,” Tai said.
“It’s been more than 10 years, yet we continue to live in temporary houses built
with tin sheets.”
An elder, Umaw Silang, said they used to live in the mountains in a village
called Hagay.
“We were forced to move to Baling Village (巴陵) to make way for the construction
of the Northern Cross-Island Highway [in the 1960s],” Umaw said in Atayal. “Then
came the Baling Dam, which altered the course of the Dahan River and eventually
triggered mudslides — hence the dam collapsed, and so did our village.”
The Baling Dam — and a series of other small dams in the middle of Dahan River —
was built to stop sand from the mountain from flowing into the downstream
Shihmen Reservoir, which, along with Feicuei Reservoir, supplies water to Taipei
City and New Taipei City (新北市).
The Baling Dam collapsed in 2001 when Typhoon Nari brought a massive outflow of
water upstream, leaving the riverside Atayal community in Baling Village in
ruins.
The government resettled members of the community in Shangsule, while promising
to build new homes for them in nearby Sanguang Village (三光). The promise was
never fulfilled.
“We Atayal have always lived in harmony with nature from generation to
generation,” Umaw said. “It’s the government’s policy that damaged the
environment and our community, so it’s the government that should shoulder the
responsibility, not us Atayal.”
Tai said that before moving to Shangsule, the smallest house they had was at
least 20 ping (66m2), but they were willing to accept the 17 ping houses that
the government promised to help them build.
“It’s been more than 10 years, we don’t even have the 17 ping houses,” she said.
Tai said the biggest issue now is that the government is asking them to shoulder
part of the construction costs, “but we don’t have that much money, and it’s
hard for us to get loans from banks given our condition.”
A representative from the Executive Yuan accepted a petition from the protesters
and promised to look into the matter.
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