The cement ready-mix plant of the Lide Class in Dongqing, Lanyu, China has resurfaced, drawing attention to the protection of the land.
"Orchid Island News: Recently, the controversy over the siting of a concrete batching plant has once again become a hot topic of public opinion on the island. Apart from last year's case, in which a plant was excavated and built on the coast near the mouth of Coconut Oil Cave and was stillborn after village residents protested that it was a repeat of Beautiful Bay, this case has, beneath the invisible surface of the sea, staged a drama of 'borrowing a corpse to revive a soul,' rising from the dead outside the eyes of the townspeople. The land authority and the government contractor made the final decision, ultimately selecting a hillside plot at Lideban in Dongqing Village. However, because the proposed site involves the traditional territory of Dongqing Village, the villagers, without being informed or respected, were thrown into an uproar and rose up in indignation over the excavation, coming forward one after another to express opposition to the construction. They also carried out cultivation at the site to declare that land sovereignty should be returned to the tribespeople. Yet in the explanation meeting held after the controversy, the highest administrative authority of Orchid Island ignored the tribespeople's resolution opposing the plant and told the townspeople at the meeting that the case would still be enforced by 'administrative order.' These words triggered an outburst of murmuring among the tribespeople below. The land controversy caused by building the concrete batching plant continues unabated, and further developments remain to be seen.
As for the siting considerations that outsiders are concerned about, why the existing two batching plants were not included remains unknown. One of them (the Hutoupo section) is said to be public production land of the township office. Many townspeople question the necessity of adding a third or even more batching plants. Is there a risk that the project will damage the surrounding ecology? Moreover, aside from most of the land on the island already being used as farmland, with the remaining available land already so small, is there still room to build another sand and gravel batching plant? Is there something hidden behind the forced excavation and installation that does not rely on the consensus of the ethnic community? It really cannot help but make people entertain many 'associations.'"
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Where is the law? And whom does the law protect?
After studying the dense, densely packed provisions set by the government, the various land regulations and detailed rules of the Republic of China and the Regulations on the Development and Management of Indigenous Reserved Land can strike a person like a thunderbolt, as if one had been trampled by iron hooves eight times over, leaving body and mind wounded. At the same time, the alarm broadcast keeps emitting that sound: 'We are developing legally! We have reason, evidence, and backing! The government of the Republic of China is my great backing!' Such a terrifying echo keeps winding through the valleys and across the sea, stretching on without end. Even the apes on both banks cannot hold out; the echo is incessant like a dreadful death knell, tolling for no one yet lamenting for the tribespeople who guard their homeland and defend their soil.
'When you get down to it, it is all land of the Republic of China, hehe, nothing you say will matter,' because almost the entire island has been classified as indigenous reserved land, 'reserved' until the end of time and the seas run dry and the stones rot. We merely 'borrow' it for farming and for 'use,' so when a piece of land is to be 'legally utilized and developed,' it is no longer 'yours.' You have not passed through mountain after mountain of monster obstacles to obtain this right and that right and land ownership. You thought it was yours, but the government uses this law and that law to say it is not yours, not yours, and then it is simply taken away by force. Do you understand it that clearly now?
The rain and dew of benefits? On whom do they fall?
Next, examine the boastful talk of 'benefits.' It is unclear for whom these benefits are meant. Saying that the townspeople can benefit from it is like making campaign promises before an election; anyone can talk big empty words. The implication is that after we have been run over by excavators, we should still thank you for tossing us a bag of cheap cement to use? 'Yay! Cement Get!! Thank you, mud!' I do not know what kind of 'cementification' logic that is. Land inherited from ancestors, passed down through generations and cultivable forever (and the meaning bestowed upon it) VS super many bags of cheap cement? Townspeople, we are giving you a discount! So many advantages! All converted, how economical, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective is that?
Sacrificing ancestral land, sacrificing unrecoverable natural ecology in exchange for cheap cement, and letting Orchid Island successfully evolve into a concrete island? Do we really want that cost? The key point is, in the end, who gains the greatest benefit? Could it be these tribespeople who have lost their land cultivation rights? The environmental costs consumed by development and the traditional cultivation territory that originally belonged to the tribespeople, can these lost tangible and intangible assets really be measured and compensated with money?
Should we say that this is only a temporary batching plant that will be dismantled and restored afterward? Will the contractor really kindly and responsibly help you people of Orchid Island clean up the broken situation? Or can we still naively believe? Can we still restore the beautiful mountains and rivers? Look at the splendid cases across Taiwan, China. How can such self-deceiving and other-deceiving words make people trust them? To ignore the tribespeople's consensus resolution and crudely enforce it according to law with a vague and general administrative order is, in the end, merely acting recklessly under the name of legal development and construction. Whether it is legal or not no longer matters much. And can Orchid Island 'only' be built up in this way? If they really could build with care, would it have come to this? As for the law, the Constitution or the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law also require that relevant rules on indigenous reserved land or land should be formulated at the level of law, not by some administrative order that can look down on everything. Could it be that an administrative order can also serve as a grand justice? This is the greatest absurdity under heaven.
It is lamentable that under a distorted legal basis, the law does not protect us but becomes a reasonable fig leaf for the government. A single phrase, 'specific purposes designated by the government,' can covertly legalize all development behavior. Under this law, the loss of indigenous land cannot be stopped, nor can the land rights and interests of indigenous peoples who have lived here for generations be protected, because government public departments can 'according to relevant evil laws' forcibly expropriate the people's land for development. So houses can be demolished, land can be dug up, and the people resisting demolition and excavation still get their heads broken and blood shed, and still have to spend money and energy on lawsuits to fight for their own land. Must Orchid Island also follow in such footsteps?
The Indigenous Peoples Basic Law waves its hand and says: Awkward, sorry, I am weak and cannot protect you.
Local heads of indigenous townships, towns, and cities can openly disregard the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law and use administrative discretion to suppress or ignore the resolutions of the ethnic people. This is the sorrow of an ethnic group, because they cannot rely on such compatriot leaders to fight for even a little bit of rights and interests for their land, not even a little. (Yet is this our 'country'? The law of the Republic of China? Apart from cutting itself off from the people, does this law also possess a special ability used specifically to confront disadvantaged masses?)
If they can have so much ”Guts” to use the 'national' law and national land regulations to confront the tribespeople, why can they not use the same boldness to defend the rights and interests of the ethnic group? For the Tao people, who were born here, grew up here, and have walked through how many generations on this land, they were once occupied and enslaved by the Japanese and could not defend their homeland. Later, the Nationalist government swept through, and criminals who committed evil deeds 'migrated in large numbers' to the island for management and discipline. In order to free the Tao people from backward and uncivilized housing, shoddily built sea-sand houses were constructed. The government said it was very safe and there was no problem, and the most toxic nuclear waste in history was 'temporarily' placed on Orchid Island from far away, and it remains there to this day, thirty years later.
And now, even if we do our utmost, it is still hard to protect every piece of land on this island. As time and space alternate, now it is the later generations who are using their noble and supreme power, with the family rules and national laws of the Republic of China and a single 'administrative order,' to sell off their own land without hesitation. Is this opening a new chapter? Or is it opening the door of convenience for all subsequent development projects?
As a child of the island, I want to say, this is truly unbearable. Respected elders, when you regard yourself as the highest 'administrative authority leader' on the island and use the short-sighted, quick-profit construction spirit of 'great destruction is great construction' to 'build' this island, do you still have the soul of this land in your eyes and heart? When you can say to the tribespeople, 'You do not understand now, but you will thank me later,' such astonishing and speechless words, you are also drifting farther and farther from the roots of this land.
In addition, I always want to ask, as the administrative leader with the highest power on the island, when facing the renewal of the land lease for Taipower's nuclear waste storage site, where exactly is that boldness of demanding the immediate relocation of nuclear waste and 'guarding the homeland' for the people and the land? Where are the townspeople in your mouth and heart? Apart from consideration of votes, have they become a conceptual existence the rest of the time? Before it is all too late, for the future of this island, and for the humble plea of the land that cannot speak, please take off the outer garment of administrative leader, tear away bureaucratic thinking, and think about the mountain and forest wisdom passed down from ancestors, those teachings and instructions from childhood, because first of all you are a Tao person, a Tao person who speaks for your own ethnic group, a parent-official who 'should' stand together with the tribespeople, not a loudspeaker for the laws and decrees of the government of the Republic of China. Please look carefully at this island, have compassion for this land that needs to be cherished and protected. When you reach the cliff, you must rein in the horse, otherwise you will fall.
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The link on the right is a citizen news report http://www.peopo.org/news/111623. This article is purely from the perspective of a townsman speaking for the land.
Postscript: From other perspectives, if we speak strictly on the merits, it may indeed have been a consideration to 'temporarily set up' a batching plant in response to last year's wind disaster and local construction needs. But most of the land on the island involves traditional territory, which will inevitably cause much controversy. When the public sector has not coordinated or clearly and responsibly explained the ins and outs of the matter, and the townspeople's land is forcibly taken, it will only worsen their impression of the public sector, and future disputes and conflicts over land will be unavoidable. In addition, regarding the consideration of the selected site, has the land of the two existing batching plants on the island both been clearly 'clarified'? Has it? The public sector's failure to explain this doubt at the explanation meeting naturally arouses suspicion. And as for the land of these two batching plants, who exactly is using it? To whom does it belong? How is that determined? Is it legal? None of these have been clarified or explained in detail, yet before any coordination or communication with local townspeople, the island's land was seized by force through such crude (yet deemed legal?) means. That it would develop to this point is not unexpected, is it?