Taipei Times
Date: Jul 15, 2016
By: Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter
The Executive Yuan yesterday vowed to legislate on Aboriginal domains and languages, adding
Members of the Aboriginal Transitional Justice Alliance demonstrate outside the Eastern Gate in Pingtung County on July 2. Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
that it would help to reclaim Aboriginal lands illegitimately occupied by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the authoritarian White Terror era.
Speaking to reporters at a post-meeting news conference yesterday, Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said that the Executive Yuan has rubber-stamped a transitional justice plan for the nation’s Aborigines drafted by the Council of Indigenous Peoples that would deal with their land, languages and cultural issues.
“President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will formally apologize to the nation’s Aborigines in her capacity as president and Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said during the meeting that bills on Aboriginal traditional domains and languages should be passed within three years,” Tung said.
Briefing the media, Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod said that, after the Aboriginal Basic Act (原住民族基本法) was passed in 2005 to set a framework for the protection of Aboriginal rights, other laws on the details — including a draft bill on Aboriginal land and water, as well as the development of Aboriginal languages — were never passed by the legislature when the KMT had a majority. [FULL STORY]