Taipei Times
Date: Apr 22, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

An Aboriginal legislator yesterday said the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) legislative caucus was excluding Aboriginal rights from legislative discussions.

“I feel strongly about the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee not inviting the Council of Indigenous Peoples,” Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) said at a meeting of the Internal Administration Committee.

Chin said the council was the only Cabinet-level agency that had not been invited to send a representative to the hearing on draft legislation to promote transitional justice, adding that the omission reflected a wider absence of Aboriginal rights in discussions over transitional justice, with the DPP focusing primarily on rectifying abuses committed during the Martial Law period.

“When we talk about the Chinese National Party’s [KMT] assets, should we not also talk about how Aborigines lost their land during Japanese colonial rule? If we do not talk about that set of issues and do not even invite the Council of Indigenous Peoples to express an opinion, what kind of transitional justice is this?” she said.     [FULL  STORY]