Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: lienyuan lee/WikiCommons/CC BY 3.0
ILLEGAL GRAVEL EXCAVATION in Meinong, Kaohsiung has led to controversy, with the DPP and KMT each blaming each other over the controversy. The case has been termed the “Grand Canyon” of Kaohsiung.
The land is owned by Wu Ching-wen and his wife Shih Li-chun, which was rented to a man surnamed Wang. The three are regarded as working together for the illegal gravel excavation.
Gravel pits covered six hectares of land, with one pit being twenty meters deep. Prosecutors estimated that 1.3 million cubic meters of gravel was removed and sold to construction companies, for a profit of 300 million NT.
The trio tried to conceal the pits by filling them with waste, which included construction materials and industrial waste. This proved a means of further exploiting the land, in that they charged for this means of waste disposal.
The case came to the attention of authorities after local residents complained of the contamination of soil and groundwater from the pits, which had become filled with stagnant water after rain. But questions have also been raised about whether local authorities were already aware of the case and turned a blind eye to it, particularly due to corruption.
KMT legislator Ko Chih-en initially sought to publicize the gravel excavation in July, blaming the DPP Kaohsiung mayoral administration led by Chen Chi-mai over the mining. Nevertheless, Shih accompanied Ko Chih-en on the site of the excavations and was accused by DPP city councilor Cheng Meng-ju of close ties to the KMT due to being an assistant of pan-Blue aligned city councilor Chu Hsin-chiang. Cheng framed the issue as Ko attempting to deceive the public into seeing the DPP as responsible for the excavation.
Since then, the Liberty Times has reported that the group involved in the excavations was linked to both the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps. A report by the Liberty Times alleges that the group that sought to profit from the excavations was linked to pan-Blue politicians, in that the family of a pan-Blue politician was responsible for the land acquisition but the ex-husband of a DPP legislator was the one who brought in the machinery for the excavations. Likewise, the group of individuals responsible for the excavations has links to organized crime. Reportedly, the son of a village head in Meinong with ties to both the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps sought to acquire the land, but after this failed, he sought to take revenge on the landowners.
Much remains unclear about the case, then. One notes that Hakka-heavy Meinong has frequently been the site of environmental protests in past years, most famously in a struggle against plans to construct a dam in the early 1990s. That there continue to be issues regarding environmental exploitation in rural Taiwan, as linked to the construction industry and organized crime, is unsurprising.
Still, it is not likely that the public will associate the case with Chen Chi-mai’s mayoral administration, especially if it transpires that there were links between the culprits and both the pan-Green and pan-Blue camps. It is well known that issues of corruption plague rural Taiwan and that this is not specific to any political camp, even the DPP is increasingly struggling in its heartland in southern Taiwan because of DPP politicians having acquired a reputation for corruption. Indeed, the Chen mayoral administration will probably tread carefully to avoid any fallout over allegations of corruption, especially given that Chen’s father, Chen Che-nan, suffered a downfall that ended his political career over fraud allegations.