Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook
VIDEO OF GUANGFU TOWNSHIP residents protesting a meeting held by KMT legislative caucus leader Fu Kun-chi attracted a great deal of attention online in late October. This was particularly the case, seeing as Hualien County Council Speaker Chang Chun, a resident of Guangfu, burst into the meeting and kicked Fu’s table.
Guangfu Township suffered 19 deaths after the Matai’an Barrier Lake broke, in the course of Typhoon Ragasa. The majority of these deaths were of elderly individuals who could not evacuate their homes in time.
To this extent, Guangfu Township is heavily Indigenous, mostly populated by Amis. The Amis name of Guangfu Township is Fata’an. The deaths were criticized as a result of a lack of resources distributed to Indigenous communities from the colonial state.
Tens of thousands of volunteers have since poured into the area as part of reconstruction efforts. But Indigenous activists have sought to call attention to how reconstruction efforts should center the views of local Indigenous residents, rather than serve as a means by which colonialism becomes further entrenched in the wake of a disaster.
What provoked anger regarding the meeting held by Fu was that local residents were reportedly not invited to participate. As such, the meeting was criticized as perfunctory and only intended to trample over the rights of local residents.
Fu’s role is particularly heated. Fu has long served as Hualien county legislator, while his wife Hsu Chen-wei is the county magistrate. Hsu inherited this position from Fu, with Fu having divorced her to name her deputy county magistrate ahead of a previous jail stint on issues of corruption. That being the case, Hsu became county magistrate and was able to continue to rule over Hualien in Fu’s stead once Fu was jailed. Given such actions, Fu is nicknamed the “King of Hualien” and criticized as the leader of a political dynasty that rules over Hualien.
In the wake of the deaths from the bursting of the Matai’an Barrier Lake, Fu was quick to blame the central government. While inspecting the damage with Premier Cho Jung-tai, Fu called on Cho to do more for Hualien, suggesting that the central government had done little. Likewise, the Hualien government alleged that meteorological authorities directed by the central government had not issued an evacuation warning ahead of time.
In response, the Hualien branch of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency later released documentation showing that it had issued a recommendation to evacuate residents at 7 AM the day of the deadly disaster. Similarly, Fu later stated that the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency should have blown up the barrier lake ahead of time. This prompted the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency to release a video explaining why the barrier lake could not have been blown up to be diverted.
KMT Indigenous legislator Sra Kacaw was also present at Fu’s closed-door meeting. Yet one notes that Sra Kacaw has spearheaded efforts by the KMT to defund the Council of Indigenous Peoples, such that members of the Council will no longer receive any government salaries and be able to carry out their work safeguarding Indigenous constituents. The changes pushed for by Sra Kacaw go on to enshrine the colonial distinction between Plains and Mountains Indigenous and change the system of representation so that each individually recognized Indigenous group no longer gets one seat on the Council.
It is thought that the KMT defunded the Council of Indigenous Peoples as retribution against the institution for acting against their will. It seems that the KMT–including Indigenous KMT legislators–would prefer to see the Council defunded rather than the possibility that appointees to the Council act counter to KMT interests.
Particularly with backlash against Fu and Hsu in Indigenous-heavy Hualien after the impact of Typhoon Ragasa, it is to be seen if the KMT tries to push Indigenous residents who protest against them to fall in line through further defunding or other punitive measures. This is to be seen, but such moves would be very much in the KMT’s playbook.