About 200 police were sent into Treasure Hill this morning by the Taipei City Government to forcibly evict resident squatters and many college-aged protestors that were trying to help the residents resist. One student protester has suffered chest trauma resulting in a hospital visit to remove air from his chest. His parents say they will sue Mayor Hau if the injury was caused by police. (He did have an existing condition.) It was not the only injury. Witnesses say there were too many police for the task, making the police crowd more dangerous than the protestor crowd. Cops were trampling people in the surge. Resistors shouted “Hau Long-bin baoli!” (violent). The cops were obviously much more forceful than they were with the Redshirts. I am watching them on TV now pinning people’s arms behind their backs and smacking people around quite brutally.
Here is a story from three years ago that has a lot of background information in it:
[quote] The battle of Treasure Hill
A derelict squatter’s community on the edge of Taipei is being remade into an artists’ village and youth hostel. But for the long-term residents of Treasure Hill, the attention is both helpful and a hindrance to their daily lives
By David Momphard STAFF REPORTER Sunday, Dec 21, 2003
The relative peace that this squatter community enjoyed in the five decades after it was first settled by Chinese Nationalist Party soldiers from China is gone. The area was rezoned as parkland in 1980 and then, 13 years later, notices were posted on doors warning residents that the labyrinth of illegal piecemeal buildings would soon be razed.
PHOTO: STEPHEN WILDE
Treasure Hill quickly became a cause celebre for student activists and academics who saw the community as representative of the city’s past. In the 1950s, they argued, 30 percent of Taipei was squatter villages hastily constructed to accommodate the almost immediate doubling of the local population by mainlanders who fled the communist army.
While most of those communities have since been turned into parks or been replaced with modern buildings, Treasure Hill remains as both a reminder of the past and present home to some 100 people; many of them are poor retired soldiers, others are immigrants from southeast Asian countries, still others are students attending neighboring universities.
When the eviction notices went up, the academics and activists protested and the city government demurred. Responsibility for the future of the area was transferred from the Department of Parks and Recreation to the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, which became charged with, essentially, making Treasure Hill less of an embarrassment to a city bent on modernizing. Now it’s become the stomping ground for culturati who see the promontory as an “organic community” and come on their days off as part of the Global “Artivists” Participation Plan (GAPP).
(story continues at length…)[/quote]
And here is a story from yesterday’s Taipei Times:
[quote]Promises fail to reassure commune residents
By Loa Iok-sin STAFF REPORTER Monday, Jan 29, 2007
…
Residents built houses without permission and the community was declared illegal by the city government in 1994, but last year the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs recognized its historical significance and promised to preserve and renovate it. However, some residents and members of the THC were skeptical.
Residents received a letter from the city’s Building Administration Office (BAO) on Jan. 18 that asked them to sign an agreement.
“The house shall be demolished voluntarily within the deadline set forth by the city government,” a line from the agreement reads, “[I] agree that the BAO may demolish the house on my behalf after the deadline. [I] will not hold the BAO responsible for any financial or material damages.”
“In order to begin the renovation project, we’ve asked residents to move into temporary housing,” Chen Chia-chin (陳嘉欽), a city official said. “We’re not going to demolish [the buildings],” he added.
When a resident asked city officials to clarify the content of the letter, they rushed to leave and told him “don’t give me any trouble.”
The THC staged a protest by tearing down a piece of wall on Friday. “I thought they wanted us to demolish buildings voluntarily,” a member of THC said.
The City Government has called the action illegal, and the THC members illegal occupants.
“All legal residents have been well taken care of,” Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said, “we will not tolerate illegal occupants.”
After the protest on Friday, the police set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the community to prevent non-residents from entering, “to protect residents who are moving out,” a police officer said.
“Confrontation is not our goal,” Chi Yue-chun (紀岳君), a THC member said, “we’d rather see Hau sit down and talk with us.” [/quote]
And another story from last October:
Treasure Hill to get facelift, starting December
There will surely be another story tomorrow.
I am wondering why the city is able to override the wishes of the residents. Apparently this has been done before. Chen Shui-bian made a lot of enemies when he did basically the same thing to residents of two blocks of soldiers’ housing stradling LinSen N. Rd at Nanjing E. Rd. I heard that he gave the residents only a month or two to get out and then sent in the dozers. He created two useless parks that I have personally dubbed the useless parks. I seldom see anyone using either for anything but taking the dog out for a poo.
Is there a legal concept of squatters’ rights here in Taiwan? It seems to me the city’s behavior is too arbitrary and too much like an authoritarian approach. This, despite recent assurances to deal with the dispute peacefully.
I would love to ask Mayor Hau just how this action differs from the way governments in China handle things when it wants to rearrange the living arrangement of citizens. He is making Taiwan look like a third-world dictatorship all over again.
Well, well, people of Taipei. Look who you elected over a man who turned dirty old Kaohsiung into the island’s most liveable city.