An aboriginal girl looks up at her father as they wait for relatives to return at the typhoon rescue center in the town of Chiashien in Kaohsiung county, southern Taiwan, yesterday. Many of Typhoon Morakot's victims belong to Taiwan's indigenous tribes who have lived here for thousands of years and whose spiritual attachment to the land runs deep. AFP

TAIPEI: Danhu Pasavi's Bunun tribe has lived in the mountains here in southern Taiwan for more than three centuries, but now he fears Typhoon Morakot could tear them from the land of their ancestors.

Like most of the typhoon's victims, he is a member of Taiwan's indigenous tribes who lived here for thousands of years before the Han Chinese came in the 17th century - and whose spiritual attachment to the land runs deep.

"That's why some of our older villagers would rather risk their lives staying behind than leave the village," Pasavi, an elder in his village of 400, said in a Buddhist temple being used to shelter homeless typhoon victims.

Rescue operations continue to drag on 10 days after the typhoon hit, in part because many refuse to leave their villages, which have been cut off from the world, said transport chief Mao Chih-kuo, who is leading the emergency response.

The military may soon start removing people by force, because it will be impossible to airlift their daily needs to them during the long months it will take to rebuild roads and bridges, Mao said.

Most indigenous typhoon survivors want the government to assure them they can ultimately return home, Pasavi said.

"Forcing us to relocate to the city permanently is no different from killing us," said Pasavi, who had to flee from his village of Mintzu to neighboring Chishan township.

"Our ancestors arrived here even before the Hans did. We deserve the right to preserve our land, our culture, history and way of life."

Taiwanese aborigines are ethnic Austronesians with linguistic and genetic ties to the people of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Oceania.

They stand out among East Asians with their dark skin, brownish hair and deep, round, brown eyes.

Elsewhere in Chishan at a rescue center, 20 members of Minsheng village spent the day pleading with relatives still on the mountain to leave.

"Please, you must come down. Don't worry, the government has promised that we will have a place to stay here," a teenager on a mobile phone said to his father.

Rescue workers said their helicopters were ready whenever the stranded villagers accepted their help. But more than a thousand have declined.

Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou, already under fire over his handling of the typhoon, faces a new minefield with the aborigines' resettlement.

Economically disadvantaged before, indigenous communities are now even poorer, said Kung Wen-chi, an aborigine lawmaker from Ma's Kuomintang party.

The government's only option is to pay to resettle them as close to their original villages as possible, Kung said.

"Some people have no homes, no jobs and even no family after the typhoon and they can't pay back the loans," Kung said, adding 1999 earthquake resettlement projects failed when developers lost money because victims had no cash.

Pasavi and many others blame a 4-year-old government project to divert water from the Laonung River over 14.5 kilometers to the Tsengweng Dam for the mudslides that destroyed their villages.

"We knew a long time ago that the water channel project would ultimately lead to a natural disaster like an earthquake or a mudslide. We just did not know it would happen so soon," Mintzu villager Chou Su-hsia said.

The head of Taiwan's Water Resources Agency Chen Shen-hsien has rejected claims that the water channel and mudslides were linked.

"We feel sad for the deaths ... but I must say, the project has nothing to do with the tragedy," Chen told reporters.

Pasuya, an academic from the Tsou tribe who goes by one name - who was stranded in Alishan for six days during the typhoon - said aborigines have long been neglected because of prejudice and have lacked a voice in elections. At 490,000 people, they represent about 2 percent of the population.

But he said aborigines must also acknowledge their cash crops - tea, betel nuts and wasabi root - contributed to soil erosion that may have made the mudslides even more deadly.

"Forests were cut down in the mountains so the aboriginal people could grow more profitable crops to meet the demand of city dwellers, which hurt the ecology," said Pasuya, a former director of National Museum of Prehistory.

"Aboriginal people should learn a painful lesson not to violate their cultural principles and hurt their land."

AFP

(HK Edition 08/19/2009 page2)