Water project adds to Ma's typhoon woes

Angry survivors blame tunnel works for killer mudslides
Straits Times 24 Aug 09;

TAIPEI: As Taiwan began its three-day mourning for victims of Typhoon Morakot, a new front in the political storm facing the island's leader has emerged.

When President Ma Ying-jeou visited the southern village of Hsiao Lin - a symbol of Morakot's devastation - to comfort survivors, he was confronted by angry villagers who blamed a massive government water project for mudslides which killed hundreds of people.

Mr Ma vowed to investigate claims that dynamite blasting carried out to build a 15km channel from the Laonung River to the Tsengwen Dam had led to soil erosion that endangered the village.

An official probe into the project was launched almost two weeks after the typhoon hit on Aug 8, and the head of the Water Resources Agency has offered to resign in response to the villagers' outcry.

'The rocks had come loose after the mountains were bombed for years, day and night. Previously, we had never had such a disaster. Therefore we've good reason to believe that is to blame,' Mr Aliao, chief of the nearby Mintzu village, said.

'We had protested from the very beginning, but they just didn't listen.'

Television footage showed survivors confronting Mr Ma last week when he visited Hsiao Lin, where about 400 people are missing and feared dead. The pictu-resque village is now buried in mud five storeys deep.

'Wrong policies are even more terrible than corruption,' one villager shouted at Mr Ma, in an apparent reference to Mr Ma's predecessor Chen Shui-bian, who has been detained on graft charges.

On Saturday, the first day of the mourning period, flags across the country were flown at half-mast.

Mr Ma revisited the hardest-hit area in Kaohsiung to attend memorial services. He was accompanied by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan, Parliamentary Speaker Wang Jin-pyng and other Cabinet ministers.

'We will thoroughly investigate the matter even though the project didn't start in my term,' the President told a group of protesters outside a memorial service in Hsiao Lin.

'President Ma, you must stop the project,' a protester pleaded, while others held banners that read: 'Water project ruins homeland.'

Public prosecutors last Thursday began examining the site at Hsiao Lin, interviewing local government and river affairs officials and collecting before-and-after aerial photos of the area.

'After such a grave disaster, it's our duty to find out the truth and return due justice to the dead,' prosecutor Chuang Jung-sung told reporters.

But observers say it will not be easy to determine who was at fault.

'The project was initiated by previous governments but Mr Ma's government was accused of speeding it up, so it is more complicated...to determine who's responsible,' said Professor Hsu Yung-ming, a political analyst at Soochow University.

Work on the NT$21.2 billion (S$930 million) project started in 2005 under Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and is scheduled to be completed by 2012. The objective of the project is to divert water from the Laonung River into the Tsengwen reservoir before it flows into the ocean.

Mr Chen Shen-hsien, head of the Water Resources Agency, has insisted that work on the channel had nothing to do with the deadly mudslides triggered by Typhoon Morakot.

'The allegation that the project is responsible for the huge loss of hundreds of lives is too much for us,' he said, adding that the project, a tunnel cutting through several mountains, was 11km away from Hsiao Lin.

Mr Ma, whose approval rating has sunk to a record low amid widespread anger over his government's slow response to the typhoon crisis, has promised to have the disaster areas rebuilt in three years.

At least three senior officials - Vice- Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia, Defence Minister Chen Chao-min and Cabinet Secretary-General Hsieh Hsiang-chuan - have offered to resign, but Premier Liu has said he will consider the resignations in a Cabinet reshuffle early next month.

There have been mounting calls by ruling Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers for a thorough reshuffle of the Cabinet with the appointment of a new premier.

Leaving Premier Liu in place despite his abysmal poll ratings would harm the KMT in local elections scheduled for December, legislators said.

The main opposition DPP has threatened a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet and even an impeachment campaign against President Ma.

But DPP chairman Tsai Ing-wen herself faced criticism for allegedly staying at Kaohsiung's top luxury hotel during her recent tour of the disaster area, according to a report yesterday on the Taiwan News website.

The death toll from Typhoon Morakot was raised to at least 650 yesterday, with 160 confirmed dead and another 490 listed as missing and presumed dead.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS