Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The government’s reconstruction policy after Typhoon Morakot struck in August last year was a far bigger disaster than the natural calamity because it is leading to the extinction of Aborigines, Lituan Takilulu, convener of the Indigenous Peoples Action Coalition of Taiwan, said yesterday.

“Aborigines will never be able to return home. They are compelled to live in separate places. We are on our way to extinction,” Lituan said at a forum held by the Taiwan Association of University Professors on the eve of the first anniversary of Morakot.

The Indigenous Peoples Action Coalition of Taiwan (IPACT) held a rally last night on the Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office to pray for the souls of the dead a year after Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan, took some 700 Taiwanese lives and left thousands homeless.

President Ma Ying-jeou has come under heavy fire for his government's slow response after the monster typhoon slammed into Taiwan Aug. 7-9 last year, and triggered massive floodwaters and landslides that buried native peoples alive and isolated their villages in the south.