`President pig' picture draws heavy flak

A technician with the state-run Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC) has come under fire for a drawing of a pig he made on a target drone. But Wang Cheng-kun (王政坤) says that people are wrong to interpret the drawing as a malicious attempt to insult President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Wang's woes started on Thursday when people discovered that he had drawn a pig's head and the Chinese character "bian" (扁) on a target drone used in the Hankuang No. 19 exercise held on that day.

Wang said the pig was meant to be a mascot for the target drone and that the character "bian" was both a representation of his respect for the president and a symbol of a personal Web site Wang runs.

"I drew the pig on the target drone mainly in hopes of bringing good luck to people who use the drone. I like to use the pig as a mascot. I often draw pigs to make my nine-year-old daughter happy," Wang said.

Wang made the remarks yesterday at a press conference that the AIDC held at its headquarters in Taichung.

Wang claimed to be a supporter of Chen. He insisted that the word represented his respect for the president.

"Bian" was thought to refer to Chen because people like to call him "A-bian." Indeed, the president often refers to himself by that name.

Wang said that "bian" did not actually refer to the president. Rather, it was a homophone for the type of unmanned aerial vehicle -- the British Banshee 400 -- that the armed forces used as a target drone in the exercises. It was one of those drones on which Wang drew the pig and wrote the word "bian."

"What the word really means is a unmanned aerial vehicle Web site I run. The Web site is called `the world of bian fans.'"

The Banshee 400 in question was used in Thursday's Hankuang No. 19 exercise in Ilan as the target for the army' Avenger air defense missile system of the army.

Wang was one of the technicians responsible for the operation of the target drone.

The drone was struck by the missile in the exercise. After the exercise, as it was recovered from the sea and placed on a roadside, local residents found the pig drawing on its right wing and the word "bian" on its tail.

The immediate reaction of many local residents was that the pig drawing might be intended to insult the president because it had the word "bian" next to it.

The unexpected development made the military a target of a barrage of criticism and prompted the Ministry of National Defense to call a press conference Thursday evening.

The army, which is the AIDC's main customer for the Banshee 400 target drones, blamed the AIDC and Wang for the controversial drawing.

But the AIDC fought back yesterday, calling its own press conference to defend for Wang against blame from the army and criticism from the public.

AIDC Flight Service Business Department director Wu Kang-ming (吳康明) said it is quite common to see mascots on a plane. Wang, a retired air force pilot, was the first test pilot for the domestically built Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF ) plane.

The president seemed to take the incident in stride. While he was visiting the island of Kinmen, he responded to questions about the uproar by saying that Taiwan is now a democratic society and that "a democratic society needs a little humor."

Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明), who accompanied Chen to Kinmen, yesterday apologized twice to the president.

He first aplogized for the target drone incident and then apologized for the many glitches during the Hankuang No. 19 exercise.

Chen did not seem to mind the glitches. On the contrary, he praised the exercise as a very successful one.