Officials in the Taichung City Government are worried that media coverage of a "terror" poster issued by the pan-blue campaign office headed by Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) may jeopardize the opening of a Guggenheim branch museum in the city, a source inside the government said yesterday.
The source said the Guggenheim Museum in New York yesterday contacted the Taichung City Government over the use of the "terror" poster. One official found the museum's inquiry, which cited Taipei Times articles from last week and quoted questions by Times reporters put to Guggenheim press officer Jennifer Russo, "unpleasant and, frankly, shocking."
The source said there was concern that the controversy could jeopardize contract negotiations with Guggenheim. However, the source implied there was a feeling that it was the Times that was responsible for this development and for resolving it, and not the pan-blue campaign headquarters for issuing the poster.
It was not clear what the response of the Taichung City Government was to the Guggenheim correspondence.
Around 600,000 copies were made of the poster, which likens President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and uses an image of the attack on New York City's World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, to convince voters to back Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜).
Among a stream of accusations, it accuses Chen personally of being "capricious, haughty, reckless and greedy," and of "embracing black gold" (corruption), pitting Taiwan's ethnic groups against one another and bringing "unprecedented catastrophe" to the country. The poster also provides a floor plan on how to avoid voting in the March 20 referendum.
Hu, a former foreign minister, distanced himself from the poster through a spokesman last Friday and in comments made on March 18, two days before the election, which were reported in the Taichung press, but other top campaign officials under Hu and pan-blue camp spokespeople in Taipei contacted by the Times have firmly backed the poster.
"What you have said to Guggenheim may affect the destiny [sic] of our case, which you probably know, is at a very critical juncture right now," the source said.
The source suggested there was a feeling within the city government that any concerns the Guggenheim may have about the campaign materials were based on a "big misunderstanding," and that, were negotiations to collapse, the "heart and hope" of the people of Taichung would "break."
The source also said that there was a sense within the government that the Times was running a "stepped-up news campaign" against Hu personally.
The source warned that "this [matter] seems to have gone already [sic] too far."
Scans of both sides of the contentious poster can be viewed on the Internet (www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/photo/2004/03/23/2003114861, www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/photo/2004/03/27/2003115048).
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