A combination of political maneuvering and bureaucracy has bruised the 2006 Taipei Poetry Festival, festival organizers alleged yesterday.
The festival, which was launched yesterday by the Taipei City Government's cultural affairs department at Zhongshan Hall and will run to next Sunday, was scaled back for lack of two guest poets from abroad, who couldn't obtain visas.
The world-famous poets -- Nancy Morejon from Cuba and Apti Bisultanov from Chechnya -- were denied visas by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) for petty political reasons, festival organizers said.
Morejon was reportedly denied a visa because she is from a communist country with which Taiwan has no relations. Bisultanov, meanwhile, was denied a visa because Taiwan, which plans to open a representative office in Vladivostok, Russia, doesn't want to rock the boat with Russia by issuing a visa to a Chechen nationalist, local media reported.
Russia has fought two brutal wars since the end of the Cold War against separatists in the southern republic of Chechnya, which Russia considers a part of its territory.
Cultural Affairs Department Spokesman Teng Tsung-te (
Ministry's response
MOFA spokesman David Wang (王建業) told the Taipei Times yesterday that Morejon and Bisultanov hadn't met the procedural requirements for obtaining visas.
Bisultanov, Wang claimed, submitted travel documents that were valid for less than six months, while the ministry requires that foreigners possess relevant documents that are valid for at least six months to be eligible for a visa.
As for Morejon, Wang said she would have needed an invitation to participate in an event organized by the central government to be eligible for a landing visa. As the poetry festival is a local government-sponsored event, she didn't qualify, Wang added.
Responding to a suggestion by the festival organizers that Morejon could have been issued a landing visa by Taiwan's Guatemala office, Wang said,"landing visas are issued only under special circumstances -- we can't have everybody coming over on a landing visa."
Department Commissioner Sebastian Liao (
"This is really a pity. We need to win respect [on the international stage], not discourage people like Morejon from coming," Liao told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
Mixed messages
"Taiwan has been trying to get the message out there that the world needs to distinguish between culture and politics. But here we are contradicting our own message," Liao said, adding that the ministry's behavior wouldn't win the country "permanent friends" in the international community.
"My office sat down with a ministry official, and he effectively told us that the festival wasn't important enough for the ministry to go the extra mile in helping Mrs Morejon come to Taiwan. I don't blame the whole ministry; I have good friends who work there," Liao said.
According to Teng, the festival has been held annually for seven years. He added that the festival's theme this year is poetry whose authors hail from "marginalized countries" in the West -- countries that have a lot in common with Taiwan.
"[MOFA] could have offered more help to these poets -- who we invited -- in their efforts to come here," Teng said.
Rain is to increase from Wednesday morning as Severe Tropical Storm Kong-Rey approaches, with sea warnings to be issued as early as tomorrow afternoon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. As of 8am, Kong-Rey was 1,050km east-southeast of the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春) heading in a northwesterly direction toward Taiwan, CWA Forecast Center Director Lin Po-tung (林伯東) said. Rainfall is to increase from Wednesday morning, especially in northern Taiwan and Yilan County, he said. A sea warning is possible from tomorrow afternoon, while a land warning may be issued on Wednesday morning, he added. Kong-Rey may intensify into a moderate typhoon as it passes
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Taiwan yesterday issued warnings to four Chinese coast guard vessels that intruded into restricted waters around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The four China Coast Guard ships were detected approaching restricted waters south of Kinmen at around 2 pm yesterday, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu Branch said in a statement. The CGA said it immediately deployed four patrol boats to closely monitor the situation. When the Chinese ships with the hull numbers "14512," "14609," "14603" and "14602" separately entered the restricted waters off Fuhsing islet (復興嶼), Zhaishan (翟山), Sinhu (新湖) and Liaoluo (料羅) at 3 pm, the Taiwanese patrol
A former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), formerly known as SEAL Team 6, said in an interview with Business Insider that the elite unit’s role in a Taiwan Strait conflict would be more limited than some might expect. The report follows an earlier one in September by the Financial Times, which said the “clandestine US Navy commando unit” has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China. “You don’t use a scalpel for a job a hammer can do,” the former Navy Seal said to Business Insider on condition of anonymity.