Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990 TAG: 9005180119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: TAIPEI, TAIWAN LENGTH: Medium
Their essential radio gear is tied up here in red tape. Taiwanese officials insist that problem isn't connected to the unprecedented - and unexpected - overtures they are making to Beijing, but the ship's crew smells a rat.
"One thing is for sure," said Christophe Nick, a Paris-based magazine writer who helped organize the oceangoing broadcast mission, "we can't stay here like this."
For the past week, the 30-year-old cargo vessel reincarnated as the "Deesse De la Democratie" (Goddess of Democracy) has been anchored in Keelung Harbor. The Goddess, nearly as long as a football field and financed mostly by the sale of T-shirts and television rights, took on fuel and provisions for a three-week cruise.
Nick and his supporters had planned to push off Thursday for international waters. From there, they wanted to broadcast music (Mozart to McCartney), news and Western-style commentary to millions of Chinese, most of whom receive little information outside of that conveyed by the state-owned media in Beijing.
At the heart of the ship's programming would be taped interviews with Chinese dissidents abroad and Western accounts of the brutal suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing last June 4, when troops and tanks killed hundreds of demonstrators near Tiananmen Square.
The group wants its broadcasts to mark the first anniversary of the crackdown.
But the ship hasn't left here because its transmitters, flown in from France, haven't cleared local customs offices.
There's confusion as to why not. The problem may be bureaucratic.
"We are thinking that, for the moment, this is an administrative problem that we have to solve," said Christine Dupont, a 37-year-old French architect who is an organizer of the Goddess mission.
by CNB