/'_/\ /'_/| | \ `\ | | | ______ | `\ `\ | | | ______ /'______/\ | |\ `\ `| | | /______/\ | ___ \/| | | |\ `\| | | | ___ \ \ | /'/ \_|/ | | | `\ | | | | | \ \/| | | | __ |_|/' `\__|/' | | | | | | | | \__/_/| | | |__| | | | \/___| |/ China News Digest | |/__/ |/ \_______/(InfoBase June 4 Collection)|_______/ May 1, 1993 **The CND InfoBase Project collects, among other China-related information, materials and/or bibliographical reference to matericals about the Beijing Massacre on June 4, 1989. Please refer to the trailer for more information. No. Subject june4-89.05t # of Lines --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: Chinese students massacred hundreds are feared slain by the military ............................................................150 2. HEADLINE: ............................................................83 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: Chinese students massacred hundreds are feared slain by the military ............................................................150 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BYLINE: By Uli Schmetzer and Ronald E. Yates, Chicago Tribune SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, June 4, 1989, Sunday, FINAL EDITION DATELINE: BEIJING KEYWORDS: CHINA; RIGHTS; PROTEST; MILITARY; SHOOTING; DEATH; MULTIPLE; REACTION; FIRST; STATISTIC; GOVERNMENT Chinese troops occupied central Tiananmen Square on Sunday, hours after tanks and armored personnel carriers smashed a murderously bloody path through unarmed crowds who tried in vain to hold them back. But after a violent night during which hundreds were killed and wounded, perhaps as many as 500,000 outraged Beijing residents spilled into the streets. Many surrounded the square, which in the past three weeks has become a symbol of China's democracy movement. The square was cleared at dawn when four personnel carriers raced across it, flattening not only the tents of the demonstrators but the 30-foot-high white plastic statue of the Goddess of Liberty they had erected. By Sunday afternoon, army helicopters shuttled in and out of the square, finally signifying the brutal reality of the state of martial law declared two weeks ago but never enforced. Meanwhile, officials at 11 of the capital's hospitals reported that more than 200 dead and more than 600 wounded had arrived in the aftermath of the carnage. Some estimates of the dead and wounded ranged far higher. "More are coming in all the time," said one hospital spokesman. "There are still bodies that haven't been picked up yet." China's hard-line rulers, clearly in control after the bloodbath, issued a statement Sunday that said: "Thugs frenziedly attacked People's Liberation Army troops, seizing weapons, erecting barricades and beating soldiers and officers in an attempt to overthrow the government of the People's Republic of China and socialism." But Chinese witnesses said most of the violence originated with troops who "ritually beat" the 5,000 students and their supporters - the hard-core remnants of the democracy movement - as they filed out of Tiananmen Square at 5 a.m. Sunday still singing the Internationale, the socialist anthem. The troops had also fired on the crowd from the roof of the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square. A Japanese photographer said he saw armored personnel carriers crush demonstrators who jumped in front of them with raised hands. As the casualties mounted, the crowds became increasingly belligerent. They armed themselves with bricks, bottles, iron rods and wooden clubs and attacked some of the military contingents, including tanks. An infuriated mob grabbed one soldier and set him afire after dousing him with gasoline. It was one of the many examples of instant justice. The crowd accused the soldier of having shot an old woman to death. Through the night and into the new day, the wounded and the dead were carted from the inferno on the flatbeds of three-wheeled vehicles through a pall of smoke. The stinging stench of tear gas hovered over the embattled city. "Tell the world!" the anti-army crowds screamed. "Tell the United States! Tell the truth! We were students! We were common people - unarmed, and they are killing us!" It was a night to remember, a night of savagery. At 2 a.m., at the height of the armed assault, a maverick tank careered down Jianguomenwai Avenue in an attempt to crack open the way for troop convoys unable to pass through the milling crowds. With its turret closed, the tank was bombarded with stones and bottles as it sped down the avenue. Young cyclists headed it off, then slowed to bring it to a halt. But the tank raced on, the cyclists deftly avoiding its clattering treads by mere inches. On the Jianguomenwai bridge over the city's main ring road, where a 25-truck convoy had been marooned for hours by crowds clambering all over it, a tank raced through the crowd. It sideswiped one of the army trucks, and a young soldier clinging to its side was flung off and killed instantly. The worst fighting of the night occurred around the Minzu Hotel, west of the square, where grim-faced troops opened fire with tracer bullets and live ammunition on milling crowds blocking their access to the square. Scores of people were wounded. Some of the bodies were laid out on the side of the road as the troops moved on to take the square, which has been the symbol of China's democratic movement for the last seven weeks. One tank ran into the back of another that had stalled on the Jianguomenwai overpass. As they hurriedly bounced apart, the machine guns on their turrets began to train on the approaching crowd of about 10,000. As dawn came up on Sunday morning, a crowd of 3,000 howling youths surged toward the square, trying to break through the line of soldiers with bare hands and wheeling their bicycles. "Fascists! Murderers!" they chanted. Within 50 yards of the first line of troops, an army commander blew a whistle and the soldiers turned and fired volleys of automatic rifle fire. Screams of pain followed. The protesters threw themselves and their bikes on the pavement of the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Dragging their bikes behind them, they crawled like ants to safety, pursued by rifle fire and the throaty war cries of the soldiers. When the firing momentarily stopped, the crowd regrouped and slowly crept back toward the square. Then the volleys rang out again, more intense this time. Two lines of soldiers began to chase the mob, alternately firing tear gas and bullets. The acrid smell of tear gas triggered a paroxysm of coughing in the crowd. People ripped off shirt sleeves and used them as handkerchiefs over their mouths. Three bodies were laid out on the pavement of a side street to await transport. A crowd gathered around them, waving fists and cursing the government. "How many people did you kill? " they shouted at steel-helmeted soldiers who stood stonily with AK-47 assault rifles cradled across their chests. "You have betrayed the people!" others cried. ""You are not the people's army anymore." The soldiers hung their heads or stolidly stared into space, biting their lips. Angry young people with balled fists shouted: "We are not giving up! The Chinese people are not afraid. We will teach this government a lesson." GRAPHIC: PHOTO (color): Reuters photo. Carrying a soldier's helmet as if it were a trophy, a bloodied worker is helped through Tiananmen Square after a clash with troops Saturday. PHOTO: AP Laserphoto. Student demonstrators remove a comrade shot early Sunday during clashes with troops at Tiananmen Square. The casualties were carted from the square on the flatbeds of three-wheeled vehicles. PHOTO: AP Laserphoto. The driver of an armored personnel carrier that rammed into a crowd of students lies dead Sunday after being beaten by angry mobs. At one point, four personnel carriers raced across Tiananmen Square, flattening the students' 30-foot-high plastic Goddess of Liberty statue. MAPS: Beijing. Tiananmen Square. Chicago Tribune Map. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HEADLINE: ............................................................83 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BYLINE: DON KIRK SOURCE: GANNETT NEWS SERVICE, June 4, 1989, Sunday KEYWORD: CHINANEXT; VIOLENCE; DEMONSTRATION; STUDENT Tanks and armored personnel carriers rumble through Beijing, showing the muscle of a regime that broke an almost sacred rule: They ordered the slaughter of Chinese. In the recent weeks of standoff between China's army troops and democracy-seeking students, soldiers told the crowds, ''We will never kill Chinese'' - just as party spiritual leader Mao Tse-tung had commanded. But in a wild sweep of Tiananmen Square early Sunday, they gunned down at least 500. The massacre may be the opening of a longer struggle, a people vs. leaders confrontation over the future of the world's most populous country. ''The leaders have turned the country back to the military. They have abdicated responsibility and made a statement that they'd rather use guns than politics to control their own people,'' says Anthony Kane of the Asia Society in New York. ''This has reached a level of inhumanity. The question is: what else are they capable of?'' The question now, however, is whether such a demonstration of military might can end the revolt as did the Communist tanks and troops that once swept Hungary or Czechoslovakia or Tibet - or whether the millions of rebellious people in Beijing and at other major cities will prove too much for the armed forces to control. The national defiance has grown since student demonstrators took over Tiananmen Square a month ago to demand political reform by the Communist Party. The government leadership already is in disarray. Senior leader Deng Xiaoping - the main force in the leadership - is in the hospital with cancer. Premier Li Peng, apparently now in control, masterminded the suppression of the revolt. Deng and Li appear to have removed Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, whose offense was to advocate ''moderation,'' and visit the students in the square before Li declared martial law on May 20. Zhao still may have a reservoir of support - one that could build rapidly if the heavy-handed display last weekend fails to stop the protest. ''I think the leadership has been divided, and probably the shock of this disaster has divided it further,'' says Johns Hopkins University China expert Doak Barnett. ''Now, the only way they can begin to stabilize the situation, really, is with a change of leadership at the top.'' Having used troops to gain control of the city, Deng and Li could extend the sweep to Zhao's supporters. Educators, writers and artists who in past months have spoken out for greater democracy and condemned party abuses may face persecution or arrest. No one is certain how many troops the government sent into the city, but at least 20,000 of them were in or around the central area while thousands more in convoys moved on the main avenues ringing the capital. All told, the military force could reach 300,000. The military also may encounter trouble if the protest spreads to such large cities as Shanghai, with a population of 12 million, and the industrial city of Wuhan, both of which have witnessed student unrest in recent weeks. China's four million soldiers would appear numerous enough to spread their strength elsewhere, but regional differences and incompetent leadership could detract from the military's efficiency. The government called in troops from a wide range of provinces - possibly to be sure no commander had too much strength. --- (Don Kirk writes for USA TODAY. USA TODAY's Johanna Neuman contributed to this report.) +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Bing Wen in Ottawa, Canada | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest (CND) InfoBase covers the following areas: | | History : WWII, Cultural Revolution, June 4, Olympics | | Service : visa/PR, PRC-doc, tax, insurance, travel/living | | Academics : job, conference/workshop, societies, projects | | Other : org intro, book review, community activities | | ------ * ------ * ------ | | To contribute, please send to CND-IB@CND.ORG | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+