__ __ /'_/\ /'_/| | \ `\ | | | ______ | `\ `\ | | | ______ /'______/\ | |\ `\ `| | | /______/\ | ___ \/| | | |\ `\| | | | ___ \ \ | /'/ \_|/ | | | `\ | | | | | \ \/| | | | __ |_|/' `\__|/' | | | | | | | | \__/_/| | | |__| | | | \/___| |/ China News Digest | |/__/ |/ \_______/(InfoBase June 4 Collection)|_______/ May 16, 1994 **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 june5-89.04t # of Lines --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. For Chinese TV, It's Business as Usual .............................. 70 2. Army Tarpaulins Hide the Students' Bodies and Smother Their Hopes.... 80 3. 5,000 Rally in Chicago, Call for U.S. Sanctions ..................... 80 4. Beijing Girds for New Violence, Residents Harass Army with Hit-and-Run Tactics .............................................................130 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. For Chinese TV, It's Business as Usual .............................. 70 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1989 By: Ronald E. Yates At the end of a bloody weekend that no Chinese will soon forget, the people of Beijing were searching for facts and answers. There were few to be found. The Chinese media, tightly controlled by the government, depicted the last few days - in which hundreds of people were shot and clubbed to death in the streets of Beijing - like any other weekend. For much of Sunday afternoon, state-run television broadcast an 18th Century costume comedy with Chinese actors dressed in the powdered wigs and foppish clothing of Louis XVI's court. It seemed appropriate: It was his wife, Marie Antoinette, who, when told the people of Paris were hungry, remarked, "Let them eat cake." In the aftermath of the worst violence in recent Chinese history, the government's initial refusal to mention the carnage in Tiananmen Square and other parts of city was a message in itself - a message that could be interpreted as "Let them eat bullets." China's government finally acknowledged the running battles between angry citizens and the People's Liberation Army by referring to the protests as an attempt to overthrow the socialist state, but it still continued to ignore the mounting deaths. At the same time, it called the massacre in Tiananmen Square a "glorious victory of the people" over "rebellious elements." State television spent the day broadcasting crop reports, a lecture on the use of microcomputers and an incongruous documentary on Walt Disney and his famous animated cartoon charactors, including Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck. "Please, we want to know what happened . . . can you tell us?" a Chinese man named Chen Liu pleaded with a reporter near Beijing's Friendship department store. Not far away the evidence of the night's violence still littered the streets - several disabled army trucks, an overturned and burned bus, black scorch marks on the pavement where Molotov cocktails had hit the ground. "Yes," said a woman. "How many are dead? Has the government given any reason for their action?" "They don't need to give a reason," said Chen, a supervisor in a bank. "They can simply kill us at any time and never feel the need to tell us why." Sunday evening China's state-run television network finally acknowledged that the army had engaged demonstrators. "It was necessary to undertake that action to save lives and property," an announcer said, reading listlessly from a transcript. A state radio report also said 1,000 soldiers were injured, but it made no mention of the dead pro-democracy demonstrators who had captured the hearts and minds of this nation with their occupation of Tiananmen Square. It was in that square, the world's largest, that Mao Tse-tung declared the birth of communist China in 1949. "The face of Chairman Mao must have tears on it," said a woman named Zhang, referring to the huge portrait of modern China's founder that hangs at the entrance of the Forbidden City overlooking Tiananmen Square. "He saw it all." So did much of the world's media - including foreign television, newspaper and radio reporters. And even though satellite broadcasts from China have been cut off by China's government, video cassettes of the bloody confrontation between the square's rag-tag army of unarmed student demonstrators and heavily armed soldiers were beginning to make their way out of Beijing and into television studios all over the world. As news reports of the events in Beijing begin to make their way back to China's reclusive political hierarchy, diplomats here say it is likely the government will begin to expel the scores of visiting foreign reporters who have followed the events of the past several weeks with relative impunity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Army Tarpaulins Hide the Students' Bodies and Smother Their Hopes ... 80 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1989 By: Uli Schmetzer Green army tarpaulins cover the horror of Tiananmen Square, once the showcase of Chinese communism but today a cemetery for liberal hopes and scores of young people massacred by troops propping up a regime of aged party leaders. In the gray dusk Sunday night, even the soldiers who have encircled the square with tanks and armored personnel carriers tiptoed across the covered tiles, gingerly stepping around the bulges under the tarpaulins. On the elevated base of the central obelisk, the monument to the heroes of the nation, plainclothes police in shirtsleeves bent over motionless bodies in an apparent attempt to identify them. It was here, the headquarters of the pro-democracy student movement, that students gathered to sing the socialist anthem, the Internationale, while troops and armored personnel carriers rushed the square firing machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles. Five rows of tanks, their gun barrels covered now, ring the square. Helmeted troops cradling automatic weapons have sealed off the square to the outside world. They are lined up behind barricades made of concrete blocks and garbage cans. Gone is the Goddess of Democracy, the 30-foot plastic and plaster sculpture of a woman holding a torch with both hands. Students used the symbol last week to rally support, and an irate government denounced it as an "insult to China." Student leaders said students linked arms around the statue to protect it when the troops came, but the armored vehicles rolled over the statue and crushed it. Sharpshooters are still perched on the roof of the Great Hall of the People, on the western side of the square. From there, eyewitnesses said, they sniped at the students. The tents occupied by the protesters for three weeks have been flattened; many of their occupants were crushed in their sleep. Sporadically, helicopters land on a makeshift pad in the square, ferrying in supplies and ammunition. "Get out of here," an officer shouted. Behind him a green tarpaulin covered the shame he wants no one to see. On the edge of the square, on the walls of a small guardhouse, is the scrawled message written in blood: "The Chinese people will never forget." As night falls, thunder and lightning add to the Dante-esque scene. The first fresh tank convoys rumble toward Tiananmen Square, crashing through barricades to put down a rebellion still very much alive. Local residents, many in pajamas, pop from their homes and drag fruit stalls, tricycles and even trucks into the road in a futile but determined attempt to foil the troops. They set them aflame and watch from bushes as the tanks crash through them. "We have to stop them, we have to stop these fascists," cried a middle-aged man in short pajamas. One youth, wielding a club in one hand, hurled a Molotov cocktail with the other and then dived for cover as the machine guns spattered volleys of fire. A soldier in the turret of a tank sprayed the front of the famous Beijing Hotel with his machine gun. Down at the Jianguomenwai, the beginning of the city's main avenue, a tank stalled. Another tank push-started it. A group of residents moved in, shaking their fists. "We'll tear them from limb to limb!" an old man shouted. But the tank crew was back in its turret. All over the city twisted railings and roads cluttered with glass and bricks were reminders of the battles. The wrecks of buses and the gutted carcasses of army jeeps and trucks were mute evidence that the people of Beijing are not ready to surrender. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. 5,000 Rally in Chicago, Call for U.S. Sanctions ..................... 80 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1989 By: Constanza Montana and Shawn Pogatchnik More than 5,000 Chinese marched Sunday through downtown Chicago and rallied in Grant Park, making an emotional appeal for the United States to take the lead in imposing worldwide diplomatic and economic sanctions in the wake of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Students from about 30 Midwestern universities were joined by Chinese professionals living in this country in expressing their outrage at the crackdown Saturday night and early Sunday, when troops fired on crowds in the Chinese capital. Sunday's rally was considerably larger than one held last weekend by Chinese exchange students in Grant Park, which drew about 2,000. "We request the Congress to take immediate action and call for worldwide economic and diplomatic sanctions against the Chinese government," said Jianping Lu, a spokesman for the Midwest Chinese Students and Scholars Solidarity Union, organizers of the rally. "We call for an immediate freeze of all Chinese government assets in the United States and a halt of all scientific and cultural exchanges and technology transfer with China, and recall of the United States ambassador," he said. Lu then handed these demands, written as a letter to Congress, to Sen. Paul Simon (D., Ill.). Adding a black armband to his traditional bow tie, Simon spoke in front of the Abraham Lincoln statue in Grant Park and called for a halt of all U.S. military aid to China, but stopped short of calling for trade or diplomatic sanctions. "Arms manufactured in the United States should not be used by the People's Army against the people of China," Simon said. "If the President doesn't take action, Congress very quickly will immediately suspend all military aid to China." The senator said the U.S. now has about $800 million in military contracts with China. The students also are calling for the United Nations to condemn the Chinese government's action and to send observers to Beijing, said Sasa Lu, a spokeswoman for the Midwest student association. The crowd at Grant Park, which according to Chicago police ranged from 5,000 to 7,200 people, was orderly and often somber. As Beethoven's Third Symphony blared over speakers, everyone rose and stood for three minutes in tribute to the students slain in China. Similar rallies were held in Los Angeles; San Francisco; New York City; Cambridge, Mass.; Houston; Washington, D.C.; Seattle; Philadelphia; Indianapolis; Cleveland; Toledo and Columbus, Ohio; Albany, N.Y.; Laramie, Wyo.; and Vancouver, British Columbia. In all, more than 40,000 people took part. Before the Chicago rally, marchers wearing black armbands gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate, 104 S. Michigan Ave. Among them, Haixiang Jiang, a student at Rush-Presbyterian Medical Center, became emotional when he saw a reporter from Voice of America. Choking back tears, he shouted in Chinese to his colleagues back home whom he said are being deprived of accurate news reports of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. "You should awake. You should strike to support my people," Jiang said. "The country should stand up. We shouldn't let the government cheat the people and kill the people anymore." Six Polish Solidarity flags joined the hundreds of banners and posters, many in Chinese ideographics, that swept the field at Grant Park. Marek Kalisz, a member of the Committee for Free Elections in Poland, compared the struggle for democracy in China with that in Poland. "Democracy doesn't come free," he said to the crowd. "We have to fight now and we have to fight together. Long live China! Long live Poland! Long live Democracy!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Beijing Girds for New Violence, Residents Harass Army with Hit-and-Run Tactics ............................................................130 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1989 By: Uli Schmetzer and Ronald E. Yates China's embattled leadership, clinging to power in the face of a popular revolt that already has claimed many hundreds of lives, sent more soldiers and tanks to central Beijing early Monday, girding for more bloody clashes with protesters. Fresh armored convoys, some with machine guns blazing, moved into the center of the Chinese capital as residents fought hit-and-run battles with soldiers. Since Sunday's bloodbath, when troops smashed their way into central Tiananmen Square, the people of Beijing have been regrouping to fight a guerrilla-style war against the army, which has been made nervous by exaggerated official reports that 1,000 soldiers have died. Estimates of the overall number of dead varied from several hundred to several thousand. China's Red Cross estimated 2,600 people had been killed. Sunday's slaughter drew worldwide condemnation but failed to quell the 7-week-old student-led campaign. The army's attack drew thousands of student supporters to the scene, while other students were said to be preparing for attacks on campuses. Sporadic gunfire was heard Monday around campuses in Beijing. With bricks, bottles and Molotov cocktails, enraged citizens bombarded some of the more than 100 tanks that rumbled towards Tiananmen Square in the middle of Sunday night. "Fascists!" "Traitors!" "Cowards!" shouted the small crowds as the convoys crashed through some of the pitiful barricades people pushed onto main avenues in a futile attempt to stop the steel-plated vehicles. Machine gunners popped up in their tank turrets. They sprayed the air and sometimes buildings to disperse defiant civilians. Soldiers raced from armored personnel carriers into side streets, firing over the heads of men, women and children gathered to confront the troops. Troops occupying Tiananmen Square fired volleys of gunfire at a crowd of unarmed cyclists chanting "animals, animals," at them Monday, witnesses said. A witness at the Beijing Hotel saw four or five civilians fall to the ground after one burst of gunfire and the crowd forming yet again to challenge the bullets. In the western suburb of Xiean, about 2 miles from Tiananmen, angry citizens set fire to nearly 100 trucks and troop carriers. The soldiers ran. The nightmare of violence that has gripped this city is unlikely to end soon. Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong said on national television: "There is no turning back. Beijing remains in crisis. In this critical situation we have no choice but to adopt special measures to smash this counterrevolutionary violence." The military took the offensive in the streets and on the airwaves, warning that the bloody capture of Tiananmen Square was "just an initial victory" and predicting a long fight against the "dregs of society." Hospital officials reported corridors filled with scores of bodies of people shot by soldiers or crushed by tanks. But collecting accurate numbers of the dead and wounded was impossible. The Chinese government ordered hospitals not to report deaths or injuries. Many of the dead were left behind as the students and others fled before the onslaught. "We had to concentrate on those who were still living," one doctor said. "We had to leave behind most of those who already were dead." State radio propaganda praised the Chinese troops for "upholding the endless revolutionary spirit of Chairman Deng Xiaoping," China's 84-year-old senior leader who together with Premier Li Peng is blamed for sending the army against the protesters and their supporters. Chinese sources said Deng ordered the bloody assault from a hospital where he is seriously ill with prostate cancer. "Even if they're functioning out of ignorance, they are still participating and must be suppressed," Deng was quoted as saying of the protesters. The sources were from the office of Li Xiannian, the former president and now the head of an important advisory body. Officials never have confirmed Deng is seriously ill. In at least seven major cities across China, crowds marched to protest the Beijing massacre. The cities included Shanghai, Changsha, Dalian and Shenyang. Troops did not intervene to stop the marches in the provincial cities. Meanwhile, the remaining Tiananmen protesters were barricaded in the campus of Beijing University and the adjacent People's University, where they had driven a captured armored personnel carrier. Students could be seen firing the vehicle's machine gun into the air. A professor contacted by phone described the students as hysterical. The students had laid out the corpses of their dead comrades in public and had sworn to fight to the death if troops launched their expected assault on the campuses, which gave birth to China's pro-democracy movement. At one point, 70 students marched out of one campus and were gunned down in cold blood, a diplomatic source said. Two staffers of the CBS television network, correspondent Richard Roth and camera operator Derek Williams, were released Sunday night after being detained in Tiananmen, the network's office said. Roth said he and Williams were held by police with eight others: a couple from Long Island, N.Y., an American medical resident, the son of the Pakistani ambassador, three Swiss men and an Italian journalist who had been badly beaten. Early Monday morning, tanks roared up and down Beijing's Avenue of Eternal Peace, crushing hastily constructed barricades of food carts, bicycles and scraps of wood and metal. As the army trucks and tanks raced by, small knots of people cursed them, shaking their fists. "Why don't you go home," shouted a pedicab driver. "You don't belong here with your guns pointed at us." No sooner had the man spoken than one grinning soldier aimed his AK-47 rifle over the head of the driver and his passenger and fired several bursts. Both hit the ground, causing the soldier to roar with laughter. "Pigs!" yelled the driver. At one barricade where several soldiers faced a small crowd of civilians, the mood was different. Soldiers joked with the crowd, telling stories about their home provinces and discussing everything from the weather to the amount of construction going on in the capital. "It seems hard to believe that the soldiers are killing the people," said Weimin Ziu, a Beijing shopkeeper. "After all, they are the people too." +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Gang Xu, Japan | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+