… before the anniversary of the Chinese government’s great lie. On this day 21 years ago:
Hope and expectation is still written on the faces of the people who eagerly reach for a copy of the latest student newsletter.
… before we remember that not every member of the politburo can be charged with the cold-blooded murder of innocents. The few good men paid their own price, of course. This picture was taken on May 19, and shows a grim-faced Wen Jiabao looking on as his boss, the soon to be purged Zhao Ziyang, appeals to protestors.
On this very day 21 years ago (May 30) the mood was still optimistic and the students idle creativity was being put to good use:
As to body count: I saw several people, young men, lying on flatbed tricycles being carried away from the square. They were inert and covered in blood. Dead or wounded, I have no idea. On the afternoon of June 4, I saw people fall on Changan Avenue as troops opened fire on them. I have no idea if they were wounded, killed or simply fainting.
How many people died that night in Beijing? What was the price of the years of superficial political stability that followed?
Most of the killing did not take place on or near the Square, that is clear. The official line, first espoused by Communist Party propaganda guru Yuan Mu a couple of nights later on national television, was that 23 people had died on the night of June 3/4. It was ludicrous. Nobody who was in Beijing at that time believed it.
In the weeks that followed, Amnesty International did the most thorough survey of the Tiananmen casualty toll. They spoke to everyone who could help build the picture. They questioned me at length in Tokyo, whwre In was already staying in a hotel prior to a move to Hong Kong to become Asian News Editor (a career boost from Tiananmen, perhaps?). Their report estimated 3,000 dead, with most of the killing taking place in the Muxidi district of western Beijing, where outraged Beijing residents — not students — tried to stop the army from entering their city. That number seems a bit high to me, but who knows? If I had to make a wild stab, from what I know and felt, I’d say several hundred were killed, but I have no proof of any number. Until the archives are opened in China’s next era and we can see the truth, surely recorded there somewhere, Amnesty’s 3,000 is the best outside estimate we have.
… before we remember the day that the Chinese government turned on their own people for the crime of asking for a more equitable, free society. Get ready.
… to remember too the fallen soldiers, many of whom were innocent pawns of the Chinese government. Sadly, the compassion evident in today’s photo (taken by Bob Gannon, a photojournalist on the spot in ’89) was not to be reciprocated in the brutal endgame:
The events, in real life, were just as exotic and strange but never wholly threatening. The army was an ever-present specter—the army that, I was told, would never shoot the people—and its profile ominously grew as those final days approached. But I was not prepared—in fact, hopelessly ill prepared (as were many people)—for the bloody denouement of the protest.
- Bob Gannon