Bonn

Top Tiananmen student leader wants to turn himself in

Last Updated: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 | 7:44 AM ET Comments8Recommend18

The Associated Press


The second most-wanted student leader from the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests arrived in the southern Chinese territory of Macau to turn himself in Wednesday, a day before the 20th anniversary of China's brutal crackdown.
Wu'er Kaixi told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday that immigration officials at Macau's airport took him to a room after he arrived from Taipei. He was not immediately told if he will be allowed to enter the territory.
Macau government information officer Elena Au said she didn't have immediate information on Wu'er's case.
One of the best-known leaders from the 1989 Tiananmen student movement, Wu'er rose to fame as a pajama-clad hunger striker haranguing then-Chinese premier Li Peng at a televised meeting during the protests in Beijing.
Named No. 2 on the Chinese government's list of 21 wanted student leaders after the military crushed the protests, he escaped and has lived in exile in Taiwan, where he has worked as a businessman and political commentator.
Wu'er wants to turn himself in to the Chinese government so he can see his parents, who haven't been allowed to visit him in Taiwan, he said in a statement issued by a friend.
"My turning myself in should not be interpreted as my admission that my behaviour 20 years ago in illegal and wrong. I want to reassert here the Chinese government bears complete and undeniable moral, political and legal responsibility for the tragedy that happened in China in 1989," the statement said.
"I hope, 20 years later, the Chinese government can set a new position on the historical problem of the June 4 massacre, admit its guilt and apologize to the Chinese people," he said.


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some remarks:

*** 20 years ago the world saw Tienamen as the beginning of the end for the Coounist Chinese government. The whole world was enraged by the abuses, and like the lone man standing before the line tanks, the world was willing to stand up to China and demand change.

And then money got elected God.

Suddenly "Made in China" was a good thing. Those pesky little "human rights" issues were pushed aside in favour of more trade, cheap labour, and monumental government loans. The outside, the "evil Chinese", were suddenly part of the group. Demoncracy took a back seat to capitalism, and the Olympic torch made sure the back seat was permenantly welded shut.

Tomorrow will be a very sad day indeed. It will be 20 years since hope was killed in China, while the rest of the world counts the money and makes the conscious choice to look the other way and remain silent.

*** This is an interesting development. However, if the PRC / CCP revises its stance on Tienanmen, it will become their Pandora's box. There are plenty of other atrocities to re-evaluate.

Personally--and this is just an opinion--while I totally blame the CCP for what happened, I felt at the time and still feel that Wu'er's style did aggravate the situation by humiliating the party brass. I wonder if the situation might have been at all different had more moderate voices, such as Wang Dan's or Han Dongfang's, emerged as the main voice of the student / worker movement. But we'll never know, of course.

I recommend the documentary "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" for anyone wanting some well researched, alternative perspectives on the incident.

*** "I hope, 20 years later, the Chinese government can set a new position on the historical problem of the June 4 massacre," admit its guilt and apologize to the Chinese people," he said.

Unfortunatly this is not how a communist dictatorship works. The citizens of the country are never the first priority of a totallitarian government. He will probably be delt with quite harshly.

*** The tragedy lives on; it seems not much has changed. I think it's an interesting move on the part of Wu'er. I'm curious to see whether the Chinese government changes its position on the matter. It would definitely do worlds of good to its reputation. Wu'er is actually giving them a golden opportunity to save face to some extent.

***

Bonn

China's June 4 Remains Sensitive, 20 Years Later By Stephanie Ho
Beijing
03 June 2009

Thursday is the 20th anniversary of the Chinese government's violent crackdown on protesters who had been demonstrating in Tiananmen Square for greater political freedom and against official corruption. June Fourth has become an especially sensitive date on the modern Chinese calendar.

The Chinese government does not like to talk about the military crackdown on June 4, 1989. However, foreign journalists keep asking questions about it.

Qin GangThe latest official comment came from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, who told reporters Beijing is not planning to change its verdict that the protests were a counter-revolutionary rebellion.

Qin referred to the 1989 events only as a "political incident" and said the ruling Communist Party and the government have already drawn a conclusion.


Information blackout

At the same time, the Chinese government appears to be less confident that its message is being portrayed the way it want it to be. In recent days, Chinese censors regularly cut off TV signals when international news channels report stories about the protests 20 years ago. It is as if the broadcasts have been redacted.

Foreign residents in China also report pages missing from international newspapers in recent days. The pages that have been cut contain sensitive stories, on the 1989 crackdown or on Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

A Chinese protester blocks a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd., 05 June 1989, in front of the Beijing HotelTwenty years ago, this Beijing resident, who asked that his name not be used, was just seven years old. His father took him to the square to see the demonstrations. He remembers there were so many flags and banners.

He says nobody talks about it now. He says information about the 1989 protests is blocked on the Internet and that people are only able to spread news he describes as "unofficial."

There is still some small-scale activism, though. He says, recently, someone on a bus secretly gave one of his friends a DVD of the 1989 events.

Propanganda campaign

Veteran VOA correspondent Al Pessin was VOA's Beijing bureau chief, 20 years ago.

"In the hours and days following the massacre, the Chinese government engaged in an unbelievable propaganda campaign to try to convince the Chinese people that no one had died on Tiananmen Square and that there had been very little violence and that much of the violence had been perpetrated by the students," he said.

He says this propaganda campaign involved criticism of foreign media, with the VOA singled out by name because its reporting was heard back in China.

"Then one evening, as I was sitting with my interpreter watching the evening news on television, the phone rang and I picked it up," said Pessin. "And, what I heard on the phone was the audio from the TV broadcast that I was watching. And, within a minute, the broadcaster came to the item criticizing VOA. And, as soon as that item was finished, another voice came on the phone and said, "did you hear that? Did you hear that?" And then, click, hung up the phone."

Pessin says on the 14th of June, authorities summoned him to tell him he was being kicked out of the country.

Actual death toll in question

There are disagreements as to how many people were actually killed that night - whether in the hundreds or thousands. And, there were protests around the country, to show solidarity with the Beijing demonstrations.

Pessin stresses that the significance of the event goes beyond the numbers - especially in a tightly politically-controlled country like China.

"We were all very surprised when the Chinese students in very large numbers turned their interests to politics in May of 1989," he said. "It was a big surprise. And, what was even a bigger surprise was that people from other walks of life joined them."

Pessin says he has not kept up with developments in China since he left in 1989. But he says, 20 years ago, he and his colleagues thought Chinese people were apathetic, but the events of 1989 proved them wrong.