[eastbay]

There was a mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre on another thread. I remember reading of dozens, then later on, thousands, of people killed by PRC soldiers.

I recall at the time there were tens of thousands or more people assembled in the square probably thousands of whom were snapping away on cameras recording this historic event.

Well, I decided to conduct a Google search for images of the square using key words 'Tiananmen', 'Square', and 'massacre' because those are the words commonly used to describe the event.

I found 29,000 image hits. After scolling through a few hundred images I found a grand total of zero images of people who appeared to have been shot or hurt in any way. I'm sure among the 29,000 images there may be a few, but not on the first dozen or so pages.
Hundreds or maybe thousands killed, the square bloodied, troops shooting away. No pictures. Very interesting.

Maybe someone here could explain how this was arranged. The Communist government is quite clever, so maybe they destroyed them all?

[Plantagenet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_ ... ts_of_1989


cheers!

[Plantagenet]

Number of deaths

The number of dead and wounded remains unclear because of the large discrepancies between the different estimates. The Chinese government never released any exact official data or list of the deceased.
The Chinese government has maintained that there were no deaths within the square itself, although videos taken there at the time recorded the sound of gunshots. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and State Council claimed that "hundreds of PLA soldiers died and more were injured". Yuan Mu, the spokesman of the State Council, said that a total of about 300 people died, most of them soldiers, along with a number of people he described as "ruffians".[7] According to Chen Xitong, Beijing mayor, 36 students and thousands of soldiers died, amounting to a total of 200 dead,[8] with 3,000 civilians and 6,000 soldiers injured[9]In May 2007, CPPCC member from Hong Kong, Chang Ka-mun said 300 to 600 people were killed in Tiananmen Square. He echoed that "there were armed thugs who weren't students".[10]
However, foreign journalists who witnessed the incident have claimed that at least 3,000 people died. Some lists of casualties were created from underground sources with numbers as high as 5,000.[11]
Statistics and estimates generated from different groups of sources would indicate:
4,000 to 6,000 civilians killed - Edward Timperlake.[12]
2,600 had officially died by the morning of June 4 (later denied) - the Chinese Red Cross.[8] An unnamed Chinese Red Cross official estimated that, in total, 5,000 people killed and 30,000 injured.[13]
1,000 deaths - Amnesty International[8]
7,000 deaths (6,000 civilians and 1,000 soldiers) - NATO intelligence.[12]
10,000 deaths in total - Soviet Bloc estimates.[12]
in excess of 3,700 killed, excluding disappearance or secret deaths and those denied of medical treatment - PLA defector citing a document circulating among officers.[12]
186 named individuals confirmed dead as at the end of June 2006 - Professor Ding Zilin.[14]

all original citations and references in the Wikipedia article.

[Twilight]

I have had no trouble finding a few photos of bodies.

It was probably hundreds, not the thousands claimed by some sources. Also, the Wiki page suggests most of the action took place in side streets, which makes sense as many photos and video footage of the event show the square quite vacant and occupied by armoured vehicles. People snapping away at ground level would not have seen much in the crush, and the international media had their broadcasts interfered with (not to mention most of them would have bravely stayed at their balconies). So it is not too surprising that the actual loss of life went unrecorded.

[Plantagenet]

Also, its hard for westerners to understand just how poor the vast majority of the Chinese people were in 1989. When I visited Beijing and travelled through China about a year and a half after the Tienamin protests, the prize possesion of most average Chinese people would've been a bicycle...they had very few material possessions, and something as expensive as a camera would've been very unusual. They all wore the same clothes (Mao suits) not because they were devoted to Mao, but because there was NOTHING else available in the communist stores. And even if the few people who owned cameras had been there and had taken pictures, the only way to get things deveoped would have been at a photo lab controlled by government, using supplies and chemical controlled by the government, just like everything else was controlled by the government, and that just wouldn't have happened.

I'll bet the vast majority of pics of the protests and the troop actions suppressing the protests were taken by the few foreign journalists there at that time, because they were the only ones with cameras and the freedom and ability to get their pictures developed.

[eastbay]

Twilight,

Thanks for checking. I still can't find any 'protester casualty' pictures and I looked through maybe 500 more images. I suspect there are no pictures of any killed and few of any seriously wounded. I remember watching TV footage and print media coverage seeing the protesters numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands. It appeared as if it could be happening in any Western city with the protesting students modern clothing and generally peaceful demeanor. For many in The West, it was the first glimpse of the modern China appearing far different than the peasant farmer and Mao-look image we had grown accustomed to seeing.

The casualty figures listed in numerous sources are mostly wild guesses, many of which have been rescinded, and none are well-documented other than a list of under 200, which is impossible to verify. One thing is certain, there was definitely no massacre in Tiananmen Square and no hard evidence of any killing anywhere.

So why would such a wild tale be spread?

Well, there were three primary reasons such a story would be created.

1. The PRC leadership gains because the masses learned that any serious protesting threatening the state will be met with brutal deadly force.

2. The PRC student protesters win because approximately 200,000 Chinese students and their relatives gained US Lawful Permanent Residence status under the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1993 by simply verifying their presence in either the USA or in China during the period. If there was no massacre, then there was no reason for requesting and receiving official US government sponsored protection.

3. The US and other nations gained because the story demonstrated their moral superiority over the brutal and bloodthirsty PRC leadership.

Interesting too is that the term 'Tiananmen Square Massacre' is repeated as fact, when there is no evidence whatsoever to verify any massacre. It's truly amazing what people will believe.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'n')o hard evidence of any killing anywhere

[Plantagenet]

More eyewitness accounts of killings in Tienamen Square in 1989.

http://iso.hrichina.org/public/contents ... y?cid=8299

[Plantagenet]

Testimony of Fang Zheng, wounded:

I was a senior about to graduate in 1989 when the student-led movement for democracy in Beijing began. During the student movement, I was actively involved as an officer of my school's student organization. On June 3, 1989, I was in Tiananmen Square. From that night when martial law troops began the massacre in Beijing, until the early hours of June 4, other students and I held a sit-in in the Square, surrounding the Monument to the People's Heroes. At that time, there were about 4,000 of us there, students from various universities.

At around 2:00 a.m. on June 4, many of the martial law troops that had rampaged through Beijing's suburbs converged around Tiananmen Square. Forced out by tanks and troops, the students participating in the sit-in finally left the square at around 4:00 a.m. With hearts heavy with grief and indignation, the students left the Square from the southeast corner in a peaceful and orderly fashion. I was walking at the back of the crowd. The crowd of students proceeded along in a westerly direction crossing west Qianmen Boulevard (along a road which runs north-south near the Beijing Music Hall linking west Qianmen Boulevard and west Chang'an Boulevard) and then turned into west Chang'an Boulevard and continued walking towards the west. By this time it was already daybreak, about 6:00 a.m. The students kept to the south side of west Chang'an Boulevard, walking on the sidewalk and in the bicycle lane. Just after we turned from west Chang'an Boulevard to Liubukou, many grenades were fired towards the crowd from behind. They immediately exploded among the marching students. One went off just beside me. A two-to-three meter layer of smoke quickly engulfed us. A female student walking next to me suddenly fainted, choking and in shock. I rushed to pick her up and take her to the side of the street.

At this time I realized that a tank was racing toward us, traveling from east to west. With all my force, I tried to push the woman towards the guard rail by the sidewalk. In the blink of an eye, the tank was approaching the sidewalk and closing in on me. It seemed as if the barrel of its gun was inches from my face. I could not dodge it in time. I threw myself to the ground and began to roll. But it was too late. My upper body fell between two treads of the tank, but both my legs were run over. The treads rolled over my legs and my pants, and I was dragged for a distance. I used all my strength to break free and to roll to the side of the road. At that time I lost consciousness. Only later did I learn that Beijing residents and students brought me to Jishuitan Hospital, where I underwent a double amputation. My right leg was amputated, leaving just two-thirds of my right thigh. My left leg was amputated five centimeters below the knee.

I was hospitalized until June 24, 1989. Sometime around June 11, the Xicheng District Public Security Bureau began an investigation into my case. After I left the hospital and returned to school, school officials continued to question and check up on me for several months. They wanted me to keep quiet about the fact that a tank had crushed students. But I refused.

[Plantagenet]

"On June 3, 1989, at 11:00 p.m. my son Jiang Jielian was killed at Muxudi. At that time he was only a high school student who had just turned 17 years old.

On June 4, 1989, at 3:30 a,m., Wang Nan, another high school student, was killed at the southern intersection of Nanchang Road, on the west side of Tiananmen Square. He was just 19 years old.

A few days later, a middle-aged woman came to my home, accompanied by her husband. She told me about the events surrounding her son's death. She appeared calm, but I could see that she was suppressing immense pain deep in her heart. She was Wang Nan's mother, Zhang Xianling. She told me that her son's body had been dug out from a pit near Tiananmen Square; it had already started to decompose and was infested with maggots.

She was the first June Fourth survivor that I befriended. We decided to search for other June Fourth victims' families and from that time forward, our idea began to grow.

In the year after the massacre, on the day after Qing Ming (Grave Sweeping Day), Zhang Xianling sent me a note which she had found at Wang Nan's grave at the Wan'an Public Cemetery's Hall of Remains. The note said something to this effect: "We share the same fate. On June 4, I lost my husband. Now my son and I rely on each other for survival. There is so much I can't come to grips with. If you wish, please contact me." In the note, the woman provided her first and last names, her address and her phone number at work. She was the second June Fourth survivor that I befriended.

For a period after this, we also came into contact with a few other victims' families. As kindred spirits, we gathered together to tell of our experiences, to weep and to release the pain and grief that we were keeping buried in our hearts. When I calmly considered seeking an explanation for what had happened, my shaken spirit could not be stilled again.

I decided to break the silence."

----------

---- It is too late to hide the deaths in Tienamen Square. This Chinese mother found 186 other families who had lost their children, husbands, fathers, etc. when the democracy movement was crushed.

[eastbay]

That's not evidence. What you've offered is nothing and without corroborating hard evidence it's just some people telling a story. The idea that there were people killed during this period is simply an unproven theory. The idea that there was a massacre at Tiananmen Square is rediculous and was apparently spread for political reasons.

Personal testimony is notoriously weak. It takes more than that.

Show me some reasonably convincing hard evidence such as pictures of the blood pooled here and there in the square so many claimed they saw.

[Plantagenet]

A guy who was run over by a tank and had his legs crushed is likely to remember the event pretty clearly, don't you think?

I trust his account. I also believe the grieving parents who lost their children and the Amnesty International report and Twilight's references and the dozen references and the eyewitness accounts I cited from the compilation at Wikipedia.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'A') guy who was run over by a tank and had his legs crushed is likely to remember the event pretty clearly, don't you think?

I trust his account. I also believe the grieving parents who lost their children and the Amnesty International report and Twilight's references and the dozen references and the eyewitness accounts I cited from the compilation at Wikipedia.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', ' ')Grieving parents, crushed legs, etc.. etc...

[eastbay]

Yup Threadbear, you're exactly right about the propaganda. Everyone went in perfect formation goosestepping along on this scam.

Not even one bloody baby shoe and in beautiful unison the tears fell. A perfect propaganda coup for everyone!

I think I may have a tear forming too... i

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', ' ')Grieving parents, crushed legs, etc.. etc...

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', ' ')it's good dinner theatre, if it's done right!

[Fredrik]

Even if the Tiananmen Square event was proved as a non-event (which hasn't happened so far), the Chinese government is still a far cry from a democratic, human rights respecting entity. Just look at their treatment of Falun Gong members (among others) and support for the genocidal regime in Sudan.

If you deny that, you should sense a soul brotherhood with those right-wingers who still claim that the Iraq invasion was justified pre-emptive action...

The sins of the west don't justify a blind eye for the sins of the east.

[cynicalheretic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fredrik', 'E')ven if the Tiananmen Square event was proved as a non-event (which hasn't happened so far), the Chinese government is still a far cry from a democratic, human rights respecting entity. Just look at their treatment of Falun Gong members (among others) and support for the genocidal regime in Sudan.

If you deny that, you should sense a soul brotherhood with those right-wingers who still claim that the Iraq invasion was justified pre-emptive action...

The sins of the west don't justify a blind eye for the sins of the east.