What Really Happened on the night of June 3rd, 1989 --- An Eyewitne
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Hong Kong Voice of Democracy
http://www.democracy.org.hk
Phone: (852) 9267 6489
Fax : (852) 2791 5801
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What Really Happened on the night of June 3rd, 1989 --- An Eyewitness Account
[Editor's note: It has been almost 10 years since the Tiananmen Square
Incident, but the exact details of what happened on the night of June 3rd,
1989 are still matters of controversy. Recently, we discovered the
following question was raised on the Notes and Queries Section (p.4 of
Yesteryear column) of the website of The Guardian, a renowned British
newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk): "The Tiananmen Square Massacre is
constantly referred to. Why have I never seen film or video footage of a
single death? The cameras were there, were they not?" We are very
surprised that, in some of the answers to the question, a few British
readers claimed it was the PLA soldiers who were being killed by the
demonstrators or the death list of the student demonstrators may not be
authentic.
As the 10th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Incident is approaching, we
believe it is essential that the historical facts of what happened in China
in June 1989 be collected and presented to the readers. We therefore
invited Mr Jonathan Mirsky to give an eyewitness account. Mr Mirsky was the
China correspondent of the London Observer in June 1989 and was assaulted
by the PLA soldiers on June 3rd. He received the 1990 International
Reporter of the Year Award for his June 1989 reporting. We also welcome
accounts or comments from other eyewitnesses to the Incident.]
I was the China correspondent of the London Observer newspaper late on the
night of 3 June, 1989, in front of the Forbidden City where the huge Mao
portrait hangs over the Tiananmen gate. While some of the People's Armed
Police were beating me up others were shooting demonstrators whom they had
clubbed to the ground. Minutes earlier the Army had fired directly into the
same crowd and the man next to me fell over with a red stain on his white
tee-shirt. I cannot swear that all the victims I saw shot died. I hope not.
In their book "China Wakes" (for which they received the Pulitzer Prize)
the NY
Times' Nicholas Kritoff and Sheryl WuDunn describe seeing troops in the
Square
firing into a crowd in which some people "fell to the ground, wounded or
dead."
[p. 87] They saw more firing during the next two hours, "and more people
fell to
the ground." They witnessed rickshaw drivers "bravely facing the soldiers,
to pick
up the dead and wounded." [p. 87] To be sure, Mr Kristoff states "there was
no huge massacre of students within Tiananmen Square itself." Most of the
killing,
he says, went on elsewhere. I agree. But killing in the Square? Absolutely.
Then there is the account by the Toronto Globe and Mail's veteran
China-reporter
Jan Wong, in her "Red China Blues". This is the best eyewitness reporting I
have
seen of what happened in the Square. Ms Wong and Cathy Sampson of The Times
(London) lay on a balcony of the Peking Hotel, with their notebooks and
watches, looking across into the Square. Her description is long and
detailed. Three examples will serve: at 2:14 am on 4 June she saw " a
murderous volley" into a dense crowd. At 2:23 tanks "fired their machine
guns at the crowds. " [p. 252] At 3:12 "there was a tremendous round of
gunfire....The soldiers strafed ambulances and shot medical workers trying
to rescue the wounded...Between 3:15 and 3.23 I counted eighteen pedicabs
pass me carrying the dead and wounded." [p. 253]
I know Ms Wong to be a reliable witness because later that morning,
starting at
9:46, she on a balcony, I on the street below, watched soldiers outside the
Peking Hotel fire into a large unarmed crowd a two-minute trot from
Tiananmen. Ms Wong counted three volleys and twenty bodies. Altogether
that morning she recorded "eight long murderous volleys...Dozens died
before my eyes. " [p. 260]
President Jiang Zemin who refers to foreign concern with what Peking still
calls
"the incident" or "the counter-revolutionary uprising" as "much ado about
nothing."
Sincerely,
Jonathan Mirsky
I should add that for my reporting of what I saw in 1989 I received the
1990 British press award International Reporter of the Year.
************************************************************
Please add your name to the signature drive calling for the rehabilitation
of the June 4th Democracy Movement at
http://www.democracy.org.hk/10th_June4/sign_drive_e.htm
************************************************************
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hong Kong Voice of Democracy
http://www.democracy.org.hk
webm...@democracy.org.hk
Phone: (852) 9267 6489
Fax : (852) 2791 5801
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ltl...@mindspring.com
"Around midnight vehicles and the first soldiers began arriving on the
peripheries of the Square to prepare for a final assualt..."
"By 1 A.M. students at the Monument could hear the distant crackle of
automatic weapon fire..."
"By 2:30 A.M. soldiers had established a cordon across the Avenue of Eternal
Peace where it enters the Square, not far from the Beijing Hotel..."
"Once the Square was finally sealed off, troops turned their attention toward
the real object of their operation - the [4000-5000] students still waiting
unscathed around the Monument. "All citizens and students in Tiananmen Square
must leave immediately so that martial-law enforcement troops can carry out
their duties," blared speakers on the Great Hall..."
"By 3 A.M. troops were in the final stages of forming up for their assault.
As tracer bullets sliced through the sky, the four older hunger strikers
gathered in their tent, desperate to figure out some move. It was at this
point that two doctors from Xeihe Hospital appeared and proposed that they
drive in an ambulance toward the troops' mustering peaceful withdrawal..."
"Somehow Hou[a rock singer and faster] managed to attracted the attention of
Colonel Ji Xingguo, a political commissar of the 27th Group Army. To Hou and
Zhou's great relief, he was both civil and receptive to their proposal for a
planned student withdrawl. Before Colonel Ji could definitely agree, however,
he had to secure approval from the Beijing Military Region Command."
"When at 4 A.M. the streetlights suddenly blinked out plunging the Square into
darkness..."
"Moments later Colonel Ji appeared out of the darkness to announce that his
superiors had agreed to postpone their sweep for a short while, and leave a
small breach in their cordon at the southeast corner of the Square through
which the students could make an orderly withdrawal. "If you leave now, we can
gurantee your safety," Colonel Ji said..."
"At five o'clock neared...Coloumns of troops and rows of APCs were approaching
the Monument and rifle fire, aimed at student loudspeakers, was growing
intense..."
"By now the gunfire was intense, and bullets were ricocheting off the upper
part of the Monument near the inscription in Mao' hand that fittingly read,
"Eternal Glory to the People's Heros."
"It was not until just before 5:00 A.M. that Hou and his colleagues, aided by
Li Lu's declaration that those voting in favor of evacuation were in the
majority, finally managed to convince the frightened, confused, and divided
students to leave. Though exhausted and anguished, they still carried their
tattered banners, and several managed to flashed the V-for-victory sign or to
shout hoarsely, "We will return!" to Television Espanola of Spain, whose team
was the only Western crew to document the retreat.
Now it was the frightened student's turn to endure the humuliation of defeat
andd retreat. They had to pass through a gaunlet of taunting troops, some of
whom aimed weapons at them or fired menacingly into the air. According to the
writer Lao Gui, who was part of this final exodus, several APCs added to their
ordeal by charging full-speed at defiles of retreating students, then stopping
just before hitting them."
Referring to the various eyewitness account on causalties, Schell reported,
"After sifting through all available accounts, it seems safe to say that while
some causalties were sustained during the withdrawal, there were probably not
many. This is not to say, however, that there was no causalties sustained
during the overall process of "clearing the Square..."
In article <5f3130e9&3.0.32.19990214...@freeway.org.hk>,
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