CNN : Pro-Beijing legislator Ma Lik's denial of the June 4 massacre made the front
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uproar Wednesday sparked by his comments that China's bloody crackdown on
the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests was not a massacre.
Pro-Beijing legislator Ma Lik's denial of the June 4 massacre made the front
pages of most major newspapers in Hong Kong, which also printed file photos
of mangled dead bodies in Beijing's streets after the military assault that
killed hundreds, possibly thousands.
Ma told Hong Kong reporters on Tuesday that "gweilos," local slang for
"foreigners," shouldn't be allowed to decide what really happened at
Tiananmen, the South China Morning Post daily reported. He said the
government should provide the authoritative account of the crackdown on June
4, 1989, the paper reported.
"We should not say the Communist Party massacred people on June 4. I never
said that nobody was killed, but it was not a massacre," the Post quoted Ma
as saying.
"A massacre would mean the Communist Party intentionally killed people with
machine guns indiscriminately," Ma was quoted by the English-language Post
as saying.
His remarks drew criticism from several legislators and activists.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Cheung Man-kwong said Ma was "just cold blooded." He
added, "It upsets Hong Kong people."
Even some of Ma's colleagues in his party -- the Democratic Alliance for the
Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong -- were uncomfortable with his
comments.
"Our chairman has stirred up an argument," said Lau Kwong-wah, a DAB
lawmaker. "If this caused some unnecessary damage and debate, the DAB is
willing to apologize."
Ma toned down his remarks Wednesday morning during an interview with
government-run RTHK radio.
"What I meant is to look at the incident rationally. It happened a long time
ago. I was not insulting those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square to
fight for democracy," he said.
But he added, "The description of the June 4 incident as a massacre and a
river of blood, I think all these are not complete and correct views."
Beijing has rejected calls by dissidents and others to revisit the Tiananmen
issue. The communist government has officially classified the seven-week
demonstrations as a counterrevolutionary riot.
Tiananmen is an extremely sensitive event in Hong Kong because it happened
in the run-up to the former British colony's return to Chinese rule. The
news that Chinese troops and tanks had crushed the student-led protest in
Beijing horrified Hong Kongers.
Many in Hong Kong sympathized with the protesters' calls for political
reform, and mass demonstrations were held here against the crackdown. The
military assault also stoked fears that China would rule Hong Kong with an
iron fist after the city's handover to China in 1997.
As Hong Kong prepares to celebrate the handover's 10th anniversary on July
1, the city remains much freer than the mainland. Political protests are
common, half the legislature is directly elected and the media frequently
criticize the government and Beijing.
Such civil liberties are supposed to be permissible under Hong Kong's "one
country, two systems" arrangement, designed to give the capitalist city a
wide-degree of autonomy from the communist mainland.
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