generalspeaking

Witness to a Horrific Mass Atrocity

A pro-democracy movement leader talks into a microphone as he gives a press conference in Tiananmen Square.   Peter Charlesworth / Getty Images

"[The China State Council member] has previously proved reliable and was careful to separate fact from speculation and rumour."
"The 27 Army APCs [armoured personnel carriers] opened fire on the crowd before running over them. APCs ran over troops and civilians at 65kph [40 miles per hour]."
"Students understood they were given one hour to leave square, but after five minutes APCs attacked."
"Students linked arms but were mown down. APCs then ran over the bodies time and time again to make, quote ‘pie’ unquote, and remains collected by bulldozer."
"Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains."
"27 Army ordered to spare no one. Wounded girl students begged for their lives but were bayoneted."
"A three-year-old girl was injured, but her mother was shot as she went to her aid, as were six others."
"1,000 survivors were told they could escape but were then mown down by specially prepared MG [machine gun] positions."
"Army ambulances who attempted to give aid were shot up, as was a Sino-Japanese hospital ambulance. With medical crew dead, wounded driver attempted to ram attackers but was blown to pieces by anti-tank weapon."
"27 Army officer shot dead by own troops, apparently because he faltered. Troops explained they would be shot if they hadn’t shot the officer."
"Minimum estimate of civilian dead 10,000."
Sir Alan Donald, then-British ambassador to China, 5 June 1989 

"Tonight a serious counter-revolutionary rebellion took place. Thugs frenziedly attacked People’s Liberation Army troops, seizing weapons, erecting barricades, beating soldiers and officers in an attempt to overthrow the government of the People’s Republic of China."
"For many days, the People’s Liberation Army has exercised restraint and now must resolutely counteract the rebellion."
"All those who refuse to listen to reason must take full responsibility for their actions and their consequences."
Chinese television

Before the massacre hundreds of thousands gathered in Tienanmen Square to demand democratic reform from China's Communist government     Getty

Once was obviously enough; lesson learned. Tyrannies do not give second chances. The first time around, the solution is to wipe the Earth with the voices of those who exert themselves for human rights in the mistaken belief that calls for democracy might impress communist hardliners to deviate from their dictatorial rule. The population of China had already undergone a mass upheaval during the Cultural Revolution, their suffering and privation did not prevent them from this time demanding change; they were weary of victimization.

A legitimate grievance was transformed by a calculating, intransigent and implacable authority to stamp down on the flesh and blood that arrogantly demanded freedom and justice. Since that time the regime itself has altered its course, become a strange hybrid of communist collectivity and fascistic abuse while embracing a massive cultivation of economic capitalism atop human rights abuses. But it has managed to deliver Chinese-made goods across the Globe and in the process lifted millions of Chinese from poverty while exposing them to the ills of poisonous air and diseased soil and water.

In 1989 the People's Liberation Army directed the full destructive power of its force on command of the Chinese government against the thousands who protested the regime's stranglehold on their human rights of liberty and freedom, in the process laying the groundwork for Tienanmen Square becoming a vast and bloodied death zone when the loyal North Chinese "27 Army" was dispatched to put a swift end to the uprising that had taxed the patience of the National People's Congress.

A celebrated image of a man trying to stop the tanks entering the square AP

The courage of those who assembled in their thousands in that vast gathering was answered by the implacable resolve of the regime which could not tolerate the voices of those accusing it of the very human rights abuses that it casually wielded to maintain power and control over the unwieldy mass of a diverse population. The 27 Army was chosen for its attributes; described as a unit comprised of "illiterate", "primitive" recruits of the rural uneducated who could be depended upon to act as ordered, and in the event they did just that.

A horrified world became aware of that June 4th event, believing the official report that up to 400 people had most unfortunately succumbed to the military's response to the protesters' violently vicious assaults on the military. The official death toll most deliberately held back from both internal and external dissemination was well over ten thousand dead; mostly civilians, men, women, children and any Army officers, scant though they were who failed to apply themselves to their duty. One officer chose to crash his armoured personnel carrier, reported as "now deranged and demands death for his atrocities".

According to Britain's Ambassador Donald, the 27 Army was "ordered to spare no one", as they set about following their orders, bayoneting, shooting all they came across, including wounded soldiers from the unarmed Shenyang districts units following their own orders to move in and form a perimeter trapping the insurrectionists within the core of the Tienanmen protest on June 4. And that is when the 27 Army moved in for the kill, slaughtering civilians and unarmed, wounded soldiers alike.
 

Waving banners, high school students march in Beijing streets near Tiananmen Square on May 25, 1989, during a rally to support the protest against the Chinese government.   Catherine Henriette / AFP / Getty Images

Labels: China, Dictatorship, Human Rights, Tiananmen Square, Violence

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 06, 2018