Tiananmen Square massacre, nine years on

The Jakarta Post's Asia Correspondent Harvey Stockwin reports on the latest and ninth anniversary of the Beijing Massacre on June 3, 4 and 5, 1989. There were predictable happenings within China -- and some unexpected ones.

HONG KONG (JP): On the ninth anniversary of the Beijing Massacre in June 1989, all the predictable events happened once again.

Predictably, there was a heavy police and military presence in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the home of the massive popular student-initiated demonstrations in April, May and early June 1989.

Predictably, once again a few ordinary Chinese still tried to parade their petitions for rectification of wrongs in Tiananmen Square -- but were quickly arrested and whisked away by the police.

Predictably, all over China known dissidents were rounded up and detained so that there would not be the slightest risk of demonstrations anywhere. In 1989, there were demonstrations right across the face of China -- a much unreported fact at that time, when the worldwide media focussed primarily on Tiananmen Square.

Once again, as they do every June, Prof. Ding Zilin, who lost her only son in the Beijing Massacre, together with 30 other bereaved parents sent a petition to the government asking for a full enquiry into the 1989 events.

They have yet to receive a reply. The urn containing her son's ashes remains in his empty bedroom.

Predictably, since these and other facts were reported in the Hong Kong newspapers, the Chinese authorities made sure that the few such papers allowed into China all had the Tiananmen coverage ripped out of them.

Predictably, there has been, as yet, no reversal of verdicts regarding the Beijing Massacre, although a few scattered Chinese voices continue to call for such a development. The demonstrations and massacre in 1989 remain officially a counter- revolutionary rebellion, as far as the Chinese Communist Party is concerned.

However, this year there were a few unusual developments, too.

Prof. Ding, who has tried to compile a list of all those killed in the Beijing Massacre, awoke on June 4 to find a condolence wreath outside her door. An anonymous person had the courage to leave it there overnight.

Second, for the first time since 1989, there was a mass rally to commemorate the Tiananmen tragedy on Chinese soil. The annual candlelight vigil was held in Hong Kong's Victoria Park on the evening of June 4. Previously, the vigil was always held under British sovereignty.

To the credit of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, no attempt was made to prevent the annual event taking place once again. The big question was -- how many people would dare to turn up? Last year the Jakarta Post estimated that between 45,000 and 50,000 attended the rally.

This year there was heavy drenching rain and a thunder storm throughout the vigil. Yet, by this correspondent's careful estimate, between 20,000 and 25,000 still attended, standing for nearly two hours, protecting their candles with umbrellas. In the adverse circumstances, it was a remarkable turnout.

This year at the vigil, messages were heard from Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan, leading Chinese dissidents now in the United States, after recently being released from prison and sent into exile by China.

Curiously, both Wei and Wang referred to the Beijing Massacre as the "June 4 Incident" -- the morally obtuse terminology which many Chinese and foreigners adopt to avoid offending the Chinese communist leadership.

Third, for the first time, a former leading Chinese communist official flatly stated that "June 4 was a major tragedy for our nation".

He was former Central Committee member Bao Tong, who was a top aide to the former CCP Secretary-general Zhao Ziyang, purged in 1989 for advocating reconciliation instead repression. Bao was arrested just before the massacre, and has been imprisoned and detained since then.

But within days of having his civil rights restored, Bao, claiming the constitutional right to free speech, was busy giving interviews to the Washington Post, Reuters News Agency and the South China Morning Post, among others.

In all three interviews, Bao stressed the key role of former Chinese paramount leader, the late Deng Xiaoping, in ordering the People's Liberation Army troops to shoot the demonstrators.

Bao also carefully stressed the irresponsible nature of power in China.

"The root of the June 4 happening was problems in China's political system," Bao told Reuters, " It was a political system that was difficult for the people to control".

"The two great events in the last 50 years", Bao told the South China Morning Post, "the Cultural Revolution and June 4, show that there should be checks and balances of political power. If we, do not establish controls, then such a thing could happen again".

Given that China "has already gone mad twice in the last 40 years", Bao posed the question to the Washington Post as to "what will China do on the international scene? When it does not have enough power, its attitude will be restrained. But once it develops and becomes strong, what kind of role is it going to play without a complete structural change?"

Predictably, on June 5, Bao was quickly reminded, by officials, that his right to speak freely did not extend to conversations with foreign correspondents.

Fourth, the United States commemorated the ninth anniversary by forgetting what Tiananmen Square signifies for many Chinese, even if they cannot say so out loud.

With the incredible crassness that one now comes to expect from the current U.S. administration, on June 4 it was confirmed that Bill Clinton will be greeted in Tiananmen Square when he arrives at the end of June.

It will be an implicit endorsement which will immensely gratify the present Chinese leadership.

All that Clinton had to do -- if he understood that China only respects a superpower which behaves like one -- was to call in the Chinese ambassador and say that since former Premier Zhou En Lai was able to greet former President Richard Nixon at his aircraft (for a famous handshake), that venue will do for Clinton, too.

One would hope that an American president, faced with facts of 1989, would feel it his duty not to accept an official welcome in Tiananmen -- at least until verdicts are well and truly reversed. Instead, all Clinton can do now do is to arrive for the welcoming ceremony in a black suit and a black tie.

More likely, Clinton, who came to the presidency denouncing "the Butchers of Beijing", will also end up talking tamely about the "Tiananmen Incident".

Understandably, for the bereaved Prof. Ding, Clinton's decision was extremely upsetting.

As she told the South China Morning Post, "The red carpet Clinton will walk on is soaked with the blood of our relatives... the United States is a superpower of the free world and is supposed to uphold justice... (if Clinton is welcomed on the square) he will stand on the wrong side of history".

Clearly, the condolence wreath left outside her door did not come from Clinton.