CHINA
S ATURDAY, June
Four people dead, killed by trucks. Unarmed soldiers on foot Eyewitness in attack in the morning and at 2pm. They are surrounded by a crowd flowing towards the Great Hall of the People. The first violent attack, between the Assembly and the seat of the government, leaves 40 dead. Overturned vans and buses lie in the what is happening. They are mad. I no longer believe in anything."
No statement, no official declaration until 7pm. For several days a rumour circulates that Deng is dead or dying (he has not been seen since Gorbachev's visit).
At the road junctions around Beijing, many barricades remain in place; several military vehicles have been abandoned and left to
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT in Beijing has
The crowd square.
SUTrounds the Great Hall of the been following the tragic events as they have
People.
unfolded. His reports, published below, show that
In the afternoon and evedespite the bureaucratic repression and terror, the and a large ning, students assemble in crowd the people of China have not abandoned their square; very calm, inquisiaspirations for liberty and real democracy.
tive, but there is a strong feeling of a mobilized population, whole families, children asleep on the backs of bicycles, old people sitting at the side of the road, lemonade sellers.
"Come back this evening, there will be a lot of people!" A young person walks about displaying a crash helmet. Embarrassed young soldiers are abused by the crowd.
Saturday/Sunday night:
The troops assembled around Beijing converge on Tiananmen Square, mainly from
At all the city's main road junctions, the population has trucks and buses to prevent the advance of the troops. Parachutists step in to push the students out of the square.
At the same time, the army - tanks and infantry — occupy the entire square, massacring the population.
The next day hospital staff estimate at least 1,500 dead and 10,000 wounded.
The first to arrive are soldiers with minor bullet wounds; then there are civilians, seriously wounded or almost dead, some crushed by tanks, others sharpshooters between the eyes or in the
### LAURENT CARASSO
Sunday, June 4: All day long people gather in Dongchang an Avenue, which leads to the square. A continuous swirl of bicycles and hundreds of people maintain contact with the barricades facing the army. Elite sharpshooters emerge from the shadows and fire on the crowd.
Several dead and wounded are taken to hospital on tricycles...but immediately afterwards people return to challenge the soldiers, and the bicycles resume their circuit around Dongchang'an Avenue. The serenity on their faces is incredible. No shouting or slogans, no armed demonstrators. Only a few shouts of "Li Peng, fascist!" Near the army barricade, people say to me in English: "They have gone mad, there are at least a thousand dead in the square!"
The situation at the hospital, where mattresses have been put on the floor for the wounded, is dramatic, nightmarish. The nurses weep as they tend the wounded. The unassuming director of the intensive care unit, a party member, expresses his disgust: "99% of the party is opposed to burn. In every district, people assemble at street corners, discussing the situation and listening to accounts. Women cry. During the whole day yesterday the corpse of a 9-year-old girl killed by the army has been displayed. A soldier has been lynched at a street corner. On the Sunday evening, in the university district, trucks have been stopped and some 20 soldiers with their arms and baggage taken into one of the faculties.
At midday a government statement instructs the population to release their grip on the city, stop assembling and free hostages. It seems that only Tiananmen Square was occupied by troops on Sunday. Except for the west and south of the city, there are no other places where troops have concentrated.
According to witnesses, 400 workers have been arrested as well as the leadership of the independent trade union at the steel centre at Shougang, which has 300,000 workers.
These workers, several groups of whom were with the students on Saturday night, expressed their solidarity with the students on the day after Gorbachev's arrival, despite a personal appeal from Li Peng and Zhao Ziyang calling on them to support the government. Despite this the communiqué, read out in an official tone on the television, talks only about "a tiny, tiny group of counter-revolutionaries June 26, 1989 • #166 International Viewpoint
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Special atatement published by the Plenary Assembly of the Standing
Committee of the Beijing Independent Workers Assoclation
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CHINA which has been dealt with." Sunday/Monday night: The army has stepped up its pressure, taking up positions at several key road junctions controlling access to the city centre (a sort of ring road). Soldiers with troop transport vehicles (ITVS) have broken out of Tiananmen Square to clear Dongchang'an Avenue, as well as to free a military column trapped since the day before near the Friendship store. Judging from the barricades and the bullet holes the following day, the clearing-out was violent. Several bursts of machine-gun fire were
From Sunday to Monday machine guns have continued to be used in several districts and 50 tanks have reinforced the square, which is the only central place where the army is concentrated. The population is massively mobilized and the army seems isolated. The city is covered in wall-posters and graffiti chalked on the ground or on walls.
Not a single top level leader has appeared on the television since Friday evening. The only thing there has been is a statement by the mayor of Beijing, Chen Xitong, who appeared in the form of a still photograph on the television. Monday, June 5: Sporadic shooting and movements tanks and TTVs continue. 1pm: an incredible sight. As a column of tanks advances along Dongchang' an Avenue, now empty of demonstrators, a lone man stands in front of a tank, preventing it from either continuing or bypassing him. He clambers on to the turret to talk to the driver, bringing the column to a standstill for several minutes, before being forcibly pulled back onto the pavement, apparently by demonstrators.
Scattered bursts of firing continue, and two helicopters keep watch on the roads leading to the centre. Foreign students from Eastern bloc countries as well as from some Western countries have been assembled in their embassies
It is clear on Monday that, despite clearing Tiananmen Square, martial law is not really in force in Beijing and the popula-
A few days after Gorbachev's arrival on May 15, various categories went on strike (bank workers, workers in ministries, teachers and so on), demonstrating in orderly columns with their banners. Afterwas a mass outpouring, gave some credence to a rumour that, at the time of Gorbachev's visit and before the declaration of martial law, Zhao Ziyang was giving covert support to the insurrection.
On Monday, as I rode around on a bicycle with the Chinese many people stopped me, some saying in English "help the Chinese!" It was the same in the little restaurants nearby, where everybody wanted to embarrassment of the police towards foreigners was noticeable. When they came to confiscate the films in the room where I was staying in the Beijing Hotel with the team from TF1 [French TV channel], they did not dare to arrest or expel the journalists, confiscate material or really search the room, although taking photographs is an infringement of the martial law regulations.
On the other hand, there is still no news of the student leadership, which is somewhere in Haidan (the university district in north-west Beijing). Monday evening: Towards the north of Beijing, on Anding mennei Daije, there are very few bicycles — in striking contrast to the scene on the evening of my arrival. Lowered curtains, doors half open, a few small groups dis-
In the restaurant where I am eating, a man sitting opposite me who knows a few words of English expresses his dismay -although I cannot talk to him in putonghua (mandarin Chinese)!
I want to change hotels (so as to pay 46 rather than 100 yuan per night) but the receptionist regretfully informs me that the cashier has not come to work, since she lives in the north of Beijing....] put my bag on the luggage rack of my bicycle and go out again to cross Beijing in a southerly direction. The junction of Dongchang'an Avenue is deserted and silent. On Chongmenmai Daije, there are more people on bicycles, people riding alongside describe the massacres and express their disapproval in gestures.
Riding past Tiantan Square (the Temple of Heaven), I see a burned out TTV, surrounded by rocks. In front of the railings of Tiantan, there is a crowd looking into the park, where military units have taken
Further away, on Yongdingmen Bridge, there are shells of buses. Towards the railway and bus stations there are transport bicycles, the same that played the role of messengers and ambulances, carrying the wounded on their platforms, in the precedThe roads and avenues are calm. The
Decfaration of the Beijing Independent Workers THE Permanent Secretariat of the Beijing Independent Workers Associa tion is calling an urgent meeting for this alternoon, In the present situation, the mission that we are going to carry out demands an especially urgent meeting. In the present situation, the members of the secretarial have perfected the leadership of the teams, They have created cells, a
General Secretariat, a Propaganda Committee, & Supply Committee, and
In the first place, the Association is a spontaneous organization of workers in the capital, responding to the present situation. Its alm, along the lines of democracy and legality, is to correctly lead this patriotic and democratic movement. It welcomes every worker in the capital and each union in the danwel producion units] of the lactorles and mines Into active membership in our union organization.
Secondly, as a result of what has happened, the general assembly has decided specilically that.
1. The task of the moment is for the teams of workers' Inspectors to act in coordination with the autonomous associations of the students union, in order to protect and defend the lives of the student comrades, and the stabllity of the soclal order in Beljing city
2. While maintaining political and social peace, they will guarantee the despatch and transport of necessary products for the civil life of Belling city, including vegetables and grain as well as everyday manufactured goods. * International Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989
Association
May 21, 1989, [From October Review, army keeps out of sight. Almost all the big clothing and grocery shops in the main streets, on the other hand, have lowered their curtains and the staff stand in front of
As on the day before, work remains at a standstill. The cranes on Beijing's many building sights stand idle, there is no underground or bus or open offices. Since Sunday, the students have been calling for standstill in Beijing is the result of a number of factors — a protest against the violence, mourning, shock and so on. On the burnt out buses that clutter up every crossroads, in the middle of the rubble, bunches of flowers in white paper have been hung in homage to the victims of the clashes.
I pass through the market streets near to Qianmun, where there is a certain amount of life around the food shops. Sometimes there are queues, but no interruption in the supply of food or any visible fear that there might be one. People are calm Dongchang'an, under the guns of the more than 50 tanks which are occupying Tiananmen Square, is also quiet. The constant circulation of bicycles and crowds
around the soldiers, characteristic of the preceding days, is no longer to be seen. Going in the other direction, towards the east of the capital, Guanganmennei is still an obstacle course, with demolished barricades, rubble, burnt out buses. only one narrow way through for the silent procession of bicycles.
Further east, at Guanguomen, the bridge over the avenue that goes around the centre of Beijing is completely occupied by tanks and infantry, their kalashnikovs at the ready. The people who are impassively circulating around say nothing. Fear and resentment are the reason.
Meanwhile, the embassies are sounding the alarm for their citizens resident in Beijing. The foreign students at Beida, the University of Beijing, are obliged to leave their rooms and return to their respective countries. Strangely, it is the East Europeans who have taken the initiative in this
The same embassies confirm the troop movements from Shanghai and Shangchun towards Beijing. The 38th Army, with 20,000 men (the army of the Korean
War) is reportedly approaching from the south-west of the capital, either to replace or to oppose the 27th army which occupied Beijing with 200,000 men. Tuesday afternoon: On Tiananmen a few rare cyclists continue to circulate in an oppressive silence, broken only by the sound of the two helicopters which have stepped up their coming and going. They head off westwards, from where muffled cannon-fire can be
Rumours about the death of Deng from cancer — and of Li Peng, supposedly executed on the spot with his family by a policeman — continue to proliferate. The walls are still covered with inscriptions reporting this "news", or even the disavowal of the military attack and bloodshed by a majority of members of the
Apart from the declaration by the Mayor of Beijing, the first government statement appears on the television at 7pm on Tuesday. It shows selected pictures of the clashes, playing up the stoning of a mili-
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CHINA tary truck by a small group of demonstrators, and the "chaos" reigning in Beijing, with its rock-strewn streets and gutted buses.
As a follow-up, the government spokesperson makes a long statement on what was for him, without doubt, the new "counter-revolutionary Tiananmen incident." [The previous one being the riot of April 5, 1979, after the memorial procession for Zhou Enlai which turned into a
The casualty figures proffered by the government border on the obscene: a total of 400 dead (both soldiers and civilians)
students, 5,000 wounded, 2,000 civilian wounded and 50 soldiers reported missing. The rumour about the death of Deng Xiaoping is firmly denied on the television.
Li Peng's name is no longer mentioned.
Shi, member of the Standing Committee and in charge of security (controlling therefore the feared Gong'anju, the public order police force), who is congratulated by the Supreme Court. He is a "conservative", elected to the standing committee after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress in 1987, along with Li Peng (responsible for the Disciplinary Commission). He has supposedly established a position between the main party and been promoted after removal of Zhao Ziyang. This, at least, is the rumour circulating in Beijing Wednesday. The government calls on the people of Beijing to help the army put a stop to corruption and chaos and drive out revolutionary group".
statements and reports are on the television on Tuesday evening and throughout the night, while cannon-fire can still be heard in the distance. Wednesday, June 7: The shooting has stopped, but the movement of troops in Beijing has been stepped up. Hundreds of trucks head east from Tiananmen, followed by long columns of infantry. The trucks fill up the streets. Going back up to Yongdingmen, along with hundreds of other cyclists I am stopped by a long column of soldiers, firing occasional shots. Leaving behind, and going towards Tiananmen, I see how the two lines of bicycles in front of me slip into nearby side-streets at the approach of a truck. The many deaths caused by trucks in recent days have awakened a caution at odds with the carefree attitude of a few days ago.
At least as prudent as they, I too take refuge in a side-street. Oddly, everybody is laughing, imitating machine guns in gestures. The danger passed, we all return to the main road. At once I am surrounded by 20 or so passers-by who point to the departing truck and make gestures to sxpres be eir mish and tola tis he penide 5 should be filmed and told to the outside June 26, 1989 • #166 International Viewpoint
the constitutional and legal spheres. *
Provisional Committee of the Beljing Independent Workers' Union,
·ap
CHINA world. "Fascism" they the machine-gunning gesture.
There are no more visible signs of confrontations or clashes between factions of the army in Beijing. The city police have reappeared and the wreckage of the vehicles is being cleared from the streets. The army is a lot more in evidence now, positioned at several crossroads and on patrol. People stand outside their doors and stare apprehensively at the soldiers.
Even in the side-streets, people are alert to noises and movements. For the first time in five days, the army is in real control of the main streets, on foot, on bicycles or in trucks.
Hotel, three hundred metres from Tiananmen Square, seems to gone into mourning for Deng's opening up policy. Half of its splendid battery of eight lifts are out of order, and its sumptuous corridors are deserted. The peared. The only remaining guests are some teams of journalists who are in the process of moving to hotels less exposed to army pressure.
In any case, the hotel management has closed all the restaurants and catering services (the army is to move into the hotel on Thursday morning). Paradoxically, the newly preferred hotel for foreigners is now the Palace Hotel, a luxury establishment, and a "joint venture" of the Chinese army and the Philippines (since the middle of the 1980s a part of the army has been redeployed in directly economic march" starting from Tiananmen Square. Surrounded by soldiers with machineguns, militia in red arm-bands march past, symbolizing the famous unity between the army and people. Some Beijing residents look on anxiously, apprehensive that they will soon see these specialists in straightening things out in every jiedao weiyuanhui (local committee), or in the danwei (production unit) to which every worker is attached. These two bodies control the life of every Chinese person, especially in the cities.
Supposedly the basic cell of the people's political power, in reality the danwei are the transmission belts of the power of the party. At the same time, this network plays a social role in the spheres of education, health and every other aspect of its members' lives. It is the danwei that distribute ration coupons, particularly for
Thus this march inspires everyone with a fear of a repetition of 1976. At that time, the local committees were the scene of denunciations, while the danwei organized general assemblies in the workplaces to bring to book workers who had taken part in the demonstrations and in resistance. In practise, for the moment, the army is only clearing up the cross-
Various rumours circulate concerning the factional struggle at the top but, to paraphrase Deng, "It doesn't matter if the cat is white or black"... the people can expect nothing good from it! Thursday, June 8:
es, and the cranes are working again. There are people in the streets; some big stores, mainly food shops, opened. Others sell only from a table on
Many public buildings have been taken over by the army. Soldiers keep guard at several strategic junctions in the city, while the streets are being patrolled. Light mobile extruding machine guns continue to move around, although it is not possible to say what the purpose of their deployment is. Cannon-fire can still be heard.
It seems therefore that life is slowly getting back to normal, although most buses remain in their depots. The impression of reduced tension is increased by the fact that the overcast sky of recent days has cleared. But this impression is contradicted by the continuing big mobilization of the army and by the concentrations of soldiers at the road junctions. The authorities want to show that "order reigns" and that the time to clean up has come. In every sense of the term, since teams continue to unblock the main roads, notably around Tiananmen and along Dongchang' an, several parts of which are now re-opened to traffic. The television broadcasts pictures of the clean-up, proclaiming victory over "a tiny group of counter-revolutionary hooligans", while official communiqués announce the expulsion from the party of those who took part in the "counterrevolutionary incident". Friday, June 9: Everything points to the fact that the conactivities). In the late morning I watch a "patriotic
Proposals of the Beijing Independent Workers' Union SINCE the middle of April, in the democratic movement of all the nationalities led by the students, many Chinese workers have shown their desire to participate in political life, while recognizing that, until now, they have lacked a truly representative workers' organization to express their opinions. For this reason we believe it necessary to set up an independent organization to speak in the name of the workers and take up the issues that concern them. To this end, we are preparing to organize an Independent Workers' Union in Beijing and are putting forward the following proposals for a programme:
1. This organization must be totally independent and it must be set up as the result of a democratic process in which workers take part of their own free will. It must not be under the control of other organizations and must have equal status with other mass organizations.
2. The basic aim of this organization must be to put forward the views of the greatest number of workers on political and economic questions, and not to be merely a welfare organization.
3. This organization must have a monitoring role over the Communist
4. In firms and businesses which are the property of the whole people or under collective ownership, this organization must have the right to use all the appropriate and legal means to monitor the legal representatives and ensure that the workers are really the masters of the firms. In other firms and businesses, it must uphold the workers' interests through negotiation with the enterprise directors or through other legal means.
5. This organization must guarantee all the legal rights of its members in International Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989
There is an apparent, but very limited resumption of work. There are a few bus-
May 21, 1989. (From October Review.] flicts at the top are sorting themselves out. The government's slogan now return to order, to normal life in Beijing. Even so, although some buses are running and queues have re-appeared at the bus stops, many remain in their garages, and the underground is still at a standstill. In the same way, only some of the shops have re-opened, often, in the case of the bigger ones, without completely removing their grills.
Many administrative buildings remain closed, although others, among them the Bank of China, have re-opened.
Life is returning to normal, but slowly, and it is not possible to make a precise assessment of the impact, on the one hand of the call for a general strike made on Sunday, and on the other of the determination of the authorities to take steps towards a resumption of routine. It is clear, in any case, that the authorities are taking things in stages, while the army -still present in large numbers in the city -remains tense. Fear of snipers and displays of resistance, even if they have not been confirmed by any spectacular deeds, shows the relationship of forces created by the mass movement and the fear this has put into the authorities.
Nonetheless, the army and the police are doing everything possible to show that normality has returned. Almost every-
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thing in the the city has been cleaned up. The burnt-out wrecks have been removed, while, symbolically, the big avenue that runs alongside Tiananmen is open to buses, if not to cyclists. This allows me to see that some 100 tanks and TTVs are still occupying the esplanade.
The army has been conspicuously delivering flour, oil and vegetables to the shops and moves around constantly. Many columns of soldiers march about in the city centre, and soldiers are still present at every important crossroads accompanied by militia to demonstrate the "support of the people for the army". To some extent it seems to achieve its aim, which is to appear friendly. The officers chat with passers-by, intending thereby to bury the memory of the butchery on Saturday evening. But they are not completely confident. Several times I saw soldiers looking anxiously at crowds of passers-by. Another, who had fallen behind, hurried to catch up with his patrol. Soldiers perched on trucks full of cabbages and flour, move around holding kalashnikovs.
Propaganda lorries are also moving around, while the tanks have become a lot less numerous and more discreet — although they are still to be seen lurking in the streets running off the main roads.
But it is clear that a reign of fear has begun for the workers and young people who took part in the clashes and demon-
Many people have been arrested. Some arrests have been filmed by the television, presenting those arrested as "counterrevolutionary hooligans" responsible for the attacks on tanks and TTVs on which
Declaration of the workers
THE working class is the most advanced class; we must be the shock troops of the democratic
The People's Republic of China is under the leadership of the the television has been dwelling throughout the day. As a counterpoint, the television interviews at length good citizens who welcome the "return to calm", and a woman taking food to the troops.
The determination to wipe out the memories of the "counter-revolutionary disturdemonstrated by hours reports, broadcast ten times since yesterday, showing acts of aggression commit-
"tiny counter-revolutionary" group. But the television is obliged to show hundreds of people opposing tanks and TTVs with sticks and stones. Martial law and the curfew are now backed up with machine guns.
In order to signal the resolution of the crisis at the top of the party, all the topranking leaders, apart from Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili, have re-appeared rumoured to be dead; Li Peng, who made a brief television appearance yesterday
Although it is now obviously impossible to speak out in public, appeals continue to circulate, some of them talking about a new mobilization after the summer or next spring. Even actions against the army in the next few weeks are not ruled out. Mere hope, perhaps, but a sign of a will to continue the struggle despite Saturday, June 10: In Shanghai, the government has already arrested a group of leaders of the independent workers' association. In Beijing, arrests multiply, along with innumerable
Although it is now impossible to oppose the army in the streets, the population has clearly not been subdued by Li Peng's bloodbath. The only visible form of opposition now is the passive resistance demonstrated by a total absence of enthusiasm to resume work. The martial law commithas issued posters appealing for
CHINA informers and giving several telephone numbers. The whole question is what sort of relationship of forces the authorities enjoy for launching a more thoroughgoing repression.
A large number of members of the party, of the local committees and of the work units took part in the movement.
So, the possibilities - or even the will — to re-establish the networks necessary for the secret police to carry out the campaign of denunciations are not clear. As for the party regaining its grip, we will see within the next few days or weeks which leaders belong to the "very tiny number" who will be accused of supporting the "counter-revolutionary disorders". But it will be quite another matter to re-establish the foundations of the whole edifice. The level of organization in the districts of Beijing at the start of the martial law was incredible. In June it brought together thousands of people to stop the army, while the following day it enabled the construction of barricades in every district before the army could get to Tiananmen. Can it be continued today in clandestinity, at least for a while? Many people are saying today in Beijing "We have neither arms nor leaders..."
In any case, there are several signs to suggest that the grip of the authorities is still insecure, and that the movement will be able to re-emerge in one form or another.
Thus the economic and social causes of the movement are still there, and the muddled speeches of Deng, in which he thanks the police and army and weeps for those killed - without a word for the thousands of victims of the massacre — do not add up to a political and economic programme.
Eight days after the capture of Tiananmen, the regime has yet to re-establish a firm base. * class, and
SOCIALIST right to drive out every tyrant.
understood
The workers have perfectly the need for knowledge and technology in production.
OUTLOOK
This is why we absolutely reject the outrages suffered by the students and educated people.
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