Today is 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre. Twenty years before, the Chinese students in Tiananmen Square demanded for democracy, but the movement ended in bloodshed. The Tiananmen Square protests were led by Chinese students and intellectuals. Actually the protests were sparked by the death of pro-market, pro-democracy and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hu’s funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered on the Tiananmen square. These people were against the government’s authoritarianism and dictatorship and voiced calls for economic change and democratic reform within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The movement lasted seven weeks from Hu’s death on 15 April until tanks cleared Tiananmen Square on 4 June. In Beijing, the resulting military response to the protesters by the Chinese government left many innocent Chinese students dead or severely injured. According to the Chinese Red Cross sources around 2,600 died in this massacre, however the Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded. I must say, this was really a black day for Democracy.
Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the Chinese press. Members of the Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Zhao Ziyang.
It is really dissapointing that still we have dictatorship sort of Government in China. The Chinese Govrernment wants to control its bloody history and blatantly lie to its people and to the world. This Government doesn’t want to give its people freedom of speech, expression and thought. Without democracy, all the economy achievements made by China are useless as they will only cause more corruption and injustice. But one day the Chinese Government will have to pay the price of Tiananmen Square Massacre and that day would be the birth of democracy in China.
To Know what exactly happened at Tiananmen Square on 4th June 1989, visit this BBC archive. Also check out the video of this massacre.
See this video where a Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing’s Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989.
SlideShow on Tiananmen Square Massacre
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