Deposed Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang in 'deep coma'

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&ncid=1504&e=19&u=/afp/20050115/ts_afp/chinatiananmenpolitics_050115155044

BEIJING (AFP) - Zhao Ziyang, the former Chinese leader who was ousted after sympathising with the Tiananmen democracy protests, is in a "deep coma" in a Beijing hospital and may be close to death, a close relative revealed. snip

Zhao was last seen in public with Wen, who was then his aide, tearfully addressing Beijing students on Tiananmen Square on May 19 that year, the day before a divided Chinese leadership declared martial law.

Following the bloody crackdown, in which hundreds if not thousands of unarmed students and citizens in Beijing were killed, a central government report squarely placed the blame for "counter-revolutionary" turmoil on Zhao.

"Comrade Zhao Ziyang committed the serious mistake of supporting the turmoil and splitting the party. He had the unshirkable responsibility for the shaping up and development of the turmoil," the report said.

Zhao has lived under house arrest in his courtyard home just north of Beijing's Forbidden City and not far from the square for the past 15 years.

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[StevieM]

1. May God bless him. I wonder what.....

the jerks who run China will have to say when he passes on. My guess is that they won't even comment.

Steve

[Dover]

2. China is a like a volcano...the more they supress freedoms the more

the pressure builds. The magma WILL flow...!