Isabel Hilton (Guardian Utd, June 4): Reaching beyond the myth of Mao

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Saturday June 4

Reaching beyond the myth of Mao
Communist party leaders must tell the truth about Tiananmen
By Isabel Hilton

Sixteen years ago, on the night of June 4 1989, tanks moved into Tiananmen Square in Beijing and began the violent dispersal of the longest-running student demonstration the People's Republic of China had seen. The students had been in occupation of the square since April. There had been rallies, speeches, hunger strikes and, in the final weeks, as the occupation began to falter, the defiant installation of a statue - the goddess of democracy - created by a group of art students.

The demonstrations had been chaotic but peaceful and had touched profound emotions in Chinese society. Their actions drew on a long tradition of student protest in China - from the May 4 Movement of 1919 through the Democracy Wall Movement of the late 70s. By the end of the occupation of Tiananmen, demonstrations were taking place in more than 80 cities across China. Sympathisers lent support. Most alarming to the regime, workers began to take an interest.

In the weeks after the violence, untold numbers fled abroad. To this day, others remain in prison. In the party itself, thousands were purged for their sympathy with the demonstrators. Today, relatives of the victims continue to ask for justice and - perhaps more importantly for the long-term health of the People's Republic of China - for a truthful account of the events of that night and the bloody days that followed.

But the Chinese government continues to repress the truth and those who ask for it. Amnesty International recently highlighted the case of Shi Tao, a writer sentenced on April 30 to 10 years' imprisonment for providing an overseas website with an official document alerting journalists to possible social instability around the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen. He had been charged with "illegally revealing state secrets abroad". Last year Kong Youping, a former trade union activist, was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for posting articles and poems on the internet calling for a reassessment.

Read more.

[bemildred]

1. The "Communist Party" is highly threatened by this stuff.

And it's not about to change, it will have to be removed.
Power junkies are all pretty much alike.