Was There a Massacre in Tiananmen Square?
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Was there a massacre in Tiananmen Square?
On June 4, 1989, a large group of students gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest for their right to freedom of speech and democracy. In retaliation, the Chinese government sent martial law to control them. A riot between the troops and the protestors was broadcast across the world and called the �Tiananmen Square Massacre’. The Chinese government denies this to be true and calls the event the �Tiananmen Square Incident’. BBC footage, witness accounts and journals written about the event suggest a massacre did occur. However, official government sources, and the unreliability of witnesses and media accounts imply that the massacre of the students at Tiananmen Square did not occur.
The existence of a massacre in Tiananmen Square is demonstrated in the televised BBC reports. BBC journalists recorded footage of casualties leaving the square to over-crowded, under-staffed hospitals. BBC described the scene as “[t]he troops have been firing indiscriminately… Their own army were firing at them.” This footage suggests that there was violence in Tiananmen Square with the potential for fatalities. The BBC journalist also reports to have picked up a woman with a bullet in the head , bringing her to a nearby hospital only to find it overrun with dying casualties: “In 20 minutes, 40 seriously injured were brought for emergency surgery. Two were already dead.” The local hospitals were not equipped for the flow casualties, resulting in further illness and fatalities.
However, most information given to the public was written by journalists like the reporter from BBC rather than academics, and is subject to sensationalism to achieve greater ratings for the program. The journalist in the BBC report had said that the soldiers were “launching into an unarmed civilian population as if charging into battle… The sound of gunfire sounded like a battle – but it was one-sided.” Previously she has stated the crowd had been setting buses and army trucks other vehicles on fire, suggesting retaliation and violence by the protesters. The scene would have been unlikely to be one-sided.
Further proof of a massacre in Tiananmen Square can be found in witness reports. A BBC journalist reported that “the young man in front of me fell dead,” illustrating that there were indeed killings in or near the square. Student protest leader, Wang Dan said in a CNN interview, “When so many people died, I have a feeling of moral guilt in the matter, and imagine I’ll have it all my life.” This also indicates a massacre occurring in Tiananmen Square, although both incidents are subject to sensationalism and bias.
In the Tiananmen Papers the government privately acknowledged that fifteen “students and citizens” were machine-gunned or run over near the area as troops were leaving Tiananmen Square
Publicly, the Chinese government still denies that people died in Tiananmen Square. They withheld formal, official statistics from the public until June 19 stating that 218 civilians, including 36 students had died in the “counterrevolutionary riots”, downplaying the idea that there was a massacre of the protestors in Tiananmen Square itself but the result of a common riot. Although official government statements can be questioned for motive, the statistics are more reliable than witness and media accounts.
In regard to martial law, PRC president Yang Shangkun was quoted to have said in the Tiananmen Papers: “the troops should resort to �all means necessary’ only if everything else fails” . These media and witness reports suggest that troops felt it was necessary and that there was a massacre in the square. However, government claims that students would not have been killed, had they left the square when requested and that many protesters were allowed to leave the Tiananmen Square unharmed by troops. There are also claims that there was no actual death in the square but outside and near it.
The Tiananmen Square Incident or Massacre most likely did occur. Although the media and witness reports of the event may have been exposed to sensationalism, it still adequately reflects the results of the protest in Tiananmen Square. Whether or not it was physically in the square is irrelevant to the fact that, as shown in the witness reports and even official government papers, private and public, a large number of people were killed or injured resulting in a massacre.
Bibliography
Books
Perkins, Dorothy. (1999) Encyclopedia of China. Round Table Press: NY.
Mackerras,