What goes around comes around.

[El_Jibaro]

It used to be that only the mothers of Marxists complained of Government illegal massacres: now we have

Tiananmen Massacre Victims' Mothers Welcome Revealing Book

Sunday, June 03, 2001


BEIJING — Growing documentation could force China's government to review its excuse for the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, a victims' group said Sunday.

In an open letter issued to mark the June 4 crackdown anniversary, the Tiananmen Mothers said growing evidence undermines the government's claim that the crackdown was justified to end "counterrevolutionary turmoil."

In a letter distributed by New York-based Human Rights in China, the group praised the recently published book, The Tiananmen Papers, as helping reveal the truth about the crackdown.

The book collects what are purported to be internal documents and records of leaders' meetings and phone calls that depict the leadership as divided over how to handle the protests.

The book, along with other collections of photographs, personal testimonials and lists of the dead and wounded, will "inevitably put the perpetrators of this tragedy into the position of defendants," the letter said.

The letter was signed by 111 relatives of victims.

Hundreds of people were killed when army troops backed by tanks attacked unarmed protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4 to crush seven weeks of tumultuous protests. The exact number of those killed is not known, and the government has never given a full account of deaths or allowed an investigation.

Commemorations of the event are forbidden, and police routinely visit known dissidents and families of victims on the anniversary to warn them not to publicly mark the date.

Despite the intimidation, the Tiananmen Mothers filed a lawsuit two years ago seeking redress and an investigation of Li Peng, China's No. 2 leader, who was premier at the time. Li is blamed by many for encouraging the use of force.

Prosecutors have ignored the lawsuit. Police have threatened those who brought it, including former university professor Ding Zilin, whose 17-year-old son was killed in the crackdown.

Ding said officers who questioned her at her home last week asked her if she had a copy of the book.

But she said Sunday that no officers were stationed outside her front door on the eve of the anniversary for the first time since she went public with her campaign for the victims in 1994.

"With the publication of The Tiananmen Papers the government has to know that it can't keep this matter covered up forever, that they have to get it out into the open," she said.

Interest and moral support from abroad have given the Tiananmen Mothers a greater sense of responsibility and determination, Ding said.

"We want to use love to cure the hate, but this can only be done on the basis of goodwill and justice," she said from her Beijing home.

Another member of the group said she gave a copy of the open letter to a local policeman, asking him to pass it on to his superiors.

"Our country's leaders say we should be direct and speak the truth and that is all I am doing," said Zhang Xianling, who lost her 19-year-old son. "We want a reopening of the case and a full, transparent investigation."

China's government has labeled The Tiananmen Papers a fabrication, but Chinese agents at home and abroad have reportedly questioned people about the documents in an attempt to trace their source.