Six Years Ago This DayJune 2, 1989

 

Troops Repelled from Advance to TianAnMen.

Four intellectuals went to Tiananmen Square and began their hunger strikes protesting the martial law.

At late night, a police vehicle drove at fast speed caused three fatalities and one injury. Citizens were furious about the accident.

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Source: Compiled by Zuofeng Li from Reuters, the Chicago Tribune, Gannet News Service, and the Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1989

BEIJING - Thousands of unarmed Chinese troops made a lightning push toward Tiananmen Square in the early hours of Saturday but residents barred their way in dozens of spots and sent them retreating in disarray, witnesses said.

The troops approached from four directions but got no nearer than some 200 yards from the rag-tag tent city set up by pro-democracy student demonstrators three weeks ago.

In scene after scene, passionate Beijing residents abused, berated and even assaulted the hapless troops, interrogating individuals and heaping shame on busloads of soldiers.

"We came here to restore order, we were obeying orders. People of Beijing do not understand us," one soldier pleaded to a crowd east of Tiananmen. "We do understand you. We do not need you here," answered a young woman crouching nearby.

Most of the soldiers did not appear to be armed but angry citizens produced several guns, bayonets and truncheons they said had been taken from assorted support vehicles they had also stopped.

On Friday, Taiwan singer Hou Dejian, wearing a T-shirt covered with supporters' signatures, was joined by three intellectuals in a fast in the middle of Tiananmen Square to drum up support for democracy.

"The students have done everything they could but now they are getting tired and they need our help," the 36-year-old pop star told reporters.

"We don't seek death but real life," said Zhou Tuo, an official at a computer company and one of the three other hunger strikers.

Hou will fast for two days and the others will not eat for three days. Others are expected to replace them on strike afterward.

In a hint that the authorities are on the verge of removing the pro- democracy demonstrators, Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong told a group of children Thursday: "I think that you will soon be able to pay tribute to the revolutionary martyrs at the Monument to the People's Heroes."

More pro-government rallies were held in Beijing suburbs Friday and television showed footage of the events, saying they had drawn huge crowds, but the scenes showed a stadium with many empty seats. Other government rallies have drawn relatively small crowds in the past.

The official Communist Party People's Daily newspaper reported that plainclothes martial-law troops have moved into 10 Beijing transportation and communication hubs - a move that puts the government in position to shut down this city of 10 million at any time.

The newspaper also sent another signal that the power struggle between this nation's moderates and its hard-line communist conservatives is being won by the hard-liners.

In the story about the 200,000 troops surrounding the capital, the newspaper omitted the name of Communist Party Chairman Zhao Ziyang from its list of political leaders - indicating that Zhao, a poltical moderate, may have lost his battle for power with conservative Premier Li Peng and China's top leader, Deng Xiaoping.

As the power struggle continued, thousands of Beijing children turned out to celebrate Children's Day - an event that normally would have found tens of thousands of them and their parents in Tiananmen Square.

"Little friends, you don't understand this, but there has appeared a gray wolf in China and we are here to kill it," said an announcement broadcast over the students' makeshift public address system. The "gray wolf," was an apparent reference to Peng, who the students want to see purged.

Last night, tensions in downtown Beijing were high. A crowd of students gathered outside the gate of the Beijing municipal police headquarters near the south end of the square. Another crowd assembled outside the gate of Zhongnanhai.

All but a few of the students outside Zhongnanhai dispersed around midnight. But about 500 students and a few other people, incensed by an alleged police beating of a student, spent the entire night in angry protest outside the police headquarters.

Despite the tenseness of the confrontation, both sides showed great restraint, as has been typical of virtually all such confrontations between students and security forces since martial law was imposed May 20.

"Down with dictatorship! Long live democracy!" shouted the students, who despite their obvious anger maintained order throughout the night.

"These students aren't in turmoil," said a middle-aged woman who joined the crowd. "Our government is in turmoil. The police are in turmoil. They're arresting people as they please. Do we have laws or don't we? The officers must obey the law. The (officer who allegedly beat the student) should be punished severely according to the law."

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Excerpt from a Tsinghua Student's Diary:

~{⊙　１９８９年６月２日　星期五~}

~{　　今天林冉要回家了，上午我送她去火车站。在等车的间隙到东单看了场外国电影~}
~{，讲的是西方大萧条时期一个小姑娘从孤儿院里跑出来去找在外地做工的父亲的故事~}
~{。影片充满了在艰难的人世中仍默默存在的星星点点人情的温暖！走出电影院时，看~}
~{到街市一片热闹繁华犹如平日，不由得又是一番感概。~}

~{　　北京站现在管得也松，我没买站台票就将林冉一直送上了火车。~}

~{　　下午回到学校，到银行取钱，修自行车，取洗印的照片，等等一堆杂事。傍晚时~}
~{哲明来聊天。~}

~{　　少军现在又在筹委会的宣传组里忙。宣传组的印刷点仍设在２００。今天晚上收~}
~{到四通公司送的一台高速油印机，我看少军在那里调试，效果挺不错的。~}

~{　　晚上在宿舍里看书，心情很乱，交织难解。~}

~{　　今天听到广播，说候德健等４人已于今天下午在广场开始绝食了。好像就他们４~}
~{个，并没有３００人。~}

Six Years Ago This Day