Many Western reporters covered the event from their hotel rooms.
They heard the sound of firing and the movement of the tanks.
How many actually saw the massacre?
Published reports on the subject are conflicting.
MARCH 1990
On 12 June 1989 "The New York Times' published an account, previously published in Hong Kong and San Francisco, of troops attacking students in Tienanmen Square before dawn on 4 June.
SELECTIVE KILLING OF THE UNORGANISED ELEMENTS IN TIENANMEN SQUARE
On 13 June 1989, 'The New York Times' published a report by Nicholas D. Kristof, its Peking correspondent, disputing the report published on 12 June and asserting that, while troops were shooting and killing victims in the area around the square, there was no firm evidence that students were killed in the middle of the square itself.
If Kristof's version is correct, it would support the suggestion that the crackdown was aimed, not at the original pro-democracy demonstrators who, by Kristof s account, left the square together singing the 'Internationale', and who had been carrying placards supporting the Communist Party, but at the unorganised elements who sought to join them or otherwise to take advantage of the demonstration.
Other considerations may well have affected the Chinese suppression of the demonstration.
No doubt the decision was coordinated with the Soviets.
It almost coincided with Gorbachev's visit to Peking, which had been preceded a few weeks earlier by a visit by Shevardnadze.
Was there a real massacre in Tienanmen Square?
Many Western reporters covered the event from their hotel rooms.
They heard the sound of firing and the
movement of the tanks.
How many actually saw the massacre?
Published reports on the subject are conflicting.
MARCH 1990
On 12 June 1989 "The New York Times' published an account, previously published
in Hong Kong and San Francisco, of troops attacking students in Tienanmen Square before dawn on 4 June.
SELECTIVE KILLING OF THE UNORGANISED ELEMENTS IN TIENANMEN SQUARE
On 13 June 1989, 'The New York Times' published a report by Nicholas D. Kristof, its Peking correspondent, disputing the report published on 12 June and asserting that, while
troops were shooting and killing victims in the area around the square, there was no firm evidence that students were killed in the middle of the square itself.
If Kristof's version is correct, it would support the suggestion that the crackdown was aimed, not at the original pro-democracy demonstrators who, by Kristof s account, left the square together singing the 'Internationale', and who had been carrying placards supporting the Communist Party, but at the unorganised elements who sought to join them or otherwise to take advantage of the demonstration.
Other considerations may well have affected the Chinese suppression of the
demonstration.
No doubt the decision was coordinated with the Soviets.
It almost coincided with Gorbachev's visit to Peking, which had been preceded a few weeks
earlier by a visit by Shevardnadze.
Reply
Leave a comment