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Tiananmen: A reporter’s first-hand account
By Guy Dinmore
Beijing serene in spring sunshine. Students gaily acting as traffic police. Normally surly bus conductors and shop assistants suddenly becoming models of politeness. Tiananmen Square a circus fairground of banners, tents and clapped out vehicles bringing exuberant demonstrators from across China.
In those two weeks 20 years ago – in that brief illusion of space created by the absence of all signs of authority when the Communist party and security forces seemed to have completely melted away – the People’s Republic finally appeared just that: a country run by the people for the people. Read more…
Tanks with blazing guns, armoured convoys patrol Peking
PEKING, June 5, Reuter – Convoys of tanks and armoured vehicles patrolled Peking early on Monday, a day after an army assault against anti-government demonstrators in which more than 1,000 people may have been killed.
Ten tanks and 16 armoured troop carriers firing machineguns rumbled from central Tiananmen Square, the centre of seven weeks of student-led protests, along the capital’s Avenue of Eternal Peace for two miles (three km) on Sunday night to Peking’s main embassy district and then returned.
“It must be to keep people inside,” said a Western diplomat living in the area.
Two other convoys of troops in trucks and jeeps toured the narrow streets of the embassy quarter, letting off occasional shots. Continues
China warns of chaos if party yields power
Article from: Chicago Sun-Times
Article date: February 8, 1990
Author: Guy Dinmore
BEIJING China’s Communist Party responded quickly Wednesday to the radical changes approved in the Soviet Union by warning that taking a similar path in this country would bring on civil war.
Some Western diplomats said China and the Soviet Union, the world’s two Communist giants, appeared to be on the brink of a new ideological rift.
After President Mikhail S. Gorbachev won agreement from the Soviet Communist Party to surrender its 70-year-old guaranteed monopoly on power, China’s 47 million-member party delivered its reply in ominous tones. It was the most extreme warning since senior leader Deng Xiaoping ordered the army to crush pro-democracy demonstrations last June in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Read more…
Tanks with blazing guns, armoured convoys patrol Peking
PEKING, June 5, Reuter – Convoys of tanks and armoured vehicles patrolled Peking early on Monday, a day after an army assault against anti-government demonstrators in which more than 1,000 people may have been killed.
Ten tanks and 16 armoured troop carriers firing machineguns rumbled from central Tiananmen Square, the centre of seven weeks of student-led protests, along the capital’s Avenue of Eternal Peace for two miles (three km) on Sunday night to Peking’s main embassy district and then returned.
“It must be to keep people inside,” said a Western diplomat living in the area.
Chinese troops march towards Tienanmen, are turned back
SOURCE: The Reuter Library Report, June 3, 1989, Saturday, AM cycle
by Guy Dinmore in Peking
Thousands of troops marched towards Tiananmen Square early on Saturday,
but furious crowds of students and ordinary citizens barred them from
reaching the heart of a pro-democracy protest, witnesses said.
The soldiers approached Tiananmen from all directions but got no nearer
than 200 metres (yards) from the square in the centre of Peking.
“Are you human? Are you Chinese? Do you have a conscience?” shouted
residents who had blocked a busload of troops, and were trying to force open
the windows as frightened soldiers huddled inside.
Read more…
China students, workers protest outside communist party HQ
by Guy Dinmore on Peking – Reuters
Crowds of students and workers called for the downfall of Premier Li Peng in a noisy demonstration outside the Chinese government and Communist Party headquarters in Peking on Wednesday night, eye-witnesses said.
More than 1,000 people marched to the gates of the walled Zhongnanhai compound close to central Tiananmen Square which has been taken over for the last 19 days by thousands of students campaigning for democratic reforms.
Ignoring emergency regulations, the crowd chanted “Down with Li Peng” — the man who declared martial law in Peking on May 20 but has been unable to enforce it.
Read more…
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