32 years after the Tiananmen massacre: step by step, how the massacre went that the Chinese regime is still trying to hide

It was the last great cry for the freedom of the Chinese people and he was drowned in the most brutal way. The protest movement emerged spontaneously on April 15, 1989, following the death of Hu Yaobang, former secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party who had attempted a series of reforms aimed at liberalizing the regime. It culminated on June 5, with the heroic gesture of the “tank man” as a last breath.hours after the massacre perpetrated against the crowd gathered in Tiananmen Square.

It was a time of change in China and the whole communist world, which was collapsing. But the expected transition to a form of democracy had been suddenly interrupted in the People’s Republic two years earlier, when the hard wing of the regime then commanded by Deng Xiaoping moved Hu and put in the freezer many of his most daring initiatives.

News of the 73-year-old leader’s death from cardiac arrest, led thousands of people, especially university students, to gather in Beijing’s iconic square to remember him. Quickly, what started out as a tribute turned into a demand for freedom and democracy.

(Infographic: Marcelo Regalado)

Hundreds of thousands of people began to mobilize every day in the center of the Chinese capital, still around Tiananmen, where the young people set up a camp. The movement moved to another stage on May 13, with the start of a hunger strike, with which he hoped to force the government to accept his demands.

The Communist Party Central Committee grew more and more nervous and its doubts encouraged a civil society more awake than ever. The inability to organize an official ceremony in the square to receive Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, marks a turning point. Five days later, on May 20, the regime declared a state of siege and sent more than 200,000 troops to Beijing.

Far from intimidating the population, the decision provoked outrage. Many others join together and barricades are installed in various streets of the city, to prevent the advance of the troops.. Until then, the military had been ordered not to shoot. As the days passed, the expectations of the protesters grew and on May 30 they erected the Statue of Democracy in the center of the square, made by art students. They saw the powerless regime.

However, the Central Committee approved on June 2 an offensive to put an end to the “counter-revolution” if necessary. It was the order that would lead to the infamous massacre. This is how the events happened.

June 3: the beginning

8:00 p.m .: State television and radio began warning the population that they must stay at home to free the passage of the People’s Liberation Army troops. Obviously, the message had the opposite effect. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and blocked the main accesses to the city center with buses.

22h00: The Army’s 38th Battalion began firing in the air over Chang’an Avenue, in an attempt to disperse those blocking their path. As the strategy did not work, they started shooting directly at the protesters.. It was the first time they had fired live ammunition since the protests began. The first deaths occurred there.

The brutality of the repression would increase. In the following barricades which blocked their passage, the military leaders did not even bother to issue warnings.. They directly ordered to open fire with automatic rifles against unarmed civilians.

10:30 p.m .: By the time they reached the Muxidi apartment complex, where many students lived, the men in uniform were already completely out of control. When they came across torched trolley buses, arranged by the protesters so that they could not reach the square, located about five kilometers on Chang’an Avenue, they started shooting point blank.

The massacre would be minimal compared to what would occur hours later, but an estimated 36 people were killed. Many were in the surrounding buildings, who have become the target of uniforms, although many of their neighbors did not even participate in the protests.

June 4: the carnage

12:30 am: Tiananmen Square was completely dark, until a rocket lit the sky and allowed the first troops to be seen. Within minutes, all flanks of the epicenter of the protests were surrounded by tanks and armor.. Some young people among the hundreds of thousands who awaited the arrival of the soldiers with the decision to resist began to throw stones and Molotov cocktails to stop the advance of the soldiers, who did not hesitate to shoot to kill. Several military vehicles were destroyed, but most continued to advance.

1:30 am: After defeating civil resistance, tanks entered the square from different corners, crushing anyone in their path. The soldiers also started to leave the Great Hall of the People and the National Museum, taking over the camp. The troops then established a blockade, to prevent other groups of protesters from entering to help the thousands who remained inside.

“The tanks opened fire on the crowd (…) before crushing them”, wrote the following day Alan Donald, the ambassador of the United Kingdom in China, in a secret telegram. “They passed over the bodies several times, making a sort of ‘mush’, before the remains were picked up by an excavator. Remains cremated and thrown with a jet of water in the sewers, ”he said in the text, which was only made public in 2017.

“Four injured students pleading for their lives were bayoneted”added the ambassador. The madness of some soldiers reached the point of strafing military ambulances trying to rescue the wounded, according to the British diplomat.

4:00 am : A tank overturned the Statue of Democracy, a symbol that the protest that had rocked the country for a month and a half had been pulverized. Some student leaders tried to negotiate with the military leaders to let out the survivors. The proposal was accepted orally, although it angered the most radical protesters, who wanted to continue to resist.

04:30 am: Negotiations have been halted. Some groups of young people marched through a hallway southeast of the square and managed to get out, but several fell after being shot in the back. The People’s Liberation Army had succeeded in cleaning up the square at incalculable human cost.

06:00: The massacre continued after sunrise. Aware of the horror that had occurred in the early morning, thousands of people came to the square. Some were shouting “General strike! But others were relatives of those camping, who wanted to know what had happened to their loved ones. The troops responded by shooting everyone, to ensure that no one is approaching the perimeter. The bullets continued throughout the day, until no one else dared to approach. Tiananmen Square was occupied by the military for two weeks and closed to the public.

As the Chinese regime has never self-criticized what happened, 31 years later, the exact number of victims remains unknown. The “official” information published by state newspapers was that 200 civilians died, but the Chinese Red Cross estimated 2,700 from a survey of hospitals. “The minimum estimate of civilian deaths is 10,000”Ambassador Donald said in his telegram.

June 5: the man with the chariot

Once the square was cleared, Beijing again under its control and terrified citizens, who would never fully recover from the abuses they suffered, the Communist Party of China Central Committee celebrated. His domination over the Chinese people was complete again.

However, he would have to face a final act of rebellion, which would become an incredibly powerful icon. As the officials lifted up the rubble and ran the remains of the barricades, a man of unknown identity, dressed in a white shirt and black pants, and carrying two grocery bags in his hand, stopped in front of a column of tanks which advanced along Chang’an Avenue, a few meters from the square.

At first, he stopped the tanks by showing the palm of his right hand, with the “stop” sign. So, he climbed in front of the leading vehicle of the convoy and attempted to speak to the crew, who must have looked at him dumbfounded. Then he returned to the sidewalk. The tanks tried to surround him, but the man kept moving to block them again and again.

The footage lasted for several minutes, which was photographed and filmed by international journalists who saw it from a hotel window.. Until two men approach and lead him away, letting the armored vehicles pass. We never heard from him again, but he has become one of the most recognized images in the world of civil resistance to the brutality of authoritarian regimes.

The magazine Time included him in the list of the 100 most important personalities of the 20th century, identifying him as “the unknown rebel”. The British press gave him the name by which he is known to this day, “the man with the chariot”. But his true identity is a mystery.

Sunday Express He published the same year that he was a 19-year-old student named Wang Weilin and was arrested, but no one has corroborated this version. Other media claimed he was sent to a labor camp and executed.. But the regime never even admitted knowing who he was. In any case, the anonymity served to further enlarge his figure, turning him into a symbol in its purest form.

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