Another Hero gone

[maiyademama]

His Obit

 

He was sympathetic to the students of the "6-4" ultimately toppling his political career. Chinese media is attempting to muffle the news of his passing.

 

Have any of you ever tried to discuss the "6-4" with your loved ones? Whoa! I didn't get very far talking to anyone but Beijing Cabbies about this topic. The general reaction that I received was: "You are lying. China has never opened fire on its own people since the Cultural Revolution." or "The students weren't protesting the government, they were protesting the economic situation in China, but that is all it was...just a protest, no one ever got killed."

 

Even now with Kai here, he thinks it is just foreign propoganda and that the photos of the Tiananmen Massacre are fake

[tywy_99]

My wife's thinking about Tiananmen Square and what happend in June of '89 is pro-chinese all the way. She was a university student at that time. I remember her saying that there was much upheaval during those days and her father told her over the phone to stay in her room at the university and not go out into the streets.

We watched a special on TV about Tiananmen Square last year. She said then, as she has said before, that people with an agenda to overthrow the government 'used' the young, impressionable students to their advantage.

She also says that the only reports that came out of China to the western world was on how the government massacred the students. She says, you never heard the reports on how some students had set soldiers on fire and burned them alive. And she's right. I never heard that before and it was hardley mentioned on the special if it was mentioned at all.

[maiyademama]

I have read that a few soldiers did die but nothing compared to the nearly 3000 civilian deaths. Apples and Oranges.

[Guest DragonFlower]

According to what I have read,the soldiers met a great deal of resistance as they marched into the city.This being where the soldiers were killed.But also where they fired into crowds of unarmed civilians.People not even involved with Tinnamen.

 

long

[Trigg]

Hmmm, Can you say Kent State??

[Guest DragonFlower]

Yes ,I was thinking that.

If the National guard had killed 1000 times more people AND the government had managed to sweep it all under the rug.Oh and also if the guard had shot up the town while getting to the campus.

 

 

long

[tywy_99]

Hmmm, Can you say Kent State??

Crosby Stills Nash Young - Four Dead In Ohio

[eeyore]

I live near Kent state and went to school there too!!!

 

Can't read, can't write Kent State!!!!!

 

Thats our motto!!!

[Trigg]

Yes ,I was thinking that.

If the National guard had killed 1000 times more people AND the government had managed to sweep it all under the rug.Oh and also if the guard had shot up the town while getting to the campus.

 

 

long

Yea well, Chinese do things in a big way' Are you sure we have the truth about China??? Are you sure we have the truth about Kent State?? When was the last time China invaded another country and killed over 50,000 people?? 100,0000? 1,000,000??

 

Basically I have found the Chinese to be much more peaceful than most western societies. Don't you agree??

[Guest DragonFlower]

Are you familiar with a little island called Taiwan.

 

What does "crush" thoughts of independence,mean?

 

long

[Trigg]

Hmmm, perhaps we should force these people to be civilized. We are pretty good at that! Surely you are familiar with---well it's a long long list.

[Guest DragonFlower]

I prefer not to force anybody to do anything.

I am just hoping that my wife is already with me,if they decide to start back up a war they couldn't win 50 years ago.

 

 

long

[maiyademama]

When was the last time China invaded another country and killed over 50,000 people?? 100,0000? 1,000,000??

 

TIBET

 

Reprisals for the 1959 National Uprising alone involved the elimination of 87,000 Tibetans by the Chinese count, according to a Radio Lhasa broadcast of 1 October 1960. Tibetan exiles claim that 430,000 died during the Uprising and the subsequent 15 years of guerrilla warfare.

 

 

Some 1.2 million Tibetans are estimated to have been killed by the Chinese since 1950.

 

 

The International Commission of Jurists concluded in its reports, 1959 and 1960, that there was a prima facie case of genocide committed by the Chinese upon the Tibetan nation. These reports deal with events before the Cultural Revolution. Chinese Justice: Protest and Prisons

 

 

Exile sources estimate that up to 260,000 people died in prisons and labour camps between 1950 and 1984.

 

 

Unarmed demonstrators have been shot without warning by Chinese police on five occasions between 1987 and 1989. Amnesty International believes that "at least 200 civilians" were killed by the security forces during demonstrations in this period. There are also reports of detainees being summarily executed.

 

 

Some 3,000 people are believed to have been detained for political offences since September 1987, many of them for writing letters, distributing leaflets or talking to foreigners about the Tibetans' right to independence.

 

 

The number of political detainees in Lhasa's main prison, Drapchi, is reported to have doubled between 1990 and 1994. The vast majority of political inmates are monks or nuns. A political prisoner in Tibet can now expect an average sentence of 6.5 years.

 

 

Over 230 Tibetans were detained for political offences in 1995, a 50% increase on 1994, bringing the total in custody to over 600.

 

 

Detailed accounts show that the Chinese conducted a campaign of torture against Tibetan dissidents in prison from March 1989 to May 1990. However, beatings and torture are still regularly used against political detainees and prisoners today. Such prisoners are held in sub-standard conditions, given insufficient food, forbidden to speak, frequently held incommunicado and denied proper medical treatment.

 

 

Beatings and torture with electric shock batons are common; prisoners have died from such treatment. In 1992, Palden Gyatso, a monk who had been tortured by the Chinese for over 30 years, bribed prison guards to hand over implements of torture. The weapons, smuggled out of Tibet, were displayed in the west in 1994 and 1995.

 

 

Despite China having ratified a number of UN conventions, including those relating to torture, women, children and racial discrimination, the Chinese authorities have been repeatedly violating these conventions in China and Tibet.

 

 

Nearly all prisoners arrested for political protest are beaten extensively at the time of arrest and initial detention. Serious physical maltreatment has also been recorded in a significant proportion of cases. In the period 1994-1995, three nuns died shortly after release from custody as a result of ill-treatment and torture in detention.

 

 

The Chinese have refused to allow independent observers to attend so-called public trials. Prison sentences are regularly decided before the trial. Fewer than 2% of cases in China are won by the defence.

[warpedbored]

Much as I love to debate these issues the RR is gone because of hot tempers. You can debate it at JP's website.

 

http://www.jasonjun.com/boards/

 

I can't resist one little jab though. Taiwan is only still quasi independent because of being propped up by the US and China's reluctance to fire on it's own people. Taiwan has been a part of China for a very long time and it is inevitable they will be reunified.

[Guest DragonFlower]

Don't believe I noticed any hot tempers.

AND this is a significant part of Chinese culture.

As can be witnessed by the elevation of my wife's eyebrows when I mutter the word Taiwan.

Yes,for better or worse,Taiwan was propped up by the US.

But it is also Rich AND quasi Independant now.

A nice Plum,to pick.

Me thinks a case of Chinese government "sour grapes".

 

long