Within two hours, citizens and students who had vowed to risk death for democracy had their pledge brutally confirmed. The main thrust of President Yang Shangkun’s loyal and murderous troops came from the west, just after midnight, when hundreds of trucks moved up the main avenue. The tactics were brutally simple. Armoured personnel carriers formed the spearhead while soldiers on foot shot to kill from both sides. Meanwhile, the first of the night’s armoured cars and tanks smashed through the citizens’ barricades to the east. It showed all the ruthlessness which must be contained in the army’s orders to smash the ”turmoil” allegedly created by the mass movement.
Several cyclists who could not get out of the way in time were crushed or tossed aside. It scattered a crowd of several thousand at Dongdan. Enraged citizens, still not aware of the full scale of the attack, headed for , Tiananmen Square, cursing the government as ”fascist” and ”heartless dogs”. I was grabbed by people urging me to ”report it all”. ”They who have money have power”, ”None of the people will give in”, they said, insisting that I write it down. But by 1.30am the grey shapes of the personnel carriers could be seen approaching Tiananmen Square from the west. The first armoured car was burning 120m from Chairman Mao’s portrait With a mixture of curses and laughter, the crowd milled around the square. There were distant explosions and tracer in the sky. At 1.50am a crackle of gunfire sounded on the far side. ”Don’t be afraid, don’t run,” many cried out, believing that it must be the sound of exploding teargas cannisters.
The Beijing government’s official loud-speaker soothingly repeated its message: ‘The Beijing government is the people’s government.” Police from the Beijing public security headquarters peered curiously out of their gate, evidently unaware of what was happening. At intervals of five minutes, fresh bouts of gunfire fire echoed closer. Then there was a lull and many in the crowd walked over to the army. The two soldiers guarding the national flag looked worried and talked on the phone. Meanwhile, the army sharpshooters appeared to have worked their way close the wall of the Forbidden City. Others emerged from inside, and at 2.10arn the shooting re-started alarmingly close.
The first casualty in the square was rushed away – a girl with her face smashed and bloody, carried spread-eagled. Another quickly followed – a youth with a bloody mess around his chest, also dragged just above ground-level by his limbs. Ambulances began to press with urgent sirens through the crowd. Other casualties were carried off on pedicarts with a dozen cyclists in escort. Within 20 minutes the same number of casualties were being evacuated. commandeered jeep had one wounded man held down on the roof, and two or three sprawled inside. At 2.40am there was another lull. People streamed back towards the square as ambulance drivers pleaded over loudspeakers for a clear path. Had the army stopped on the eastern side, its mission completed?
Leaving the safe cover of the Beijing Hotel, several foreign watchers workers’ strolled to the next intersection. From under the acacia trees on the dark pavement, or over a wall from the workers’ palace, the sound of semi¬ automatic fire spat out. The crowd fled, stumbling in panic around the corner, tripping over parked bikes. ”Who’s afraid? It’s nothing,” scoffed one who reached shelter. ”I’ve just seen a man with his skull blown away,” reported another. Within the next hour squads of military police, who had been lurking in the shadows around the square, now appear to have started to take control. Students still clustered in their tents and around the plinth of the martyrs’ memorial.
By 4.30am new columns of tanks were smashing their way from east and west, eventually to form two north-south lines across the square. Witnesses later reported that the army had been a bit less savage in the square: it had mostly shot at the stu¬dents’ legs or above their heads. But when they retreated after 6am, there, were reports that at least a dozen stu¬dents from Qinghua University were crushed by tanks. There were also many bodies outside the Xinhuamen gate into the Zhongnanhai residence of the communist leadership. New lines were formed in the morning. Two buses were set on fire outside the Beijing Hotel, and fresh crowds piled up behind them. Their numbers diminished closer to the square.
An eyewitness went forward with some 40 workers to plead with the soldiers. After taking 60 steps forward, they were down. Eight died immediately and the others crept back. ”I was frightened to death, I really was,” said a young Beijing lad. Machinegun fire also seemed to be coming from the roofs of the two museums in the square. In the southern corner, near the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, the body of an old man who looked after bicycles was left lying on the road. Wherever not faced with gunfire, the Beijing people continued to show spirit. Three companies of motorised troops from the north-east, believed especially loyal to President Yang Shangkun, were stranded on the overpass near the diplomatic quarter. –The Guardian, London
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
