There Was No "Tiananmen Square Massacre"
This story was filed by CBS News correspondent Richard Roth, who was detained by Chinese authorities for 20 hours on June 4, 1989, while covering the Tiananmen Square "crackdown".
For years now (certainly by the time of the 10th anniversary of Tiananmen) scholars — and many journalists — have been describing it as a weekend massacre, a massacre in Beijing, the "Beijing massacre" or the "crackdown" in Tiananmen, but not a "Tiananmen Square massacre."
"Tiananmen massacre" is a phrase that still has currency, but it does tend to be used a lot less now in careful accounts of what happened there.
Behind this is the weight of eyewitness accounts, de-classified Western government reports, and historians' work that supports the story of a brief period of negotiation between the army and some student hold-outs (there weren't all that many left in the square by then) when troops began entering the square in force just before dawn -- silencing the public address system loudspeakers with a volley of gunfire. The last group of protestors filed out of the square to the south soon after.
I was being held captive by Chinese army troops on the south portico of the Great Hall of the People (which forms one of the borders of the Square) when that round of gunfire occurred.
I could hear it but I could not see into the Square. Around forty minutes later, Derek Williams and I were driven in a pair of army jeeps right through the square, almost along its full length, and into the Forbidden City.
Dawn was just breaking. There were hundreds of troops in the square, many sitting cross-legged on the pavement in long curving ranks, some cleaning up debris. There were some tanks and armored personnel carriers. But we saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel — in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a "massacre" had recently occurred in that place.
Later, being debriefed on-air by Dan Rather, I recall making an effort to avoid using the word "massacre." I referred to an "assault" and an "attack."
I reported what I saw; I said I hadn't seen any bodies. Admittedly, I've never made a point of trying to contradict a colleague on the air; I've simply stuck to my own story, because I've believed it's true.
Some have found it uncomfortable that all this conforms with what the Chinese government has always claimed, perhaps with a bit of sophistry: that there was no "massacre in Tiananmen Square."
But there's no question many people were killed by the army that night around Tiananmen Square, and on the way to it — mostly in the western part of Beijing. Maybe, for some, comfort can be taken in the fact that the government denies that, too.
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"Tiananmen massacre" is a phrase that still has currency, but it does tend to be used a lot less now in careful accounts of what happened there.
Behind this is the weight of eyewitness accounts, de-classified Western government reports, and historians' work that supports the story of a brief period of negotiation between the army and some student hold-outs (there weren't all that many left in the square by then) when troops began entering the square in force just before dawn -- silencing the public address system loudspeakers with a volley of gunfire. The last group of protestors filed out of the square to the south soon after.
I was being held captive by Chinese army troops on the south portico of the Great Hall of the People (which forms one of the borders of the Square) when that round of gunfire occurred.
I could hear it but I could not see into the Square. Around forty minutes later, Derek Williams and I were driven in a pair of army jeeps right through the square, almost along its full length, and into the Forbidden City.
Dawn was just breaking. There were hundreds of troops in the square, many sitting cross-legged on the pavement in long curving ranks, some cleaning up debris. There were some tanks and armored personnel carriers. But we saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel — in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a "massacre" had recently occurred in that place.
Later, being debriefed on-air by Dan Rather, I recall making an effort to avoid using the word "massacre." I referred to an "assault" and an "attack."
I reported what I saw; I said I hadn't seen any bodies. Admittedly, I've never made a point of trying to contradict a colleague on the air; I've simply stuck to my own story, because I've believed it's true.
Some have found it uncomfortable that all this conforms with what the Chinese government has always claimed, perhaps with a bit of sophistry: that there was no "massacre in Tiananmen Square."
But there's no question many people were killed by the army that night around Tiananmen Square, and on the way to it — mostly in the western part of Beijing. Maybe, for some, comfort can be taken in the fact that the government denies that, too.
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See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html
I had directly challenged them for the evidence on the basis that 1)there are other numerous witness statements and reports (such as your own) which contradict the Kate Adie?s massacre claims, 2) the burden of proof is squarely on the BBC to sustain its own claim and 3) their reportage suggests they should have incontrovertible first-hand camera evidence for their claim. If it had happened, and if Kate Adie could see it, there was no way the news cameras around her could be blind. No amount of rhetoric could paper over that.
It took some doing, as you can imagine, and in face of their repeated delays and silences I had to resort to the BBC Trust, which is the responsible public body overseeing the BBC, a number of times. And as you can also imagine, the BBC is still insisting on having their cake and eat it, that in spite of their anomalous lack of the proof they had pretended they had over the past 20 years, that there really had been a ?massacre? in the square. The back-paddling and weaseling in their letter was pathetic. But what else can they do? Admit to 20 years of disinformation?
So there we have it. It?s all smoke and mirrors, floating free with not one point of contact with ground. Whether or not you choose to believe it.
I have followed reports of this so-called ?massacre? from the start here in the UK, and the BBC reports like Kate Adie?s have been mountains of confabulation and hype with little real susbstance. It?s not just the more truthful accounts of other reporters like Roth which expose the disinformation, but the elephant in the room is that there was ZERO camera footage of any massacre, in circumstances when the evidence from the news cameras present in the square should have been overwhelming.
Concerning the injured and dead which were evident in the news footage and mentioned by Roth, consider this. There have been reports that the PLA soldiers were under strict orders NOT to shoot civilians, even under provocation. So the alarming bursts of automatic fire we did hear( but not see) in the news clips may well have been firing over the heads of remaining protestors to drive them off the Square. That the troops have been firing high fits with the pockmark damage observed high up on surrounding buildings and the arching tracers seen in some news clips. But what happens when the high-velocity AK bullets fall to Earth, hundreds of yards away from the scene? This may account for the many casualties amongst innocent bystanders far down surrounding streets, away from the square itself. The PLA was untrained and unequipped for crowd control, and by using live ammo, may not have foreseen the consequences from the spent bullets farther afield.
And that famous tank incident, with the lone protester? Would that guy be so confidently dancing in front of the tanks with his shopping bags, had they really just been crushing his friends? And would those tanks be trying so hard to NOT flatten him, trying desperately to steer around him? Amazing how excited and emotive reporting can override and shape our perceptions. It?s not just the Chinese people who have been vulnerable to brainwashing and propaganda.
I complained about the BBC allowing its good name to be used as a platform for disinformation over the so-called TienAnMen Square ?Massacre? of 20 years ago. The dissonance between the visual evidence and John Simpson and Kate Adie?s reports was evident even then to the careful observer, and I made my first complaint to the BBC back in 1989, to no avail. Twenty years on, the continuing lack of first hand evidence for the claimed massacre, in circumstances where that evidence should have been overwhelming, is damning. On the other hand, there is now quite enough information in the public domain?. from independent witnesses and from reports like Roth?s?.. to warrant a serious questioning of the so-called ?first-hand? story broadcast by Adie & Co from Beijing in 1989, and to construct alternative scenarios which better fit the evidence. The same old blatant hypnotic suggestion and repetition and posturing is no longer good enough. The sobering thought is how easy and effective this simple tactic has worked in making the world see and believe in something which probably was never there.
My complaint was submitted on June 8th, and to date, more than two months on and in spite of a couple of complaints, I have yet to receive a word of reply from the BBC on the matter, which is in breach of their own protocol in the BBC complaints website. That a straight-forward challenge for plain evidence for the claimed dramatic event, which should have been there in the very first place, should result in such a prolonged silence is itself thought-provoking. I continue to await a response.