Tiananmen Square Massacre; 20 years later

The Image that shocked the world

This famous photo, taken on 5 June 1989 by photographer Jeff Widener, depicts an unknown man halting the PLA's advancing tanks near Tiananmen Square.

It started on the 15th of April 1989 and ended on June 4th, 20 years ago today. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of communist governments around the world. The protests were sparked by the death of pro-market, pro-democracy and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hu's funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered on the Tienanmen square. The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants included disillusioned Communist Party members and Trotskyists, as well as free market reformers, who were generally against the government's authoritarianism and voiced calls for economic change. On June 4th Chinese troops opened fire on unarmed civilians. The video below shocked the world as we remember the thousands that died...

My Father visited China three years ago, and stayed for almost a month. This was a trip that he had been saving up for several years. As part of a tour group they saw all the major sites from the Great Wall, to the Terracotta Army. The tour group was assigned a Chinese tour guide who was educated in English, and of course was a member of the Communist Party. My Father and other Americans asked what most American and European visitors ask when in China. "Tiananmen Square".
As a member of the Communist Party, the Tour guide has knowledge of what the tourists mean. If you ask the common Joe on the street, they will smile and say that it is in Beijing.
My father told me that the tour guides answer which was scripted by the party was simple: "This was an incident of insignificant consequence that the west focuses on more than it needs to."
The Chinese tour guide then spoke of the Sioux Nation massacre at Wounded Knee, as a way to compare, saying we had skeletons in our closet also.

Other Video's of the massacre

Charles Freeman Article about massacre that will piss you off

BBC: This day in History

Tiananmen: Days to Remember, but not by the Chinese

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