Scores of policemen kept a close watch on crowds in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, the anniversary of the bloody military crackdown on 1989 pro-democracy protests based in the vast plaza.
No public commemorations were known to be held, and there were few reminders of the events of 19 years ago. Instead, the square, like the rest of the Chinese capital, was adorned with symbols of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, in which it will be prominently featured.
Exiled dissidents and human rights groups have sought to link the two events, saying releasing political prisoners and allowing exiled student leaders to return would burnish the Communist government’s image before the Olympic spotlight turns on Beijing.
“Then the Chinese people can work together to build a new China out of the ruins of national tragedy and to engage the world as a rights-respecting nation at home and abroad,” Wang Dan (王丹), one of the 1989 movement’s leading voices, wrote in an article in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune.
Discussion of the student movement and the June 3-4 military assault on the protesters in which hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed remains taboo in China. The Communist leadership labeled the protest an anti-government riot and has never offered a full account of the crackdown.
Security was tight yesterday and crowds of visitors moved calmly around the square, one of Beijing’s main tourist attractions. Police and other security officers searched bags for banners or leaflets containing dissident messages. Plainclothes officers used handheld video cameras to supplement the dozens of permanent mounted cameras trained on the square.
A security cordon around the hulking Monument to the People’s Heroes was the only visual reminder of the protests. The obelisk and its surrounding terraces have been closed to the public ever since student leaders used it as their command center on the square in 1989.
Like much of Beijing, the square and its surroundings are getting a facelift ahead of the August Olympics. A countdown clock to the Aug. 8 start of the Games dominates one side, while tunnels leading to the square are being refurbished, the construction work covered with banners reading “Join hands with the Olympics, make a date with Beijing in 2008.”
Nearby, peddlers hawked trinkets bearing the Olympic logo as visitors wore T-shirts reading “I love China.”
In his article, the New York-based Wang bemoaned China’s lack of political reform since 1989, despite rising prosperity and a growing global presence.
“The many dissidents still behind bars today represent a national tragedy as well as a political humiliation,” Wang wrote.
In an earlier appeal, Human Rights Watch also urged China to free Tiananmen prisoners to show “the global Olympic audience it’s serious about human rights.”
The group, based in New York, said about 130 prisoners are still being held for their role in the weeks-long demonstrations, which involved tens of thousands of students and others, and which started in Tiananmen Square before spreading to several major cities.
In Washington, the US State Department urged China to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing in the crackdown. It called on the international community to urge China to release prisoners still serving sentences from the protests.
The US said that Chinese steps to protect freedoms of its citizens would help “achieve its goal of projecting a positive image to the world.”
China pledged to improve its human rights situation when bidding to host the 2008 Olympics. But one Tiananmen activist, whose son was killed as he hid from soldiers enforcing martial law, scoffed when asked whether the Games had spurred the government to change its attitude.
“I don’t have this kind of illusion,” said Ding Zilin (丁子霖), co-founder of Tiananmen Mothers, a group representing families of those who died.
She has campaigned to get the government to acknowledge those killed in the crackdown and compensate families for the deaths.
China Human Rights Defenders, a network of activists and rights monitoring groups, released a list on Tuesday of eight Beijing residents who remain imprisoned.
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