Tiananmen Protests : 25 Years Later

Twenty-five years ago Wednesday, Chinese troops violently retook the square in Beijing where pro-democracy protesters had set up camp for weeks. The Tiananmen Square massacre left an unknown number dead, with some estimates in the thousands, and smothered a democratic movement.

In the early hours of June 4, 50 trucks and as many as 10,000 troops were sent to the scene. The military overwhelmed the civilians and began firing into crowds, but some protesters held fast, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

In some cases, they responded with deadly violence: Demonstrators reportedly beat two soldiers to death who had been seen killing a civilian. In another instance, protesters covered an armored personnel carrier in banners and then set the vehicle ablaze, trapping the crew of eight or nine soldiers. The military continued its onslaught and skirmishes lasted throughout the morning, “but by then the great, peaceful dream for democracy had become a horrible nightmare.” A doctor at the time said at least 500 were dead; a radio announcer said 1,000.

A few days before the raid on the square, “in a flash of exuberance” , the protesters erected a “Goddess of Democracy” that partially resembled the Statue of Liberty. The 30-foot statue swiftly made from Styrofoam and plaster became a symbolic monument to the pro-democracy movement, and was intended to be large enough to be difficult or at least embarrassing for authorities to take down.

The students who led China’s Tiananmen Square protests 25 years ago genuinely believed that success was a possibility – and though they foresaw a crackdown, they never expected the government to use live ammunition.

“We did expect some kind of crackdown. The logic of a mass movement is that you apply pressure and hope for your opponent to make the right choice,” Wu'er Kaixi, who was one of the main student protest leaders, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “We never really expected real ammunition.

June 4, 1989 was a “very dramatic night after seven dramatic weeks,” Wu’er said.

“We made very emotional demands. We went through hunger strikes. And one of the Chinese poets wrote that … the students moved the God but they failed to move the emperor.”

“Of course that time the square is in extreme emotional state,” Wu’er said. “But all the students there were almost ready, almost ready to sacrifice our lives.”

Wu’er was spirited out of China soon after that bloody day. He has lived in exile, in the United States and Taiwan, ever since.

He is desperate to see his elderly parents, and has gone so far as to try to turn himself in to the Chinese several times.

“Exile by definition is an escape from China, from my mother country, to avoid imprisonment.”

“But when exile [became] already intolerable, I decided even I have to go back into prison, I will rather take that chance so that I can meet my ailing parents – even if it has to take the form of a prison visit between glass walls.”

The government, perhaps trying to avoid the publicity around an arrest that would require a conversation about what happened in 1989, has turned him away.

“They deny it. They deny any request of taking me in, extradite. They decided just to play mute.”