20 years on, families still fight for the truth of Tiananmen

IT HAS been 20 years since Jiang Jielian, a carefree youth of 17, ignored his mother's pleas and rode his bicycle to join friends among massive numbers of student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

His death in the early hours of 4 June, 1989 – from a bullet that entered his back and pierced his heart – would change his mother forever, turning a mild-mannered university professor loyal to the Communist Party into a heartbroken, angry parent pressing for answers.

Ding Zilin, now 72 and frail, has withstood two decades of arrests, interrogations and constant surveillance. Even today, she remains under effective house arrest as she continues her fight for the truth about the military crackdown and killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students on 4 June, 1989.

"Their bloody deaths should be returned by justice, not a life for a life. No matter what we do, our children will not come back," she told The Scotsman in an interview conducted a month before the anniversary, necessary to avoid the government clampdown that comes before every sensitive occasion.

Twenty years after Tiananmen, the government still quashes all discussion of that day. Officials maintain the demonstrators had created a "counter-revolutionary riot", therefore justifying the soldiers' actions. Any mention of the incident in state media is forbidden and no credible number of those killed has been released.

Yet a quiet but resolute struggle by survivors and the families of the dead and injured for answers continues.

"I don't know why they are so worried about us – we are widows and families who are old, sick and weak. It is impossible we would be a threat to national security. We just want justice," Ms Ding said, referring to the Tiananmen Mothers' network she has helped organise.

"We want the government to declare how many people were killed on 4 June. We want to know who died. And after that we want compensation for the people who were killed."

Their efforts have produced a list of those killed – 195 names, the most recent discovered only in the past few months – and annual letters to the government reiterating their demands. This week, a new letter was signed by 128 family members.

"What was once the truth that couldn't be clearer has become so blurred as to be almost turned upside down. Utilitarianism and pragmatism have replaced the idealism and passion of former days. China is not getting closer to freedom, democracy and human rights, but drifting farther away," the letter reads.

Today's students were babies in 1989. Too young to remember, they have been shielded from the truth by a government that doesn't want them to know and families afraid they will suffer from political involvement. It's a generation Ms Ding fears is more interested in good jobs and designer clothes than in the political changes her son fought for.

"Young people do not know the truth. They think the 1989 incident was not necessary."

The events of 4 June are not discussed openly at universities on the mainland. However, earlier this year students at the University of Hong Kong – who, unlike their northern neighbours, are able to debate such issues – voted 93 per cent in favour of calling on the Chinese government to be held accountable for the Tiananmen crackdown.

About 10 per cent of that university's students are from the mainland, and their debate was as loud as that among Hong Kong students.

"Even though they can't access everything, many know the truth. You cannot cover the truth forever," said Martin Kok, of the students' union.