Tiananmen Square Recollections: Chinese Tell Horrors of Dissent

OCEAN CITY – Zhao Huaguang wrote a poem that brought him 20 years of disaster. Huaguang was the guest speaker for Amnesty International, Ocean City chapter June 4. That was the 25th anniversary of the massacre of Chinese university students who were leading a democracy movement of workers, students and people seeking to simply exercise their rights in 1989 in the Peoples’ Republic of China.
Since 1949, the world’s largest country has been ruled under a communist government. As Huaguang and the 12 companions he brought with him told the audience, people in China are severely punished for speaking out about anything, yet they do.
The evening’s moderator Georgina Shanley spoke of the need for all people of good will to rally around the heroes present in the room and their just cause. “I hope everybody here sees that we’re all the same,” Shanley said. “We are all vulnerable,” she declared referring to the oppression of people by their governments and the suppression of human rights.
Reminding people they must be vigilant and stand in solidarity with the Chinese human rights activists, Shanley said, “It could happen here.” Shanley spoke of the defacto genocide taking place in Tibet and the oppression of Uighurs, a Muslim minority within China, as well as the punishment of any kind of civil dissent by the communist government.
She then read a statement by the Dali Lama and recommended that people check out Dr. Yang Jianli’s organization ‘Initiatives for China.’ She also thanked the government of Ocean City which she describes as “extremely supportive.”
Then Huaguang spoke. Since he does not speak English, Lili Wang translated. She is a member of the League of Roar. Many of the 12 wore black T-shirts with the motto of the organization in Chinese and English, “You have the force to kill, I have the right to Roar.”
Huaguang recalled those days a quarter century ago when he was a university student in Beijing. He witnessed the communist tanks mow down students as they stood in Tienamen Square holding flowers.
He was so moved that he composed a poem and donned a black armband. He was arrested.
He told the assembled that after the massacre, the Communist Party purged thousands of people and incarcerated them. Some students are serving life sentences. He escaped and fled to a Christian village where he hid for four years. At one point he snuck back into his home village to pay respects to his father’s grave and try to see his mother.
“I wanted to open my father’s tomb and tell him I was just like him. We were both cheated by the Communist Party,” he said. His mother sold her house and gave him all the money (about $100 U.S.) and told him to flee. He did. He left behind two children and cannot contact them for fear of endangering their lives.
Zhang Cui Ping is a middle-aged woman from Shanghai. She and her husband had a little piece of property. One day she was notified that the government wanted her little home and she was ordered to vacate. She protested and for her trouble she was beaten, berated and jailed. That was just the beginning of her horror.
She and her husband were jailed for six and a half years. They were beaten with mop handles and Ping was sterilized. “In China we cannot speak the truth. The Chinese people became too frightened to speak up.” The judge told her that power came from “the muzzle of a gun, and you have no bullets.”
Chen De Li was the second woman to speak. Her troubles began Jan. 27, 2005. She went to mourn for a former leader and was arrested and beaten by police. She was jailed, stripped of her clothes and forced to drink soapy water among other indignities.
Her 15-year-old son was locked up with her. “When I got out I was ostracized for trying to undermine the socialist society, they told me,” she said.
She also recalled her childhood when her family was persecuted by the Red Guard which demanded the family home. Her father was hauled away to prison and after his release he did not live very long and died at the age of 44. She expressed her gratitude for being allowed to be in America although she misses her 80-year-old mother who is still in China and whom she does not expect to see again.
The last speaker was Ai Fu Pong who was also a victim of government collusion with profiteers who wanted his family’s property. He was told to leave or be thrown out. He and his wife protested. “Before we had a happy and rich life,” he recalled. They had a little hardware store. But he too became a victim of the Shanghai Demolition. He remembers the date. It was Sept. 10, 2001. “I was the victim of government terrorism,” Pong said. His wife was also told by the judge at her trial that, “In our country, government power comes from guns. The common people have no power against the government. The government has all the bullets.”
They decided they had to leave their home country. At the last minute his wife’s passport was pulled and she was not allowed to leave. Pong’s parents died during the struggle. He lost everything but his life.
“I am just one of many who are persecuted by the government. We are lucky we had America to come to,” he said.
On that, all 12 agreed and repeatedly thanked America for taking them in and echoed Shanley’s warning that everyone must all stand “in solidarity with each other,” because it could happen anywhere, even here.
To contact Shanley email shanleyg2001@yahoo.com or call the Bayside Center at 398-1934.
Amnesty International’s next meeting will be at Ocean City Library July 7.
To contact Helen McCaffrey, email hmccaffrey@cmcherald.com.