MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: THIRTY YEARS AGO, THE PEOPLE OF CHINA DARED TO HOPE FOR A DEMOCRATIC FUTURE.

ZHOU FENGSUO, STUDENT LEADER: Millions of Chinese for the first time, maybe the last time in their life, taste freedom in the air of Beijing.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: BUT ON THE NIGHT OF JUNE 3, 1989, THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY TURNED ITS GUNS ON THE PEOPLE.

PETER EVERETT, DEFENCE ATTACHE (1989) , AUST. EMBASSY BEIJING: We didn't think they'd use lethal weapons , I can't imagine anyone in the West using live ammunition against their own children.

ROSE TANG, STUDENT PROTESTER, 1989: We realized it's a war they're out to kill us not to scare us.

BOB HAWKE, PRIME MINSTER, AUSTRALIA (1983 - 1991): Thousands have been killed and injured victims of a leadership that seems determined to hold on to the reins of power at any cost.



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: THREE DECADES ON, THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS DETERMINED TO ERASE THE MEMORY OF THE TIANANMEN MASSACRE.

ROWENA XIAOQING HE, STUDENT PROTESTER 1989 : In 1989 We were so young, and we experienced such a violent killing. We were not allowed to openly shed a tear, or light a candle for the dead





MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: THE MOMENTOUS EVENTS OF THAT SPRING WERE CAPTURED BY THE ABC IN A TROVE OF HISTORIC FOOTAGE.

MAX UECHTRITZ, ABC CORRESPONDENT (1989) : We watched in horror, as the full force of the Chinese military crushed the dreams of the democracy movement



MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: TONIGHT ON 4 CORNERS, WE LOOK BACK AT THE BRUTAL CRACKDOWN ON THE PEOPLE'S POWER REVOLUTION AND HOW IT CHANGED CHINA FOREVER.

STORY TITLE : TREMBLE AND OBEY

PRODUCER: LESLEY ROBINSON

CROWD CHANT: Fairness, Freedom!



Freedom of assembly!

Freedom of the press !

BIKE BELLS RINGING

CYCLIST: You know the Government suppress news , suppress the truth, of course we are struggling for democracy for science , for law.

CROWD CHANT: Democracy can't be delayed!

Revolution cannot be delayed!



Severely punish the corrupt officials.

:

TEXT: May 1989.

Students were massing on the streets of Beijing calling for democracy.

TREVOR WATSON , ABC RADIO (1989) : China has not seen student demonstrations on this scale since the chaotic Cultural Revolution of the 1960's.

Some observers see the current wave of unrest as the greatest challenge the Communist Party has had to face since it came to power 40 years ago and the students say they will not give up until their demands for political reform are met.



WANG DAN. STUDENT LEADER (1989) We really needed freedom as a young generation. And we believe democracy can bring freedom.

TEXT: Wang Dan was a 20-year-old history student at Peking University.

He became number 1 on China's most wanted list of student leaders.

WANG DAN: We realise the government cannot do it without any pressure.

So, I think we must go to street, and give the government the pressure, and let the government do some political reform, and bring democracy and freedom to China.

WU'ER KAIXI, STUDENT LEADER 1989 : There were a sense of hope, we were hoping that the, with our participation, we can alter history to a much brighter direction.





TEXT: Wu'er Kaixi helped set up a student federation to co-ordinate the protests.

He became number 2 on China's 1989 most wanted list.

WU'ER KAIXI: We want the Chinese Communist Party to fulfil their promises to the Chinese people.



MAX UECHTRITZ, ABC CORRESPONDENT (1989) Wu'er Kaixi was a very charismatic leader, who, when he spoke, everyone stopped and listened.

He was very much in demand.

People crowded around him like a rockstar.

He was definitely one of the prime movers of the whole movement towards democracy.

ROWENA XIAOQING HE, STUDENT PROTESTER 1989: People who took to the street in 1989, we didn't do it because of hatred, because of anger, because of grievances.

We did it because of love, because of hope, and even in our trust in the government, that it will reform itself.

cyclists singing

TEXT: Rowena Xiaoqing He was a high school student who joined the protests.

ROWENA XIAOQING HE: We thought this is finally the time we could speak out and express our youthful idealism to do something for the country and help it to do better.

TREVOR WATSON: The event that led to the protests, the catalyst, was the death of Hu Yaobang, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party.

Hu had been purged some years before for his liberal ideas, but they were the kind of liberal ideas that appealed to the students, a greater say for the people, an end to corruption, a greater degree of democracy.

FUNERAL MUSIC

TEXT: Beijing Correspondent , Trevor Watson covered the protests for ABC Radio.

FUNERAL MUSIC

TREVOR WATSON The students latched on to the death of Hu Yaobang as an opportunity to vent their feelings about corruption, about a lack of say in the government of the country.



TEXT: At the direction of Paramount Leader , Deng Xiaoping, the Communist Party newspaper branded protesters enemies of the state.

WU'ER KAIXI.: Directly from Deng Xiaoping himself, he asked the People's Daily, which is the party newspaper to print an editorial declaring the students' movement, counter revolutionary rebel, that's a very heavy labelling.

When we heard that, we were very, of course, angry but I think reasonably saying scared at the same time.

HUNGER STRIKE OATH: I will go on hunger strike of my own will.

I will firmly follow the disciplines set by the Hunger Strike Team.

Until our goals are reached!

WU'ER KAIXI : Six of us called hunger strike.

Wang Dan and I are among them and then it was responded well.

The students initially 2000 then it became 3000 students joining the hunger strike troops.

CROWD: : We hope our dear country will become prosperous and strong

TREVOR WATSON , ABC RADIO: Hunger strikers accompanied by perhaps 10000 supporters occupied Tiananmen Square in the centre of the city.

HUNGER STRIKER: We must stay here to force the government to answer our questions and answer our demands quickly.

WANG DAN: Hunger strike is the last choice.

We actually do not want to take this method, but this is the last choice.



ROWENA XIAOQING HE : The student felt that we are using our precious life, to beg for the government to come out talk to us and listen to us.

ROSE TANG, STUDENT PROTESTER (1989) : I did not want to go on hunger strike. I don't agree with that measure of activism.

So I joined the picket line right at the foot of the Monument to the People's Heroes.



TEXT: Rose Tang was an English student at Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute.

ROSE TANG: Sometimes we joined hand, hands, protecting the hunger strikers and the student leaders who are sheltered, who are in the tents.

We make sure the traffic for the ambulances, would be clear for them, and also, we wanted to protect the students and the leaders from foreign media.

AMBULANCE SIREN



ANNOUNCER: Please don't get in our way.



Journalists please give way to the van.

AMBULANCE SIREN

WU'ER KAIXI : I mean, these days in Beijing what you hear the siren of ambulance that ache everybody's heart.

When you hear the ambulance you know another hunger striker must have passed out.

ZHOU FENGSUO, STUDENT LEADER (1989): There were at the times almost a million people on Tiananmen Square. There would be ambulance moving in and out every five minutes, for example. It was seemingly chaotic, but at the same time the students had to keep order, because there was no police.

TEXT: Zhou Fengsuo was a physics student who became number 5 on the 21 most wanted list.

ZHOU FENGSUO: That's what I did I, I stepped in .

So I was not on the hunger strike list But I was coordinating the effort through this broadcast station on Tiananmen Square called the Voice of the Student Movement.

ANNOUNCER: Bus driver comrades please drive around - our ambulances were not able to get through

ANNOUNCER: Students please be mindful of the hygiene of your hands.

ROSE TANG: The announcer would tell us, oh, please do not sleep in, this is not a very good image for the students, please you know, pick up your rubbish. , and we have to keep the square clean and orderly.

CHANT: To fight for freedom, we will not hesitate.

Support the students



ZHANG XIANLING , TIANANMEN MOTHERS: Even the house wives delivered water and porridge to the students, as it became hotter, they delivered green beans soup.

Everyone was supporting them. Lots of people from my work unit went to support them.



TEXT: Zhang Xianling warned her only son to be careful when he went to Tiananmen Square to take photos.

ZHANG XIANLING: I told him not to get involved in this.

He told me the students were calling for justice for the good of the society.



STUNDENT : In the past the citizen just keep silent they never speak to the government , never dare to speak to government but now they stand up and come to speak the truth to the government .

YOU WEIJIE, TIANANMEN MOTHERS: Ordinary citizens like us, we really cared about the students at Tiananmen Square .



TEXT: You Weijie was a factory worker and her husband worked for the government.

YOU WEIJIE: The citizens and students of Beijing were of one mind, we all hoped the government could give the students a clear answer to their questions.

GUO JIAN, STUDENT PROTESTER (1989) : You see the whole city, people really full of hopes and lots of people they come out.

TEXT: Guo Jian painted propaganda posters in the People's Liberation Army.

He left the military and studied art in Beijing .

GUO JIAN: You never see this before and people living the fear, something you just realize people come out.

They don't really live in the shadows, they come up with hopes and they really trying to get this country changed.



CHANT: There is no crime in loving your country

It's reasonable to love your country.

ZHOU FENGSUO : Millions of Chinese for the first time, maybe the last time in their life, taste freedom in the air of Beijing and we were all, bound by this common ideal, you know, dream for a better China.

In that brief period, you know, the whole world was riveted by China.

WANG DAN : And there's another situation, is the President of Soviet Union, Gorbachev visit Beijing and-there's quite a lot of journalists gather in Beijing.

And , we think that's a golden chance let the whole world know we want China to be democratic

BAND MUSIC

TREVOR WATSON . ABC RADIO: China's President Yang Shangkun and an army of government and Communist Party officials greeted the Soviet leader as he and his wife stepped down from their chartered Aeroflot jet.



BAND MUSIC

CHANT: Long live freedom!

PETER EVERETT : The students protesting on the square, they blocked quite a bit of the ceremony, the pomp and ceremony that Deng wanted to put on for Gorbachev.

TEXT: Peter Everett was the Defence Attache at the Australian Embassy, Beijing.

PETER EVERETT : They couldn't use Tiananmen, so Deng was furious .

I think it was probably very significant in that it would've hardened his resolve to remove the students in any way that was necessary.



ANNOUNCER: The students who are in charge of cleaning the toilets please go to the north west side of the square quickly.

REPORTER: How long have you been fasting?

HUNGER STRIKER: About five days .

REPORTER: And how long will you continue to fast?

HUNGER STRIKER :I will continue until our victory.

AMBULANCE SIREN

TREVOR WATSON: There was a faction within the Communist Party that was sympathetic to the student movement and the students' concerns.

That faction was led by Communist Party, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, and because of this division within the party, China was indeed paralysed for a number of weeks.



TREVOR WATSON , ABC RADIO: Zhao , Premier Li and two other senior member of ruling Politburo visited hunger strikers in hospital this morning.

There are now more than 1000 hunger strikers in hospital and another 2000 in Tiananmen Square.



LI PENG, PREMIER: Have a good rest

CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION: The leaders expressed great concern for the health of the students and said they understood the patriotic zeal behind the hunger strike .

TEXT: Later that day student leaders met Premier Li Peng at the Great Hall of the People .

TREVOR WATSON: The government agreed to a televised dialogue, which was an enormous concession between Premier Li Peng and several of the students led by Wu'er Kaixi.

Wu'er Kaixi turned up in his pyjamas, He'd been in hospital, the effects of the hunger strike.



WU'ER KAIXI: We thought you know, maybe this meeting is significant, is a turning point. It's the part that the government is going to say, "Okay, we heard you."

But no, Li Peng came in, gave us a monologue of lecture.

: LI PENG, CHINESE PREMIER : There is complete chaos in Beijing.

Moreover, chaos has spread throughout the country.



WANG DAN: He just tried to scold us, and criticise us, and said, this is a turmoil, and make everything worse, and you have to withdraw from the Tiananmen Square, and he didn't want to listen any concrete policy suggestions from our side.

WU'ER KAIXI: I was sitting there in my hospital gown and there was oxygen mask and then oxygen tubes into my nose.

And I was said, no , this is not the dialogue or meeting we were anticipating.

This is government putting up a gesture to blame the students, so this is not going to lead to anything we want.



WU'ER KAIXI : Please quickly respond to our conditions because the students on the square are starving.

If we can't reach an agreement or continue to quibble on this question, we believe that the Government is unwilling to solve the problem.



WU'ER KAIXI: Yes, I was firm, I was standing on my position strongly as my role demands me to at that time.



WANG DAN: I was quite naive because we don't know the true face of the Communist Party.

We never released that this Party would do anything to defend their power.

TEXT : May 19, 1989. Just before dawn , Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang went to Tiananmen Square to warn the students he couldn't protect them.

TREVOR WATSON , ABC RADIO: Beijing television views were treated this morning to extraordinary images.

There was Zhao Ziyang, boss of one of the world's most powerful political machines ,the 48 million strong Communist Party , down amongst the squalor in Tiananmen Square ,pleading with students to end their protests.

ZHAO ZIYANG, GEN SECRETARY, COMMUNIST PARTY: We came too late.

You are still young, students, still young, you have long way to go.

You are not like us, we are old, we don't matter.

TREVOR WATSON: This was the last time of course, that Zhao Ziyang was seen in public and .we were told by sources that we had very close to the Communist Party and to the government of China that Zhao Ziyang had indeed been purged , that the hardliners had won the struggle for control of China and that the reformers, those who sympathised with the students had lost.

RADIO BEIJING : The Chinese government has decided to impose martial law in some areas in Beijing starting 10 o'clock Saturday morning.

The order says the move is taken in light of turmoil in the capital and is aimed at restoring social order

LI XIAOMING, MARTIAL LAW SOLDIER (1989) : We have order that we are going to Beijing to- to enforce the martial law.

:

TEXT: Li Xiaoming was an officer in the People's Liberation Army, stationed outside Beijing.

LI XIAOMING: Even I graduated from the military college, still I was student, I have sympathy with students even for not... some officers, like me still have sympathy with students. They think democracy is right, we need democracy but that time I think lot of soldiers, officers agree with the students.

HAO JIAN, BEIJING FILM ACADEMY: After the martial law order was issued, I got more involved.

TEXT: Hao Jian was a teacher at Beijing Film Academy.

HAO JIAN: I would ride my bike to Tiananmen three times a day, the enthusiasm and the atmosphere made me feel there is hope,



SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM

Get up! Those who won't be slaves!

With our flesh and blood,



Let's build a new Great Wall!



As the Chinese people face the greatest danger



Everyone's forced to let out one last cry.



Get up! Get up! Get up!



We're millions with one heart

against the enemy's ' fire!

PROTESTER: It's not Chinese to use the army against the people against the students.

WANG DAN : We never expect the people will stand up to protect us.

That night, when government issued martial law, a lot of student, including me think that might be the last day of us.

The government will send the military troop to the Tiananmen Square.

WOMAN READING LETTER TO SOLDIERS: : You are the brothers of the people .

You are Chinese too ,you are also one of us .

WU'ER KAIXI: Martial law troops trying to move in to remove the students, and then all the people said, "Don't. You're supposed to be the People's Liberation Army."

And it was years of propaganda that the People's Liberation Army, are the son and daughters of the people.

ZHOU FENGSUO: Tens of thousands of troops were surrounding Beijing, I was not really afraid because, I experienced people's will every day.

You know, this such overwhelming support for the students.



CITIZEN: All people get up come here stop the soldiers.



CLAPPING

CITIZEN: Peoples military, protect the people.



LI XIAOMING: I sitting in the truck and with a lot of soldiers but the , the people and the students were nice, they just tell the truth and what's the democracy just- just tell us and what happens in Tiananmen Square, so they just try to ask to go back, don't go to Tiananmen Square.

WOMAN CRYING : Please don't fight with each other.



Protect our country.



University students maintain your struggle.



Don't fight with the Liberation Army.

CHANT: We will defy death to defend Beijing



Li Peng step down. Li Peng step down .

Deng Xiaoping step down.



POLICE OFFICER : Student is good, we support them.

SINGING: "Happy birthday to you."

ZHOU FENGSUO: What's amazing to me, is that the protests in 1989, brought out the best of human spirit among Chinese.

The Totalitarian regime corrupts people's mind, moral, and destructs mutual trust.

But, Tiananmen, you know, during that brief period, it was so peaceful.

People were just so friendly to each other.





PETER EVERETT: Everything that the students and the other protesters because they were joined by many others, did, was under very close surveillance.

We learned later that the authorities had turned the road traffic cameras on the protests and protesters.

The cameras that had been supplied by Australia and Germany mainly, and they were photographing them using those cameras.

That all of the restaurants around Tiananmen where the students used to gather, had been wired for both sound and in many cases for vision as well.

RADIO BEIJING : Good evening this is Radio Beijing capital service.

Massive demonstrations erupted again Tuesday as Beijing entered its fourth day of martial law .

The troops ordered to carry out marital law are still stranded in the suburbs of Beijing.



WOMAN: We don't like Li Peng we don't like the leadership right now , do not like Deng Xiaoping

REPORTER: What's going to happen in China?

WOMAN: We don't know yet, but we are hoping for the good , we don't like students die. They are the hope of China.



TREVOR WATSON , ABC RADIO: : In Tiananmen Square where this crisis began with student protests for democratic reform the numbers have fallen considerably, and one report says at least 7000 students have left the square which now looks for the world like a refugee camp.

MAX UECHTRITZ, ABC CORRESPONDENT (1989) The crowds were dissipating, everyone was saying it's all over.

TEXT: ABC Correspondent Max Uechtritz covered the final days of the democracy movement.

.

MAX UECHTRITZ Then the students decided to build the goddess, what they call the goddess of democracy, so it was a plastic and Styrofoam, so it was a replica of the Statue of Liberty, which, of course, is the very heart of democracy, and here it was, about to be taken off to the symbolic heart of Chinese Communism.



CHANT: Long live democracy !



Long live freedom !

MAX UECHTRITZ: The students have staged yet another act of defiance bringing the statue several kilometres to their heartbeat of freedom Tiananmen Square.

SINGING



MAX UECHTRITZ: In The back of your mind all along, there was this sense of, "I can't believe they're doing this."

The fact that there were hundreds of thousands of troops ringing the city, but they were still prepared to do this.

I mean, it's an extraordinary, for want of a better word, provocation, to actually have a Statue of Liberty going down to the heart of Communism and erecting it in front of Mao Zedong.

CHANT: Long live the Liberation Army Long live the Liberation Army

TEXT: June 3, 1989.

In the early hours, Beijing citizens blocked troops trying to enter the city .

PETER EVERETT: An army unit made yet another attempt to get to the square and push the students out.

This time the unit ran, they didn't come in vehicles or anything, they ran for kilometres into town from the fringes of Beijing.

And of course by the time they got there, they were exhausted, but they also ran into people, not students, but into the people who didn't want this army turned against the kids.

SINGING

MAX UECHTRITZ: Amazing as it may seem people's power has turned back the People's Army for the second time in two weeks

CITIZEN: You have also been used by others you are also innocent you are also innocent

CROWD SINGS INTERNATIONALE



This is a final fight lets band together until tomorrow

The Internationale ideal must be realised

This is a final fight let's band together until tomorrow

The Internationale ideal must be realised

MAX UECHTRITZ : Even though there was tension in the air, there was no sense of, within hours of that moment, there would be carnage.

PETER EVERETT : The troops had got to the points that they were directed to reach and stopped and waited for the order to go in.



WU'ER KAIXI: Deng Xiaoping is the only person who can make the decision at that time.

He ordered , he ordered massacre.

ZHOU FENGSUO: I arrived about 4:00 p.m. on Tiananmen Square, and I can smell, tear gas in the air at that moment, It was the first time for me. I realised, you know, this is a different evening now.

ROSE TANG: I thought this is the time for me to fight and to die as a revolutionary hero then I hopped on the bike and cycled all the way to the square.

The students and the civilians of Beijing, they were busy making roadblocks try to try to stop the military trucks.

It was like going through a war zone.



LI XIAOMING: On the night of June 3 we got orders from the authorities that says "Every troop has to go to Tiananmen Square on time, by any means."



Some soldiers they think , "by any means", you give me the gun, you give me the bullets, which means I can open fire.



MAX UECHTRITZ, ABC TV NEWS: Tanks are rolling in down the main thoroughfare towards Tiananmen Square , there's sporadic shooting .

Automatic weapons opened up, people were diving for cover, we can spot ambulances going I ferry like fashion sirens blaring taking people taking bodies, taking injured people.

PETER EVERETT: We thought they would use riot control weapons, rubber bullets, hoses, mortar, all that sort of thing.

We didn't think they'd use lethal weapons.

Looking at it I suppose from a Western military viewpoint, I can't imagine anyone in the West using live ammunition against their own children.



MAX UECHTRITZ : At one of the big intersections an APC just ran over a young girl on a bicycle.

It was charging down anything and everything, barricades, people, and the protestoes had put up the steel barricades and at first this APC got stuck, and the crowd started gathering around it, hurling insults, and rocks, and sticks, and everything.

And then it revved up and powered off, but it only got a few metres and then it really stopped.

The crowd climbed up on top of the tank, and were bludgeoning the people below, and they were wrecking the tank with iron bars, and wooden bars, and bricks, and things like that .

HAO JIAN : Even though there were dead and wounded people around us, our mood hadn't changed yet.

A student asked another student to take a photo of him with the troops less than 100 metres behind him, I saw it with my own eyes, thump, he fell to the ground,

If the troops saw camera flashes, da da da, there would be a burst of gunfire towards that. -

CROWD: Hooligan , Fascist

LI XIAOMING: If I kill people I will be murderer. I will be a killer because I am just facing unarmed students.

I try to tell my colleague, my soldiers, don't open fire, but I can't stop the others. I just can only stop a few soldiers because I know this is going to be murder.

TEXT: High school student , Wang Nan was shot in the head after riding his bicycle towards Tiananmen Square.

ZHANG XIANLING: When Wang Nan was shot local citizens tried to rescue him, but they were not allowed .

The troops said if they dared to step forward, they would shoot them.



GUO JIAN : We run into the hospital and there's so many people already there and so many people already dead there and so many people wounded lying on there.

We followed the doctor into the room, the emergency room.

We're walking there. I totally shocked the floor body there, more than 100 bodies they already there.



TEXT: In the early hours of June 4th , a few thousand protesters remain in Tiananmen Square .



STUDENTS SINGING AT THE PEOPLE'S MONUMENT



ZHOU FENGSUO: We were surrounded. It was like a war zone.

We were hearing gunshots and seeing flyers all around us.

ROSE TANG: Some students brought back some blood-stained shirts describing the killings.

Then that's when we realized it's a war they're out to kill us not to scare us.

All the lights were switched off and we're just waiting.

We knew they were going to ambush us.

All of a sudden, all the lights in Tiananmen Square were turned on.

Then immediately we heard this deafening noise.

That was the loudest noise I've ever heard in my life, the tanks were rolling in, from all directions.

I saw them flattening the tents on their way, I saw with my own eyes the collapse of Goddess of Democracy statue , then the tanks, stopped at some point and the soldiers were hiding behind them, waiting.



ROSE TANG (1989 INTERVIEW) : We wanted to leave there orderly but that's impossible .

ROSE TANG: I knew I'm telling the world what's happening in Tiananmen Square.

And I knew I could be killed, jailed, and any of us talking to the camera could be in trouble. but we did not hesitate to tell the truth to the world .



ROSE TANG (1989 INTERVIEW) : Many solders just with their guns and heavy big big sticks pushed us and beat us and shouted get away get away

REPORTER: Do you think anyone got killed ?

ROSE TANG (1989 INTERVIEW) Of course of course I'm Very sure many students were killed

REPORTER: How do you feel right now?

ROSE TANG (1989 INTERVIEW) Feel right now?

I'm very angry

MAX UECHTRITZ , ABC TV NEWS : Trucks crammed with troops banked up as they waited for orders to move into the square .

At each intersection shots sprayed from the vehicles .

MAX UECHTRITZ: The entire Square was like a military compound.

There were dozens and dozens of vehicles, tanks, and APCs lined up, lots of troops, helicopters coming and going.



A column of tanks and armoured personnel carriers was coming-out of Tiananmen Square right past our hotel , it suddenly stopped.

There was a man holding shopping bags, standing in front of the tank, the lead tank.

This man then clambers up onto the tank, and squats down, and starts remonstrating with the tank commander.

He then gets back down again.

The tank tries to move.

It tries to manoeuvre around him, and every time the tank moved the man, with his shopping bags in each hand, jumped in front of it.

Four or five other people on the side of the road rushed over, fearing for his life obviously, rushed him off, took him over to the side of the road, and he disappeared the other side, and he disappeared forever.

He took a stand, became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, of all time.

He has been an inspiration to so many people.

The most obvious thing is to think that he was caught and captured, and killed, but we'd all like to think that he melted away into the crowd, and he's still out there, somewhere safe.



HAO JIAN : We went back to my office at Beijing Film Academy, the wife of my younger brother, Zheng Ying, called my office, she said (my cousin) Hao Zhijing didn't come back.

I remember clearly, when I received this phone call, my whole body became icy cold.

We found his corpse in a really large freezer, which was about the size of half of the room, in the mortuary of Fuxing Hospital.



YOU WEIJIE : When my husband was wounded, he was taken to Tongren Hospital by local citizens.

I was with him for two days and watched him slowly die .



When my son arrived at the hospital, his father already passed away, I think for my son and for my family, it was a catastrophe, I was really sad.



WANG DAN: The true hero of the whole 1989 democracy movement are those ordinary peoples.

The whole international community pay attention to us, but those people, they sacrificed their life.

Nobody know. Even, nobody know their name, so they are really the hero.

TREVOR WATSON There was a list of 21 of the country's most wanted headed by Wang Dan, one of the students leaders.

WANG DAN: . I was only, 20, 20 years old, and, , the, the whole movement is so broad, I, I don't think it, it was me who should take this responsibility.

And I also don't think that I really did a good job to lead this movement.

Why they put me on, on the first, I don't understand.

WU'ER KAIXI : I was number two on the- on the list.

I was not so much surprised and then I would probably take it as a great honour, to be on that list and then to be on that rank.

ZHOU FENGSUO: And I was ranked number five. I was in shock, but I was also profoundly proud of myself, because what I did out of duty as a citizen, as a student, now it was officially recognised by this government, you know, as being very important.

I have at that moment a very strong sense of achievement.

YOU WEIJIE: After the incident, the Government started thoroughly persecuting their own citizens at every work unit, every institution, every school, every department, asking what they have been doing in the last few days, if they took to the street and so on.

The Government not only thinks that it was right to kill their own citizens, but also lets the citizens live in the fear thinking that everyone should accept the June 4th Massacre.

If someone was found out to have participated in the movement through surveillance video, then their life would be in danger.

PETER EVERETT : The security forces then were taking advantage of all the intelligence they collected for weeks, photographs, names, addresses, everything else, and coming around and demanding that the parents give up the student. Knock on the door at 2:00 a.m., "Give us your son, he's wanted for crimes against the state."

They'd take them off and as often as not, two hours, three hours later, they'd come back and say he died either trying to escape or he'd fallen down stairs or something.



MUSIC

BOB HAWKE , PRIME MINSTER, AUSTRALIA (1983 - 1991): Young people confronting lines of armed troops not in anger but in disbelief that an army could unleash force on its own people with armed troops not in anger but in disbelief that an army could unleash force on its own people with such cruelty .

Thousands have been killed and injured ,victims of a leadership that seems determined to hang onto the reins of power at any cost .

ROWENA XIAOQING HE : In 1989 we were so young, and we experienced such a violent killing, and witnessing or watching it.

And it's literally the killing of your peers, of your generation.

But we were not allowed to openly shed a tear or light a candle for the dead.

And we carried this wound, this open wound, up to today, 30 years later and we still are not allowed to openly talk about it.

On the surface, Tiananmen seems to be totally removed and irrelevant to the total reality of a Rising China, but Tiananmen remains the most taboo and most sensitive subject in China today.

LI XIAOMING : They just tried to cover up the truth.

They don't want any people to talk about this one and they just want people forget, to cover it, to forget this truth.

Every day I live in nightmare, even now I getting better but I still dream of them, some people killed and yeah.

PETER EVERETT : The government was determined that there would not be hundreds, or thousands of deaths recorded as a result of Tiananmen, so they made the parents to collect the body for a funeral, they made them sign a statement to say that the child had died in an accident, otherwise they wouldn't release the body. So the authorities can now say, "Look, here's the list of people who actually died at Tiananmen. A couple of hundred maybe, not thousands."



YOU WEIJI: For so many years, I have a wish, I want to present flowers to him to show my grief, but that is impossible, because whenever it is around this period, I am tightly watched, I am prohibited from going to Tiananmen Square to do this.



ZHANG XIANLING: The government thinks this will be forgotten once people like us die which naive because this incident will never be forgotten.

HAO JIAN AT GRAVE: When the last person on this earth forgets you, your soul will truly die

But people, like you, will never be forgotten.



HAO JIAN: They have successfully erased historic memory and rewritten China's official history in China.

That so-called brain-washing is very successful.

Ordinary people think that if the June 4th Incident wasn't suppressed our country would become chaotic and economic development would stagnate. So the suppression must be done.



WU'ER KAIXI: In 1992, Deng Xiaoping, again, came out and strike a deal with Chinese people .

They say, "Okay, give us your cooperation, In exchange, we'll give you your freedom. Not political freedom, but economic freedom" .

Giving us our economic freedom in exchange of our own political freedom, it's a lousy deal. It doesn't make sense.

Nevertheless, the deal has been carried out.

The Chinese people took the deal.



.WANG DAN It's very important for the whole world to pay attention to what happened 30 years ago .

Today's China comes from 1989.

If you really want to deal with today's China, you have to understand where this China come from, and it come from 1989.



TEXT: There is no official death toll from the Tiananmen massacre.

Estimates range from several hundred to many thousands.

The Chinese Government has never given a full account of what happened.