LogFAQs > #880445469

Saw a documentary about it last night. These are pretty much the spark notes

-In 1989 thousands of college students stage a protest in Beijing against the corruption in the Chinese government and demand free speech, democracy, certain members of the communist party to step down, and an open dialogue with the Chinese leaders.

-Government refuses to meet the demand of the students so the students start a hunger strike.

-People from around the country start supporting the college students and multiple protests break out throughout the country.

-The government is scared of losing power; the leaders decide to hold an open dialogue with the student leaders.

-During the meeting, the student leaders were arrogant and pissed of the representatives from the government. They dialogue ended with nothing getting resolved.

-Throughout the whole protest the government heads have been repeatedly embarrassed and threaten military action for the second time. (The first attempt failed because the students blocked the convoys and convinced the army commanders to turn back)

-People's Liberation Army comes into Beijing for the second time. This time the soldiers are armed and most of them are from rural China and don't know anything about the protest other than what the government has told them; that the protestors are armed terrorists.

-Protestors get pissed off and start insulting the soldiers.

-PLA starts attacking the crowd with small arms fire and tanks. They're not just shooting the protestors either, they even attack ordinary people riding buses or looking outside their windows and running anybody over with their tanks and APCs.

-Protestors fight back by throwing rocks and molotov cocktails at soldiers and tanks. Some tanks crews are even dragged out of their burning vehicles and beaten to death. There was even one soldier who was set on fire and later hung from a bridge.

Aftermath

-After stamping out the protests there's a massive crackdown by the government with thousands of civilians getting arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. There's also a purge in the government itself to weed out sympathizers.

-Government claims only 218 civilians; 10 PLA soldiers; 13 Peoples' Armed Police were killed. But the chinese red cross claimed that 180–2,600 civilians; ~50 soldiers and policemen were killed. However, the red cross retracted this statement after pressure from the government.

-Eyewitnesses claim that they saw soldiers removing bodies from the scene by the bus loads. Even people who weren't dead but badly wounded were taken away. Lots of people are missing and unaccounted for.

-To this day in China, the government suppresses information about the incident and no one really talks about it since its frowned upon.

If anyone is interested in watching the documentary its called [Documentary] Tiananmen Square Massacre 1989 in China and it was uploaded by Francisco Alvarez.

Its 1hr and 18mins long

Just be warned that there's graphic footage and photos of people getting shot, being burned to death, hung, beaten to death, and getting ran over by tanks.