Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 4, 1990 TAG: 9006040057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: BEIJING LENGTH: Medium
Squads of armed soldiers and police gathered outside the locked gates to the university in northwest Beijing shortly after the demonstration broke out, preventing foreign journalists from entering the campus. Armed officers, however, did not enter the university, which is China's premier liberal arts school.
Eyewitnesses said that the openly defiant, apparently spontaneous protests by as many as 2,500 students - which began about 11:15 Sunday night and lasted until about 1:30 a.m. today - was not marked by specific political slogans, only the singing of the Communist anthem, "The Internationale," and the breaking of beer bottles.
In Beijing, the breaking of bottles is considered a statement against Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader for more than a decade, as his name sounds like the Chinese characters for "small bottle."
Students involved in the demonstration told witnesses that they believed they had to do something to commemorate the killings of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters June 3-4 of last year near Tiananmen Square, in the heart of Beijing. Students from Deida, as the Chinese call the university, were among the most active in last year's protest.
One student, a junior economic administration major who tried to give a speech, apparently was taken away by plainclothes police officers, an eyewitness said. In his speech, the student called for more open discussion in China's congress, giving land to peasants and factories to workers, and improving the intellectuals' condition.
The demonstration was the most significant challenge to the crackdown on dissent carried out by the Chinese government in the past year. It punctuated a tense but mostly quiet day here under the pressure of the most visible military and police buildup in Beijing since last year's protests.
No one was hurt during the protest, the witness said, though there was a brief scuffle between students and a man students identified as an official, either of the university or the Communist Party.
There also were several hostile confrontations between foreign reporters and public security officials on the streets outside the university.
Earlier Sunday there were three other isolated incidents in Beijing, also apparently intended to commemorate last year's killings.
In the morning, a middle-aged man - dressed in the manner of a worker, rather than a student - approached a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. crew on the north side of the square by the main gate to the Forbidden City, attempted to unfurl a small yellow banner and was immediately taken away by two police officers.
Part of his banner, briefly visible in the crew's film of the incident, said: "To all the world's journalists we report that a new philosophy has been invented." A member of the film crew also said that as the man was being led away, he screamed: "Rise up."
Also Sunday, a young woman who reportedly gave a lengthy essay about last year's events to a West German television reporter was quickly taken into custody by police.
The identities of the two protesters apparently arrested were not known Sunday night, but Beijing police reportedly said that the man was mentally ill - a common claim by Chinese authorities about protesters.
Authorities, having closed Tiananmen Square since Friday and having dramatically stepped up security measures in Beijing in recent weeks, were more than ready for the outbreak of any demonstrations Sunday.
Dozens of empty buses and vans - most with special "public security" license plates - stood ready on side streets leading to the square.
Squads of paramilitary police squatted in the underground walkways beneath nearby main streets.
by CNB