ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 19, 1996 TAG: 9612190038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Offering a blunt rebuttal to Beijing's denials, witnesses told lawmakers Wednesday they saw Chinese soldiers violently crush the student demonstration in Tiananmen Square 7 1/2 years ago.
``I saw three-wheel carts and hand carts carrying dead and wounded people from Tiananmen,'' journalist Xuecan Wu told the House International Relations human rights subcommittee. ``As the carts moved, blood dripped on the ground. Bullets whistled past my head.''
Witnesses to a People's Liberation Army crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators June 3-4, 1989, reported hundreds, perhaps thousands of Chinese civilians were slain. The Beijing government, most recently on an official visit to Washington by China's defense minister, insists reports of carnage were exaggerated.
Wednesday's hearing was called in part to rebut those government claims and to open to criticism the Clinton administration's policy toward China.
Testifying, Jian-li Yang, vice president of the Alliance for a Democratic China, broke down as he described a man and a woman, both students, who were crushed by tanks.
``I got a good look at them. They were flat. Their bodies were all bloody. Their mouths were pressed into long shapes. Their eyes were flat and big,'' Yang said, as he held up a photograph showing a body covered by a cloth.
The testimony came a week after China's defense minister, Gen. Chi Haotian, said during an official visit that nobody was killed in Tiananmen Square, the central Beijing plaza where students held a mass sit-in demonstration. He conceded trouble occurred outside the square but said Chinese forces were justified in responding to violent demonstrators setting fire to army trucks and attacking soldiers.
``I can tell you in a responsible and serious manner that at that time not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square,'' Chi said in a speech to U.S. military officers at the National Defense University.
The remarks drew shock and outrage from Chinese dissidents and American critics of Beijing's human rights record, especially in light of Chi's role as the general in charge the night of the crackdown.
Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J. and the subcommittee chairman, said the Clinton administration is pursuing a policy of ``aggressive appeasement'' in China.
``It began with China, but almost everywhere else in the world - in Vietnam, Serbia, Romania and in Russia during the brutal war against the people of Chechnya - our government has chosen to hobnob with tyrants rather than to stand in solidarity with the brave people who resist them,'' Smith said.
President Clinton and senior administration officials last week repeatedly raised human rights in talks with Chi. But the administration argues that given China's increasing importance as an economic and military power in Asia, the United States must engage the Beijing government.
Smith said administration witnesses were invited to testify. None appeared.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB