tiananmen was ‘not a massacre’

posted in: china 0

in case you hadn’t heard, Ma Lik, the chairman of the pro-Beijing DAB party said at a press conference last week that the June 4th incident was “not a massacre” because soldiers did not indiscriminately kill everyone in their path.

translated by EastSouthWestNorth:

Ma Lik explained that that a massacre implied intentionality to murder. “If you starting shooting everywhere, you intend to commit murder.” But Ma Lik emphasized: “If this was a masacre, then that person (meaning student leader Chai Ling) would be the first to be killed. On that night, the four people (student leaders Chai Ling, Feng Congde, Hou Dejian and Wuer Kaixi) were able to leave readily. If they wanted to have a massacre, those four thousand students would be all dead.” Thus Ma Lik insisted that the central government did not intentionally clear the square by killing pepole.

Ma Lik also questioned the claim that bodies were incinerated at Tiananmen Square: “What do you mean by incinerating the bodies at Tiananmen Square? They would need an incinerator if they want to do it quickly.” He also questioned whether people could be flattened into meat pancakes by tanks: “So find a pig and test if it can be turned into a meat pancake!” Ma Lik: “I have never said that nobody died on June 4th. I only felt that it was not a massacre.” He said that he hoped outsiders could comment based upon the facts “and not treat the parts as if they were the totality.” When discussing the June 4th incident, “one should mention what people were saying at the time and then today. We should not only cite what overseas people say. We should exchange our ideas. But we should not listen to only those people whose family members have died, because they obviously feel wronged.”

I must say I was pleased and surprised to see the hong kong media jump all over these ridiculous comments. the media in hong kong generally sucks, quite frankly–at least in english, anyway (and the pictures splayed all over the chinese papers can’t be taken seriously either).

however, you really must read the following translations of two blog entries written by journalists who were at the Ma Lik press conference (bottom half of the page). apparently several of the newspapers who were present didn’t even cover the comments made by Ma Lik.

From our hearts, we wished that he would just shut up and not commit political suicide.