|
China defends crackdown on Tiananmen protestsAFP BEIJING -- China on Tuesday defended its bloody crackdown on the 1989 pro- democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, nearly 20 years after tanks and soldiers moved into central Beijing to suppress the demonstrations.
May 20, 2009, 9:32 am TWN "Concerning the political storm at the end of the 1980s and related issues, our party and government has drawn an unequivocal conclusion," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told journalists. "China has scored remarkable success in its social and economic development - facts have proven that the socialist road with Chinese characteristics that we pursue is in the fundamental interests of our people." Hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters were killed by China's military on June 3 and 4, 1989, as communist leaders ordered an end to six weeks of unprecedented democracy protests in the heart of the Chinese capital. Victims of the crackdown insist that the military's actions in 1989 reflect the violent and lawless nature of the ruling Communist Party.
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||