Many viewed the Tiananmen Square massacre as a crime, but the Cuban dictatorship saw it as an opportunity.

How the events of June 4, 1989 in China allowed Havana to rekindle relations with Beijing

 

A crime against the Chinese people by the Chinese Communist Party

Thirty six years ago the non-violent Chinese Pro-Democracy Movement was subjected to a military crackdown in which at least 10,000 Chinese people were killed.

The United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Chinese students condemned the crackdown by the “People’s Liberation Army.” Chinese students around the world took to the streets and protested the bloodshed in Beijing.

People of conscience the world over were horrified. Beijing was diplomatically shunned.

Cuba’s dictatorship endorsed the Tiananmen massacre to normalize relations with Beijing

In contrast, the dictatorship in Cuba saw an opportunity to rekindle and old friendship. Together with North Korea, and East Germany expressed their support for the actions taken by Beijing.

Cuban foreign minister Isidoro Malmierca commended Chinese authorities for “defeating the counterrevolutionary acts.” Fidel Castro openly supported Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, as a means to both preempt reform elements in the Cuban regime, and improve relations with Beijing.

Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen’s visit to Latin America took place in the midst of the crackdown, and he described the contrast between Havana’s warm welcome and the disapproval of many other countries in the region.

“The crackdown in Beijing, Qian says, completely changed the atmosphere around his tour: many Latin American governments expressed their disapproval of the suppression and cancelled his visits, and even the overseas Chinese, who usually greeted visiting Chinese officials with enthusiasm, had“stern faces” and questioned the reasons for using force. Qian had planned a visit to Mexico before Cuba. The Mexican government cancelled his visit but allowed him to go to Cuba via Mexico City.”

[…]

“But Qian’s reception in Havana exceeded his expectations. He was greeted by the Cuban foreign minister at the airport and brought to a welcome dinner the next evening hosted by Fidel Castro himself. Castro had a long talk with Qian at dinner which continued in his office until midnight. Understanding Qian’s situation, Castro gave him a detailed description of what had happened in Beijing since 4 June and the international response, based on his collection of information and from his own perspective. Castro said that he “completely supported the Chinese government” and would offer “whatever occasions and facilities” Qian might need to make his government’s voice heard.”

Cuba-Sino relations: From a warm embrace in 1960 to a decades long chill in relations

Communist China and Cuba had been close in the first years of the Castro regime. Mao Zedong had already been in power in China for a decade when the Castro regime took power in Cuba in 1959.

On September 28, 1960 the Cuban dictatorship diplomatically recognized the People’s Republic of China.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a Cuban delegation’s visit to Mainland China and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other high ranking Chinese officials in November 1960 to discuss conditions in Cuba and in Latin America, and the prospects for communist revolution in the Americas.

Subsequently, between 1960 and 1964 the two regimes collaborated closely together.

Mao's regime in 1958 had embarked on the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to reorganize the Chinese populace to improve its agricultural and industrial production along communist ideological lines. The campaign was a disaster that led to mass famine and a death toll of at least 45 million which did not end until 1962.

The visit by the Cuban delegation at the time did not go unnoticed in Mainland China. Dimon Liu was born in China and immigrated to the United States in 1965. She wrote about her early experiences growing up in the midst of the Great Leap Forward in 2017 and her first encounter with Cuba while still in China.

It was 1960, the height of famine during the years of Great Leap Forward. I was a child living in the southern city of Guangzhou in China. Meal time meant a little rice, and whatever we could scrape together. For nearly two years, we had no meat, fish or even cooking oil. We were starving.

All of a sudden, there was cane sugar from Cuba, and we school kids had to learn Cuban songs. We had been on rations even before the Great Leap Forward which began in 1958. Thirty jin (one jin is about 1.1 pound) of grains per month for an adult, and fifteen jin for a child above the age of seven. Two jin of meat and two ounces of cooking oil, also for a month. [...] People on our streets were dying of many infectious diseases, though no one dared to say anyone died of hunger.[...]

Frank Dikotter, the historian at the University of Hong Kong who wrote "Mao's Great Famine", a book about this period, said in a social media post that "the first thing the regime did in September 1960 was to procure an extra 100,000 tons of grain and ship it to Cuba," in order to help break the economic blockade imposed by Washington on the island. Dikotter added that "you can feed about 2000 people for a day with a ton of rice... Or over half a million people for a year."

Properly fed people rarely existed in China at that time, unless you belonged in the very small and exclusive club of Chinese Communist elite. For a child like me who received coupons for under 8 pounds of rice a month, you could have fed more than 2 million of us for a year; or about half a million Chinese adults for a year on a standard ration of 30 jin, or 33 pounds of rice per month for the amount of grain sent to Cuba.

Cuba was not the only place that China exported food to during those harrowing years.

In the midst of the Great Famine, while tens of millions of Chinese died of hunger, Beijing exported food to their communist ally in Cuba.

Relations between China and the Castro regime cooled, and completely deteriorated following a February 6, 1966 speech by Fidel Castro that was heavily critical of the Peoples Republic of China. Havana finally sided with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet split.

Criticizing Mao

Castro, while receiving Soviet subsidies, would continue to slam the Chinese Communists in the 1970s.

Journalist Chieu Luu, in his CNN article “Castro’s Cuba and Mao’s China: Communist regimes that never saw eye to eye” published on November 26, 2016 recalled the late Cuban dictator’s critique of Mao Zedong in 1977.

“I believe that Mao (Zedong) destroyed with his feet what he did with his head for many years. I’m convinced of that. And some day the Chinese people, the Communist party of China will have to recognize that,” Castro told American journalist Barbara Walters in May 1977. He went on to list what he said were Mao’s grave mistakes: a cult personality and abuse of great power. “I also acquired that power, but I never abused it, nor did I retain it in my hands,” Castro said. Although both Cuba and China were functioning Communist states, Castro told Walters he viewed China as a “good ally” of the US, which was a bitter enemy of Cuba.

How Moscow drove Cuba into improving relations with Beijing

Russia’s democratic spring in the mid to late 1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev led to a cooling of relations between Havana and Moscow.

Perestroika was a policy that recognized economic central planning was a failure, and pursued reforming and restructuring the Soviet economy, and Glasnost was a policy that sought “more open consultative government and wider dissemination of information.”

These policies both instituted were viewed with great dread, and rejected by the Castro brothers. This was at a time when 75% of Cuba’s commercial exchanges were with the Soviet Union, but that did not stop Havana from censoring Soviet publications, and the beginning of the Castro brothers’ outreach to Beijing in 1989.

Havana’s successful engagement with Beijing: Harming U.S. interests and security

Backing the massacre of thousands of Chinese nationals by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the orders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resulted in Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s high-level visit to Cuba in 1993. This was followed by Raul Castro’s first visit to China in 1997.

Prior to this, Beijing quietly began in 1992 jointly operating intelligence bases targeting the United States from Cuba, according to Chris Simmons, a former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Western Hemisphere counterintelligence research section, revealed to the Miami Herald on July 4, 2024. He said that U.S. surveillance services were unaware of the arrangement until 2001, operating undetected for a period of nine years.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a report in December 2024 that identified four places in Cuba it believes are most likely to be aiding China’s intelligence activities against the United States. One of the authors of the report Ryan C. Berg, Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Andrés Martínez-Fernández, Senior Policy Analyst, Latin America, Allison Center for National Security, testified before Congress on May 6, 2025. They point to these spy bases in Cuba being upgraded with new technology.

This restored “special friendship” between two Communist dictatorships was founded on the mass killing of Chinese civilians by the PLA in June 1989, and Havana’s public support for this crime against humanity.

Following this rapprochement, it is believed Havana began offering their biotech knowledge, gained from Moscow, to their counterparts in Beijing, and in 2002, China and Cuba signed a formal agreement to produce monoclonal antibodies.

By 2004 Cuba had joint ventures in China that included both biotech, and genetic engineering. Douglass Starr in Wired Magazine on December 1, 2004 reported on this phenomenon in the article “ The Cuban Biotech Revolution“.

What Cubans call “the Special Period” produced one notable success: pharmaceuticals. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, Cuba got so good at making knockoff drugs that a thriving industry took hold. Today the country is the largest medicine exporter in Latin America and has more than 50 nations on its client list. Cuban meds cost far less than their first-world counterparts, and Fidel Castro’s government has helped China, Malaysia, India, and Iran set up their own factories: “south-to-south technology transfer.”

In 2015, then vice-president Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Beijing and praised Havana’s collaboration with Communist China in the sphere of biotechnology. Granma, Cuba’s official national communist newspaper, reported on the Cuban vice-president’s visit to a biotech facility in China.

“Díaz-Canel emphasized the notable progress made by Cuba and China in the sphere of biotechnology over recent years while also highlighting the close collaboration that the two countries share in the sector; providing great benefits and knowledge for both peoples.”

Without Havana’s joint ventures over the past 20 years in Cuba, Beijing may not have been in a position to have the capability to run a biotech / genetic engineering lab like the one in Wuhan that caused so much tragedy during the COVID pandemic.

Modernizing big brother for the 21st century

Raúl Castro met with China’s Minister of Public Security on December 1, 2024, and Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei are providing Havana censorship tools that are used to block information, track dissidents, silence dissent, and shut down the internet during anti-government protests.

Communist China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on June 4, 2024 described Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla as a “good old friend of China.” Rodríguez’s official visit from June 5 to 9, 2024 as a special envoy of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel highlighted the two communist regimes’ “special friendship.” Never forget that this rekindled friendship was forged in the blood spill 36 years ago in Tiananmen Square.

To Remember is to Resist: #TiananmenSquareMassacre32

"We believe that the truth can be made public by first releasing the names of the dead and then going step by step until the true history of the killing is eventually restored."-  Tiananmen Mothers, June 1, 2021

Tank men face off on June 5, 1989 on Changán Avenue in Beijing, China

Human Rights in China (HRIC) is right when it observes that "to remember is to resist." 32 years have passed and we continue to remember, despite the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party, and their allies to erase this crime against humanity.

We remember the thousands of students and workers murdered by the People's Liberation Army and the more than 800 imprisoned. 

The Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets in April of 1989 was violently crushed by the Chinese communist dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989. By dawn on June 4, 1989 scores of demonstrators had been shot and killed or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called People's Liberation Army.

Between June 3 and June 5, 1989 other tank drivers ran over protester

On June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the massive and bloody crackdown after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China, a man risked all to protest what had taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trouses, and carrying what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

The lead tank tried two drive around him, but the man repeatedly ran in front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit. The protester climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with them. Eventually he climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the protester once again blocked the tank column.

Wider perspective of the Tank Man protest with the full column of tanks

Thousands more would be rounded up, arrested and sentenced to prison in show trials. As many as a thousand received death sentences that were carried out. This time two men, dressed in blue, approach the protester and escort him off the main avenue and disappeared into the crowd.

At least seven spent over two decades behind bars, and there names are Zhu Gengsheng, Li Yujun, Jiang Yaqun, Chang Jinqiang, Miao Deshun, Shi Xuezhi, and Yang Pu.  The last to be freed, that we know about, Miao Deshun, was freed on October 15, 2016. He was jailed for 27 years. They were living ghosts.

Below we share the 2021 statement of the Tiananmen Mothers and their continuing demands for truth, memory and justice.

Some Tiananmen mothers hold up photos of their loved ones.

Our Faith and Perseverance Will Never Change: On the 32nd Anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre

by the Tiananmen Mothers

June 1, 2021

[Translation by Human Rights in China]

On June 4, 1989, in a time of peace, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, under the leadership and command of the ruling authorities, sent tanks, armored vehicles, and soldiers with live ammunition onto the ten-mile Chang’an Avenue in Beijing. Without restraint or scruples, they shot and crushed unarmed students and citizens, and even destroyed the bodies to cover up their crimes. As a result, some of the victims’ families have heard nothing about their loved ones after they left home, not knowing if they were dead or alive, as if they had vanished from the face of the earth.

This massacre—devoid of humanity and sending shockwaves around the world—was stupefying and unconscionable. On that sleepless night, residents huddled in the streets and alleyways to discuss the escalating situation. Despite hearing gunshots, those good-hearted people still thought the army was merely shooting rubber bullets to scare the people. The students and residents at the scene were equally naive in clutching to their illusions about the government, until people around them started to collapse, their bright-red blood staining the ground. Only then did the crowds start to panic, flounder, weep, and take cover. Still more residents risked their own lives to rescue those who had fallen around them, using all means of transportation available to them—such as flatbed tricycles, carts, and vans—to rush the injured to nearby hospitals as fast as they could.

In the spirit of saving lives and healing wounds, hospital staff poured all they had in them into rescuing those injured. Many hospitals took in more people than they could possibly operate on and were forced to triage the patients for surgeries. Due to the overwhelming number of wounded people, many waited for hours without treatment. Because of the delay, some lost their limbs in otherwise preventable amputations and others their lives. In the face of tragedy, the selflessness and sacrifice of the ordinary residents of Beijing who rushed to rescue others despite their own risks was both laudable and gut-wrenching. Preserving life is the instinct of humanity. In stark contrast was the viciousness and brutality of the authorities who violated the constitution and sent in the army to crack down on the unarmed students and residents.

As to how many people were killed and injured in the end—the government has not uttered a single word for the past 32 years. All Chinese people have been stripped of the right to learn about the tragedy and even forbidden to openly commemorate the dead or hold the ruling Communist Party of China and the government responsible for the bloodbath. The government’s immorality and use of silent contempt to deprive each individual’s right to life have led to the blocking of all information related to the June Fourth massacre. Having grown up in a false sense of prosperous jubilance and enforced glorification of the government, many young people nowadays have no idea of or refuse to believe what happened on June 4, 1989, in the nation’s capital.

Back in 1949, Beijing, a city with a history of more than 3,000 years and had served as the capital of three dynasties, was peacefully liberated by the army without a single shot or cannon fired. Sadly, 40 years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the passionately patriotic people of Beijing were slaughtered by the martial law troops, who called themselves the “people’s army,” in a human tragedy of blood and tears.

We, relatives and families of the victims, have experienced the most painful agony in life, and our hearts have known no joy ever since. The middle-aged bereaved parents back then are now gray-haired seniors. They hope to see the law bring fairness and justice in their lifetime—a wish that, once fulfilled, will console their shattered hearts and allow the spirits of their children to rest in peace. And as for the children who lost their fathers or mothers in June Fourth, and traumatized by growing up in incomplete families, allowing the public to learn about the massacre will also bring them solace. However, almost 32 years later, we still don’t see any official attempt at unsealing and disclosing information about the bloodshed, and the killing in June 1989 remains a taboo for the government.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and a great deal of preparation and propagandistic efforts have been put into the celebration. In mid-April, the government also published a high-profile speech delivered on July 1, 2016 by Chinese President Xi Jinping—who also serves as the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission—at a commemoration of the CPC’S 95th founding anniversary. In his speech, Xi demanded that “all Party members shall put the people in the most prominent place in their hearts and adhere to the fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, effectively realizing, protecting, and developing the people’s broadest interests. The people’s support, approval, satisfaction, and affirmation should be regarded as the fundamental standard for the success or failure of all of our work so that the Party may enjoy an inexhaustible source of strength.” “Our greatest threat as the ruling party is corruption. . . . [We must] be in fearful reverence of the people, the Party, and the law and discipline, and use our power with fairness, in accordance with the law, to the benefit of the people, and with integrity, to maintain the unsullied political nature of the incorruptible CPC members.”

In 1989, the social incident that was triggered by the student movement in Beijing and involving the participation of people from all walks of life in many major cities across the country—who used peaceful and rational demonstrations to voice their opposition to bureaucratic profiteering, embezzlement, and corruption to the government—was the most quintessential manifestation of a healthy society. When the public spotted embezzlement and corruption in the CPC’s powerful elite during the Reform and Opening Up, what the government should have done was to assess its performance based on the people’s demands and resolve social conflicts in accordance with the law, rather than seeing protests as turmoil and using the state’s military force to indiscriminately murder innocent people in broad daylight on the streets of Beijing.

We believe it is the unavoidable responsibility of the CPC and the Chinese government to resolve the June Fourth massacre, and redressing the tragedy is the first step to governing the country by law, respecting the people’s own agency, and ensuring their position as the masters of the country. Doing this would let the people CPC members have nothing to hide and seek no personal gain, and that the Party’s conduct is also subject to the supervision of the law. We look forward to the day when the CPC and the Chinese government can sincerely and courageously set the record straight and take up their due responsibility for the anti-human 1989 massacre in accordance with the law and the facts.

We have been calling for a peaceful dialogue with the government since the late 1990s to discuss the June Fourth tragedy and ways to resolve it in accordance with the law. To this end, we have publicly put forward the three demands of “truth, compensation, and accountability” and established a dialogue group. We believe that the truth can be made public by first releasing the names of the dead and then going step by step until the true history of the killing is eventually restored. Compensation should be paid to the relatives of the victims, and those responsible for ordering the shooting should be held legally accountable. We look forward to seeing the CPC and the Chinese government bow down and apologize to the entire nation for this atrocity!

Our group lost two more mothers of victims to illness in 2020, and we have lost 62 bereaved family members thus far. As the years go by, the parents in our group are getting older by the day, and some of the elderly have left us forever. However, our faith and perseverance will never change!

 [ Signers 122]

For more information visit:

Standoff At Tiananmen
How Chinese Students Shocked the World with a Magnificent Movement for Democracy and Liberty that Ended in the Tragic Tiananmen Massacre in 1989
http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/

Virtual Museum of China '89
http://museums.cnd.org/China89/

http://www.cnd.org/June4th/

Screams for help at China's secret 'black jails' - 27 Apr 09 AlJazeera
https://youtu.be/NsN4-A1G5zc

Seeking Justice, Chinese Land in Secret Jails / NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html

A piece of red cloth by Cui Jian (music video - song sang by him in the Square)
https://youtu.be/l8UPST1ZKSw

Frontline Documentary Tankman
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/

#Tiananmen32: A reflection and a call to action

In memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and for those still unjustly imprisoned today in China.

Students peacefully demonstrating in Beijing in 1989

Thirty two years ago tonight it began.

The Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets in April of 1989 was violently crushed by the Chinese communist dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989. By dawn on June 4, 1989 scores of demonstrators had been shot and killed or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called People's Liberation Army.

Thousands more would be rounded up, arrested and sentenced to prison in show trials. As many as a thousand received death sentences that were carried out.

The response of the West and the United States at the forefront?  Pro forma protests to satisfy the outrage of their citizens while secretly meeting with the men who had ordered the mass killing to let them know that what was important was their economic relationship.

Bodies at Shuili hospital mortuary. All died from bullet wounds. Credit Jian Li

 The failure of the Western Democracies to side with China’s democratic forces due to narrow economic interests to trade and subsidize a murderous communist dictatorship that murdered more than 45 million of its own people has cost much both materially and spiritually.

The behavior of Western tech firms in China, who collaborated with the secret police in identifying dissidents who were rounded up, jailed, tortured and in some cases killed and censoring information on the internet to erase the crimes of Tiananmen, the Cultural Revolution, and the mass famines of the Mao era laid the groundwork for silencing and censoring courageous Chinese scientists, and journalists who tried to warn the world of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is shocking to think that the 3.7 million dead worldwide in the COVID-19 pandemic is not even 10% of the number killed in the People's Republic of China by the Communists. Estimates range in the 45 million range.

Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 prior to the crackdown

In 1989 the struggle for freedom was occurring in Beijing, today it is happening in Hong Kong, with communist repression being visited on Hong Kong residents, Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and the Tibetan people who live under a communist occupation of their homeland Tibet.  Now we witness American actors and athletes kowtowing to Beijing and apologizing for correctly referring to Taiwan as a country.

We must not remain passive before this avalanche of injustice and genocide.

Elie Wiesel at his Nobel Lecture in 1986 observed: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Bearing witness and taking action continues to be necessary to avoid forgetting. Wiesel in the same lecture explained the consequences of not remembering: "To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death."

We owe it both to the dead and the living to remember, and continue to seek justice. The last year of death and disease should be a wake up call for the high price of being complicit with Communist China.  

Tonight in a candlelight vigil in Washington, DC listened to the wise counsel of Chinese dissidents Yang Jianli, Sean Lin, and Chen Guangcheng. May the world listen to them, and repent.

Remembering Tiananmen: Tankman 31 years later

The power of one person to make a difference

Tankman

Following the June 4, 1989 crackdown and massacre on June 5th one man stood up to a line of tanks involved in the Tiananmen Square slaughter to express his moral outrage and blocked the column.

He stands alone blocking the tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989.  The picture above was taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener.

The 2004 Frontline Documentary Tankman explored the significance of this act, and attempts to discover what happened. Below the documentary available online:



Below are two videos beginning with a song by Chinese rocker Cui Jian who played a concert for the students in Tiananmen Square during the protests and prior to the crackdown, and the documentary, The Gates of Heavenly Peace (both in English and Chinese) that provides a fuller context. 


In memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and for those still unjustly imprisoned today in China.

Tiananmen Square at 29: Remembrance and a call to action

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera

Tonight on the 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre we gathered by the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, DC and at 8:00pm began a vigil for all those killed. Survivors gathered and gave their testimony. 

We listened to Fang Zheng, who lost both his legs after they were crushed by a Chinese tank 29 years ago. Last month, like tonight, he was introduced by Yang Jianli, another survivor of Tiananmen at the Oslo Freedom Forum.

Tonight I listened to Cui Jian's song, Piece of Red Cloth, that he played for protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen protests, it remains a powerful song today.

In Hong Kong over a 115,000 people gathered in a candlelight vigil in remembrance of those killed on June 4, 1989 in China.

JUST IN: 115,000 attend Hong Kong's #Tiananmen Massacre vigil, organisers say https://t.co/IAg2MnOwp8 [Correction] #june4 #tiananmen pic.twitter.com/MZROBH8uRC

— Hong Kong Free Press (@HongKongFP) June 4, 2018

Following the June 4, 1989 crackdown and massacre on June 5th one man stood up to a line of tanks involved in the Tiananmen Square slaughter to express his moral outrage and blocked them. At the same time it is important to remember that the driver in that lead tank refused to run over the protester. Both individuals are heroes and both their fates remain unknown.

The 2004 Frontline Documentary Tankman explores the significance of this act, and attempted to discover what happened. Now Initiatives for China has a campaign underway to petition the Chinese government to reveal the truth of what happened to the two Tiananmen tank men. Please sign the petition to find out what happened to the tank men.

Tiananmen Square Massacre at 28

In memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and for those still unjustly imprisoned today in China.

Students peacefully demonstrating in Tiananmen in 1989

Tiananmen Square and the events of June 1989 remain a censored topic in mainland China, but now one finds that "mistaken" censorship is also taking place outside of communist China. On May 11, 2017 The Wall Street Journal reported in the article "China Tells Facebook to ‘Come Learn From Us’ on Censoring Content " that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "has tried everything" to get Facebook Inc unblocked in China.  Days later on May 26, 2017 Facebook rejected a Hong Kong activist's profile picture frame referencing the Tiananmen massacre. Following an outcry Facebook apologized and approved the image.

Image "mistakenly" censored by Facebook

What are so many so desperate to forget?

Twenty eight years ago the Communist leadership of China opened fire on the Chinese people. The Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets in April of 1989 was violently crushed by the Chinese communist dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989. By dawn on June 4, 1989 scores of demonstrators had been shot and killed or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called People's Liberation Army, the blood of students and workers splattered and flowed in the streets of Beijing. The Chinese Red Cross had initially counted 2,600 dead when they were pressured to stop by Chinese officials and silenced on this matter.

Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate, is currently jailed for his continued non-violent activism but had already served a prison sentence for his participation in the 1989 Tiananmen student protest. On June 2, 1989 Liu Xiaobo and three others entered Tiananmen Square and started a hunger strike at 5:00pm reading a lengthy proclamation excerpted below:

We start our hunger strike. We protest. We call upon people. We repent. We are not looking for death, we are looking for the true life. Under the irrational militant violence by the Li Peng regime, Chinese intellectuals must end their all-words-but-no-action tradition of osteomalacia. We must protest the military rule with our actions. We must give birth to a brand new political culture with our own actions. 

Powerful international interests sided with the Beijing dictatorship and helped to perpetuate totalitarian rule in China.  One high profile example at the time was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who persuaded the Bush Administration to downplay the human rights considerations surrounding the Beijing Massacre and to focus on the economic and strategic relationship. One month after the massacre on July 4, 1989 George H.W. Bush sent a secret high level delegation to meet with the Chinese regime and join with them in celebrating American independence.   


Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published a October 1, 1989 article revealing Kissinger's direct business ties to Communist China and his defense of the regime and justification of the massacre. FAIR reported how on August 1, 1989 this business consultant who also heads "China Ventures" [that engages China's state bank in joint ventures] wrote a column that appeared in The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times claiming that "The Caricature of Deng as a Tyrant Is Unfair."

Democrats proved no better on China.  

President Carter normalized relations between Washington and Beijing on January 1, 1979. China's one child policy that systematically violates the reproductive rights of all Chinese was first applied in 1979. The conventional belief then with regards to China was that normal relations would lead to a greater opening for human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy. The opposite has been the case. In China the policy of trade and political engagement has led to a thriving economic system under Communist party control and modernization and expansion of both the military and police state to continue repressing the Chinese people.

President Carter meeting with future author of Tiananmen massacre, Deng Xiaoping

Ten years after Carter succeeded in normalizing relations with the communist dictatorship in China that same regime on June 4, 1989 engaged in a massive crackdown killing thousands of Chinese students and workers who had been non-violently protesting corruption and demanding democratic reforms. American Independence while downplaying pro-forma criticisms made by the Administration. Candidate Bill Clinton would critique this de-linkage of human rights and commercial interests by the Bush Administration only to intensify the practice during his own presidency on May 26, 1994. This reached a symbolic low point in 1996 when the General responsible for the 1989 massacre was received at the Clinton White House with a 19 gun salute. 

This failure of the United States government and much of the Western world sacrificed human rights and decency for the sake of economic interests. Leaving it to civil society, the press and non-governmental organizations to try and take up the slack. The outcome has been a steady deterioration of human rights and freedoms around the world. China is now a rising superpower with a regime that has blood on its hands and refuses to recognize, apologize or repent for its past crimes including the events surrounding Tiananmen.  

Twenty eight years later and it remains up to civil society, and the press to remember and continue to demand justice. In Hong Kong hundreds of thousands will take to the streets in memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and freedom on June 4, 1989. 

Elie Wiesel in his 1986 Nobel Lecture explained why this date should be remembered: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." 

Vigil in Hong Kong on June 4th to remember Tiananmen

 In China four activists were indicted and jailed for producing and promoting their own baijiu (a popular Chinese liquor) that commemorated the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. Amnesty International declared them prisoners of conscience on May 17, 2017 and have a campaign underway #ToastToRememberin order to observe the anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Beijing massacre.

#ToastToRemember in order to Remember #Tiananmen

 

This New Year they remain imprisoned for acts of conscience

Honoring the courageous

Seven years ago on Christmas day in Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, a prominent intellectual and long time activist, to eleven years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power." His "crime"? Organizing a petition drive in China calling for democratic reforms in 2008. 2016 marks the seventh anniversary of his unjust sentencing and the sixth anniversary of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

PEN America's case history on this courageous Chinese dissident reveals that he could have stayed in the United States where he was a visiting scholar in the United States in 1989 but returned to China after the start of the Tiananmen uprising:

"Liu Xiaobo is a renowned literary critic, writer, and political activist based in Beijing. He served as president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center from 2003 to 2007 and now serves as an honorary president. He was a professor at Beijing Normal University and was a visiting scholar at several universities outside of China, including the University of Oslo, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia University in New York City.  In the spring of 1989, Liu Xiaobo left his post at Columbia University and returned to Beijing to play a crucial role in the spreading pro-democracy movement..."

Unfortunately, the situation in China has not improved and international solidarity has receded over an economically and militarily ascendent China. Nevertheless in China activists took to the streets and risked their freedom to demand the release of Liu Xiaobo.

Cuba is a long way geographically from China but the trends in the island nation have also been in the wrong direction in terms of regime behavior and the international environment. However Cubans like the Chinese understand this and while many flee the country, some remain and risk everything for their homeland.

Last year was at the King Mango Strut with Cuban dissidents lampooning the Castro regime and the Obama administration. Among the revelers was Danilo Maldonado, also known as "El Sexto" an artist who desires to live in freedom, in Cuba. Under the Castro brothers that is not an easy feat and Danilo has already been declared an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience after a prolonged detention in December of 2014 for trying to carry out a performance art piece mocking the Castro brothers.

This Christmas finds him behind bars for tagging a wall with the phrase "Se fue" [he left] referring to the death of Fidel Castro on November 26, 2016. Beaten up and arrested Danilo has spent Christmas and New Years behind bars.

El Sexto is not alone, also arrested in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's death was Eduardo Cardet, the spokesperson of the Christian Liberation Movement. Cardet who is also a beloved medical doctor and family man respected in his community. While traveling abroad his wife was detained and warned that upon his return they would lock him up for 15 years in prison for having met the wrong people during his travels. Despite the threat Eduardo Cardet returned home to a brutal beating, incarceration and trumped up charges. He has also spent Christmas and New Years imprisoned and separated from his family.

Liu, Danilo and Eduardo could have easily stayed in the United States as political refugees, but made the courageous decision to return to their homeland and continue the struggle for freedom.

Today as we are about to celebrate the New Year and celebrated Christmas let us take a moment to reflect upon these three courageous men and their profound sacrifices for liberty

Call to action: Sign on the Petition to Seek Truth About the Two Tiananmen Tank Men

The power of two individuals to make a difference

What became of the two Tiananmen tank men?

Following the June 4, 1989 crackdown and massacre on June 5th one man stood up to a line of tanks involved in the Tiananmen Square slaughter to express his moral outrage and blocked them. At the same time it is important to remember that the driver in that lead tank refused to run over the protester. Both individuals are heroes and both their fates remain unknown.

The 2004 Frontline Documentary Tankman explores the significance of this act, and attempted to discover what happened. Now Initiatives for China has a campaign underway to petition the Chinese government to reveal the truth of what happened to the two Tiananmen tank men. Below is the text that Chinese human rights defenders and former prisoner of conscience Jianli Yang sent and asked to have reproduced to spread the word.

Please Sign on the Petition to Seek Truth About the Two Tiananmen Tank Men

The iconic image on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square bravely confronting PLA tanks is one of the most important photographs of the twentieth century.  It represents ordinary citizens confronting the State violence, and it is not forgotten by history.  Over more than two decades, the whole world has been asking: Where is the tank man?  As of today, the background of the tank man "Wang Weilin," and his subsequent fate are still unknown to the world.  At the same time, we should not forget that, despite the CCP's massacre order, the soldier in the tank chose not to shoot or run over his compatriot. The most logical explanation is that his conscience made him disobey the order.  This soldier is equally a hero.  As Time magazine pointed out: “[T]he heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot. "

Nobody knows the fate of the two heroes, but it is our responsibility to know and to find them. For together, they symbolize that timeless truth that moral courage will triumph over cowardly cruelty.

We hereby launch the initiative of collecting signatures across the world to petition Xi Jinping for the identities, background, and the  whereabouts of the two tank men. Please sign your signature and encourage others to sign.  There is no deadline for this project, and we will continue to collect signatures until the truth is obtained.

Ways to sign

(1). Go to http://tinyurl.com/finding2tankmen

(2). Enter First Name, Last Name, Email, Country, City or Zip code.

(3). If a street address is asked, and privacy is a concern, please enter N/A.

(4). Click sign

Note: When more than one people want to use one same device to sign, the previous signer must click the small arrow beside the signer’s name and then click Log Out before the following one to enter through the link.

Top 15 Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter 2014 blog entries

These are the top 15 blog entries of the year in terms of visits arranged in chronological order. George Santayana understood the importance of remembering the past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Beginning with two blog entries on the crime and health challenges that tourists visiting Cuba face the facts that some would prefer you not learn came fast and furious. This was followed in February by two blog entries on Venezuela about the nonviolent uprising against the policies of the Maduro regime.

In March the Castro regime was exposed as having smuggled heavy weapons to North Korea in a United Nations. On the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square members of the Florida International University gathered to pay their respects. This was followed by a report on the arbitrary detention, beatings and torture of Cuban opposition leader Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez." 

As the debate over economic sanctions on Cuba heated up this blog engaged in an analysis of the machinations of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to leave U.S. taxpayers holding the bag in a future opening to the Castro regime.  The next two blogs focused on crimes against Cubans committed in 1994 and 2012 that have still not been properly investigated: the 13 de Marzo"tugboat sinking and the killings of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante.

Political show trials continued in Cuba in 2014 with the show trial of Angel Yunier Remón Arzuaga sentenced to six years in prison for his critical music. The disappearance of 43 Mexican students, apparently murdered with the collusion of local government officials, hit home as it occurred in the same year as the 20 anniversary of the above mentioned tugboat massacre that killed 37 Cubans.

Two blog entries dealt first with the joint announcement of President Obama and dictator Raul Castro on the freeing of Gerardo Hernandez, serving a life sentence for the murder of four members of Brothers to the Rescue, and the normalization of relations and the second with the President's attempt to rewrite the terrorist conspiracy into a "tragic circumstance."

The final entry was announcing a free speech happening in Havana and a second in solidarity with the one in Cuba held in Miami. 

 1. Tourists and travel to Cuba: What the travel agencies don't tell you about crime 

Unlike in many other places in the world where one has to worry about criminals on the street; in the case of Cuba one has to worry about a criminal government that has no respect for human life.  This is what the promoters of tourist travel to Cuba won't tell you about crime on the island. Learn about three tourists murdered in Cuba and one who went missing in 1999.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/01/tourists-and-travel-to-cuba-what-they.html 

2. Tourists and travel to Cuba: What the travel agencies don't tell you about health and hygiene 

 In July 2013 an Italian tourist returned from Cuba with severe renal failure due to Cholera. New York high school teacher Alfredo Gómez contracted cholera during a family visit to Havana during the summer of 2013 and was billed $4,700 from the government hospital. A total of 12 tourists have been identified who have contracted cholera in Cuba.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/01/tourists-and-travel-to-cuba-what-travel.html  

3. #SOSVenezuela: Non-violent National Student Movement versus Maduro, the Castros and their security apparatus 

On February 12, 2014 Venezuela's National Youth Day millions of young students took to the streets to nonviolently protest "the social and economic crisis caused by the illegitimate government that Venezuela has today."  Young Venezuelans inside and outside of the country have mobilized in a coherent and sustained effort to expose the anti-democratic nature of the government.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/02/sosvenezuela-non-violent-national.html

4. Leopoldo López Mendoza and Venezuela's defining nonviolent moment

Before turning himself over on February 18, 2014 to the Maduro regime for encouraging nonviolent protests Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López Mendoza addressed a gathering of tens of thousands in Caracas: 

"Well brothers and sisters I ask you to continue in this fight and do not leave the street, to assume our right to protest, but to do it in peace and without violence, I ask that us, all of us that are here, all of the Venezuelans that want a change, to get informed, educated, organized, and to execute non-violent protests, the protests of masses, and the will of souls and hearts that want to change, but without hurting your neighbor. "

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/02/leopoldo-lopez-mendoza-and-venezuelas.html

 5. Castro regime's North Korea troubles 

Castro regime's outlaw credentials were reaffirmed in March 2014 in a damning report from the United Nations widely disseminated, on its role in illegal arms smuggling to its ideological soul mate: North Korea. According to the report in a side note "some of the ... parts could also meet the criteria defined in the list of ... technology related to ballistic missile programmes." Also reported the refusal of the Castro regime to cooperate with the investigation.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/03/castro-regimes-north-korea-troubles.html

6. Tiananmen Square Crackdown & June 4, 1989 Beijing Massacre: It was 25 years ago today 

In memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and for those still unjustly imprisoned today in China.

In Miami at Florida International University members of the university community gathered for a prayer and candlelight vigil taking part in a call to action by Initiatives for China and read their recommended prayer. Below is an excerpt:

Let us give thanks for the courage of the young people of Tiananmen Square who 25 years ago showed the world that the Chinese people desire freedom and justice above all earthly goods, and who were willing to give their lives in their brave witness. May all be strengthened by their bravery. May all be blessed by their memory.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/06/tiananmen-square-crackdown-june-4-1989.html

7. A Call for Help: Cuban dissident Antúnez's week of beatings, torture and arbitrary imprisonment 

In Cuba under the Castro brothers having a difference of opinion with the government can be a matter of life and death. Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" led the list of over 800 members of the opposition warning against foreign investment that would serve to strengthen the totalitarian dictatorship on the island.The document was initially made public on June 6, 2014. Five days later at 6:00am there was no knock on the door of Antúnez's home but instead it was kicked down by state security. Sadly, it was not the first time that this has happened and as before the objective was political repression on the part of the dictatorship operating with impunity in Cuba.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-call-for-help-cuban-dissident.html

8. What Chamber of Commerce won't tell taxpayers about cost of normalization of Cuba trade 

Passions run high in the sanctions debate on Cuba, and everyone is entitled to their opinion but not their own set of facts. Below you will find sourced information regarding the U.S. Trade Embargo on Cuba with the objective of contributing to the ongoing debate and discussion. When one is reviewing any policy between those who advocate maintaining the status quo and those advocating scrapping it there is a third position that needs to be considered: "Does it serve the just interests of the United States?" 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-chamber-of-commerce-wont-tell.html 

9. Month of Remembrance for Harold and Oswaldo

Today marks one month from the two year mark of the day that the lives of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante were brought to an end. The Christian Liberation Movement over Facebook announced that today June 22, 2014 ( a month before the 2 years of the deaths that have not been cleared up of Harold Cepero and Oswaldo Payá) begins the MONTH OF REMEMBRANCE FOR HAROLD AND OSWALDO. Each day they will recall a piece of information in order  to continue insisting that their deaths be investigated. We will be reproducing them below.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/06/month-of-remembrance-for-harold-and.html 

10. Twenty years later still no justice for 37 "13 de Marzo" tugboat victims: A Call to Remember and Take Action
“But men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.” - Robert Jordan 

The attack on and sinking of the"13 de Marzo" tugboat in the early morning hours of July 13, 1994 is probably one of the worse crimes committed by the Cuban government under the rule of the Castro brothers and it is definitely the best documented and widely recognized by international human rights bodies and is referenced in books on international law. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/07/still-no-justice-for-37-13-de.html

11. Cuban rapper sentenced to six years in prison for his critical songs
"Art is inherently political. It is always political. It has always been political.It has political aspects. And that which we term political art only enhances that political aspect of art. It is taking up political themes and makes these themes its own." - Petr Motyčka, Art, Society, and Politics: Artists or Activists?, Forum 2000 

Cuban dissident and rapper Angel Yunier Remón Arzuaga, whose stage name is "el Critico del Arte" (the 'Art Critic'), on October 15, 2014 was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment in a judicial process that fell far short of international standards. Angel was tear gassed and arrested on March 21, 2013, for criticizing the Castro regime and jailed since that time in conditions that can only be described as inhumane.  El Critico, is a member of the rap duo: Los Hijos Que Nadie Quiso (The Children that no one wanted). Other members of the group were targeted by regime agents. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/10/cuban-rapper-sentenced-to-six-years-in.html

12. Why the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico hits close to home for Cubans
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King Jr. 

For Cubans this massacre twenty years after the July 13, 1994 “13 de Marzo” tugboat massacre when 37 Cubans were massacred by government officials is particularly shocking and strikes close to home as does the indifference manifested online by Nestle that made a joke out of the murder of these students to promote their Crunch candy bar. Twenty years later in July of 2014 in New York City, Washington DC, Miami and in Cuba demonstrations in the memory of the 37 massacred Cubans were held. All these years later and the victims are not forgotten. This will also be the case for these 43 students. This is a crime that will not be forgotten but remembered for years to come. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-disappearance-of-43-students-in.html

13. Obama's Legacy: Normalizing relations with an Abnormal Regime 

Listening to President Obama today after learning the good news that, after more than five years unjustly held hostage, Alan Gross was finally free, and that some Cuban political prisoners were to be freed was nevertheless a sobering and worrisome exercise for a number of reasons.
First the news that three spies who had spied on military installations and congressmen on American soil, that had plotted terrorist acts in the United States, and were implicated in the February 24, 1996 murder of three American citizens and one American resident were freed in a swap to return to Cuba sends a terrible message. Regime hardliners have won, thanks to the Obama Administration's actions today. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamas-legacy-normalizing-relations.html

14. President Obama the February 24, 1996 shoot down was a premeditated act of state terrorism
President Barack Obama sought on December 19, 2014 to rewrite the history of the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down in a Orwellian fashion stating during a year end press conference

  
Mr. President the events surrounding the February 24, 1996 shoot down began weeks in advance with the dictatorship planning the shoot down and using his spy network to obtain information to advance the conspiracy. It is true that the shoot down was not meant to undermine overtures by the Clinton administration and although it paused the process by the end of 2000 President Clinton had shaken Fidel Castro's hand and a few months later opened cash and carry trade with the dictatorship. However it was not a "tragic circumstance" but a conspiracy to destroy Brothers to the Rescue while at the same time taking attention away from a crack down on a national gathering of the democratic opposition.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/12/president-obama-february-24-1996-shoot.html

15. Performance art as a test for free speech in Cuba
I also demand... 

Tania Bruguera, is an internationally recognized installation and performance artist. She is also the daughter of Miguel Bruguera, "a Cuban Political Advisor to the Cuban Embassy in Paris and ambassador to Lebanon and Panama." She is a daughter of the nomenklatura. This may provide some protection for a dissenting voice. Five years ago in April of 2009 she organized a performance art piece that sparked a debate over free speech in Cuba outside of the island and she is at it again. This time she is moving her performance art piece to the Plaza of the Revolution and has scheduled it for December 30, 2014 at 3:00pm.

Meanwhile in Miami to draw further attention to this performance art piece being held in Havana a second one is planned to be held outside the Freedom Tower in Downtown Miami.An open microphone where in the same spirit described above individuals can come and speak their minds for one minute.  It is being organized by Rosa María Payá Acevedo who has adopted the hashtag #YoTambienExijo (#ITooDemand) and added a second hash tag #PLEBISCITOCUBA (#PlebisciteCuba)

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2014/12/performance-art-and-test-for-free.html