|
|
Article: 1989 Tiananmen square massacre: twenty years ago this June, china's rulers sent the army to break up student protests calling for democracy hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed in the crackdown.(TIMES PAST)
- Article from:
- New York Times Upfront
- Article date:
- January 12, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Scholastic, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
On May 29, 1989, a 27-foot-tall foam-and-paper-mache statue resembling the Statue of Liberty appeared in Tiananmen Square, the 100-acre heart of Beijing. Thousands of college students had occupied the square for more than a month in defiance of China's Communist government, and the towering figure they named the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom symbolized their goal of forcing the government to loosen its repressive grip on the lives of China's 1.3 billion people.
But to China's authoritarian rulers, the statue was an insult, perhaps more so because its features were not even Chinese. Within days, they sent in Army tanks to break ...