In some respects, Superior Court Judge David Roper blames himself and the other tourists for what happened in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.
He was with a tour group formed after the Rotary International meeting in Seoul, South Korea, that year. They arrived in Beijing the first week in June. In addition to touring sites during the day, he and other members went to Tiananmen Square in the evenings.
"It was like a big carnival," Judge Roper said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
The students who could speak English were happy to practice on the tourists, he said. And they were thrilled to have Americans to talk to about their desire for democratic reform, he said.
He estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 were in the square each night.
The evening before his tour group was to leave for Shanghai, Judge Roper -- then an attorney -- was with a group who stayed in the square until dark, about 9 p.m.
The next morning, Judge Roper heard about the massacre.
"Nobody even today knows how many people were killed," he said.
A tour guide who said he was an eyewitness told Judge Roper that the police first circled the square. Then the tanks and military personnel surrounded the square and began firing. Police officers were shot too, Judge Roper said.
The group was to leave the hotel at 7 a.m. They could still hear systematic gunfire.
"That was scary," Judge Roper said.
No one was on the streets but military personnel.
"It was one of those situations where you have absolutely no control," he said.
When the group reached the airport, a military facility, one member used a shortwave radio to get BBC reports. There was no local news coverage, and they, as Americans in the middle of the crackdown, didn't want to ask any questions, he said.
It took all day to get a flight to their next destination, Shanghai. It was a miserable time, Judge Roper said, and he was relieved to return home.
Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com.
WHAT HAPPENED:
Tens of thousands of students and other democracy proponents had been protesting for weeks in 1989. On the night and morning of June 3-4, the Chinese military cracked down on the protests that began in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and spread to several major cities. It is possible that thousands of students, activists and ordinary citizens were killed; no formal investigation has been allowed.
THE IMPACT:
- Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang was thrown out of office after the event and placed under house arrest until his death in 2005.
- Officials squelch talk of the crackdown, referring to it only as the "political incident." Young Chinese know little about the events, having grown up in a generation that has largely eschewed politics in favor of nationalism and economic development.
- Officials also point to China's economic success in the two decades since as proof that the party's handling of the protests was correct.
- But a University of Hong Kong poll released last week showed that 69 percent of Hong Kong residents think the crackdown was a mistake, and 61 percent believe the Chinese government should stop condemning the protests.
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