‘We cannot cry any more’

Press, 8 June 1989, Page 1

‘We cannot cry any more’

NZPA-Reuter Peking “I have just had my last cigarette. Tonight we are going to die.” The weeping worker spoke in Tiananmen Square as red flares criss-crossed the night sky. Hours later, tanks and troops rolled in and turned his words to prophecy for many of his colleagues — and perhaps for him as well. In the four days since the Sunday morning slaughter of pro-democracy demonstrators in central Peking, residents have expressed anguish and outrage in several ways, much

of it in passionate words impossible to forget. Among them: • “We cannot cry any more. It is too evil for tears. We can only fight and try to tell the world” — a woman speaking after troops shot dead two people near her home. • “You have killed our sons. May you all be sterile” — a resident shouting; at solders outside the Peking Hotel. • “There is nothing in my heart but hatred”. — a middle-aged man explaining why he wasn’t afraid. • “This is more fascist than

fascism” — a hotel worker talking about the Tiananmen Square slaughter. • “If Chinese do not fear to live, they should not beafraid to die” — a student survivor of Tiananmen Square. • “If this were Deng’s meat, it would be cheaper still” — a shopper in a butcher shop commenting on the supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, and the price of meat in Peking. • “Some of us students protected troops. We gave one some clothes and let him go. We cared for them but they didn t have an ounce of humanity.

They continued to kill us” — a 21-year-old survivor of Tiananmen Square. ® “I must find someone who will look after my parents if I die. The problem is, I’m an only son” — a young man trying to buy a train ticket to his home town before what he predicted would be civil war. • “Li Peng, you will never be able to find any peace” — A message to the premier, scrawled in Chinese characters on a police observation post near Tiananmen Square. It was written in blood.