Riot troops train as China reopens square

Press, 26 September 1989, Page 8

Riot troops train as China reopens square

NZPA-Reuter Peking China yesterday opened Tiananmen Square to carefully vetted civilians in the buildup to the fortieth anniversary of the People’s Republic, as troops practised riot control nearby in a reminder of the tension in the city. Several hundred civilians, in groups organised by schools and work units, were allowed to view elaborate decorations that seem calculated to counter memories of the

pro-democracy protests crushed by the Army with hundreds of deaths in June. Martial law troops maintained their three-month-old cordon around the Square and barred sightseers from the Monument to the People’s Heroes, which served as the rallying point for demonstrators in April and May. Massive floral displays depicting the national flag and a red rising sun and a huge portrait of the early

revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen, have been installed as part of celebrations of Communist China’s fortieth birthday. Close to the spot where the students’ “Goddess of Democracy” statue was toppled by Army vehicles in June, an Bm-high statue pf an idealised soldier, worker, peasant and intellectual now looms. In a sign of the tight control authorities have reasserted over campuses, the “People’s Daily” said

yesterday the statue was carved by students and teachers at the Central College of Arts and Crafts on the order of Peking’s hardline Mayor Chen Xitong. Many of the college’s students took, part in the prodemocracy demonstrations in April and May. The figures in the statue, including a muscular soldier in the uniform of martial law troops and armed with an automatic rifle, “stand as if boldly forging ahead,

their eyes fixed on our motherland’s beautiful future,” the newspaper said, adding that they “represented the basis of the republic.” Traces of the student occupation of the square and the Army’s attack on June 4 were still visible. Many paving slabs are scorched or pitted by tank tracks. More than 100,000 people are to take part in an organised rally in the square on October 1, and authorities appear nervous of further unrest or revenge attacks for the June killings.