Beijing (AsiaNews) - "Like the Cultural Revolution must be totally repudiated, the June 4 [massacre] must be completely repudiated.. Like Mao was the symbol for the Cultural Revolution, Deng [Xiaoping] was the symbol of June 4... without repudiating Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, it's impossible for China to progress". The speaker is one of the victims of Tiananmen Square and the desire for reform present in Chinese society of the 1980s, rocked by the massacre and repression that followed. Bao Tong (pictured), 81, was collaborator of party secretary, Zhao Ziyang. For having come out against the military intervention in Tiananmen Square, which killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of young demonstrators, he was jailed for seven years. Once freed, he was then placed under house arrest and still is today.
In a telephone interview,
published today in the South China
Morning Post, the statesman - one of the most enlightened minds of
contemporary China - says: " I think every Chinese - officials or ordinary
people, those who were persecuted or benefited [from the crackdown] - should
all reflect upon this issue" of the June 4 massacre.
On
the contrary, police, army and government continue to obstruct any discussion
or publication on the subject; they prohibit journalists from covering the issue;
they obscure news sites on the Internet and arrest dissidents and human rights
lawyers.
"If
you cover the mouths of a hundred people - said Bao - there could still be
hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of mouths still speaking...But if they
silence 1.3 billion people, that's frightening".
After the massacre of June 4, 1989,
numerous seminars and debates in universities were canceled; state media which
in the 1980s had become increasingly courageous, were gagged; laws in defense
of press freedom have been blocked and political
reforms - including the separation between the government and the Communist
Party and the division of legislative, judicial and executive powers -
abandoned.
"
If all these mouths were still talking - adds Bao Tong -, I think [our society]
wouldn't be as depraved as it is now...Corruption, exploitation, the lack of
respect for law, these had the support of tanks and machine guns"
The issue of political reform has
re-emerged to the fore after the election of Xi Jinping to Party General
Secretary and President of the Republic. Xi
is the son of Zhongxun, a reformist under Mao, and for this he suffered
marginalization and imprisonment.
"I
hope Xi Zhongxun's son will do well, otherwise I shall be very disappointed,"
said Bao Tong. He
confesses that he was impressed by Xi Jinping's words on the value of the
constitution and laws to which the members of the Party must submit, but also of being "perplexed" by the recent
strengthening of ideological control underway in the country.
Recently an editorial in the army
newspaper proclaimed communist doctrine "the truth of the universe";
the newspaper Guangming Ribao reported statements made by Xi Jinping, according
to whom if Mao had been discredited immediately after the Cultural Revolution,
the country would have fallen into chaos.
A
similar judgment is affirmed by the Chinese leaders regarding Tiananmen Square:
the massacre was necessary to guarantee stability to the country to ensure the
economic development that followed.
Bao
Tong is of a different opinion: ""[Some say] our China model is the
best in the universe and our truth is the truth of the universe...but without
repudiating Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, it's impossible for China to progress".