Police arrest 13 people in Tiananmen Square
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Jiang Yanyong , the retired military doctor who exposed last year's Sars outbreak on the mainland, has disappeared on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen military crackdown, his daughter said yesterday. In the lead-up to the anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, many critics and activists have been put under virtual house arrest in an apparent attempt to prevent them from engaging in any activities deemed provocative by the authorities. On Friday, police detained at least 13 people in Tiananmen Square.
Dr Jiang, who wrote to the Communist Party leadership in February urging a reappraisal of the pro-democracy movement, has been missing since Tuesday, along with his wife, Hua Zhongwei , said Jiang Rui , who lives in California. Ms Jiang said in a statement: "We, the children of Dr Jiang Yanyong, would like to appeal to the Chinese government to investigate the disappearance of our parents in Beijing. "While we do not want to speculate as to what happened to our parents, we believe the authorities of Beijing 301 Military Hospital are deliberately withholding information from us."
In the letter sent to the Communist Party leaders, the retired military physician gave an account of the nightmarish events of June 4th, 1989.
Then working as a surgeon for the People's Liberation Army at 301 Hospital in Beijing, Dr Jiang described how he watched in horror as 89 people with bullet wounds were carried into his ward in just two hours.
"I saw young people covered in blood . . . some people's organs were completely shattered . . . the bullets they [the soldiers] used were the so-called 'dum dum' bullets which explode inside the body - they were banned by the international [Hague] convention," Dr Jiang recalled.
He described the experience as "traumatising and unforgettable". Dr Jiang said most people he knew could never forget that day, and they all believed the student movement was patriotic.
"[The] students' action won wide support from people in Beijing city and across the country," he wrote. "Yet a few leaders who sought to perpetuate [their] corrupt leadership mobilised tanks and used machine guns to take out unarmed students and ordinary citizens in the most brutal suppression in Chinese history.
The atrocities were responsible for the death of several hundred innocent young people in Beijing's streets and thousands more who were wounded."
The doctor wrote that he visited former president Yang Shangkun in 1998 and the late leader confided in him that the massacre was the "Communist Party's biggest mistake".
"I told [Yang] what I saw [on June 4]," Dr Jiang wrote. "He told me that the June 4 incident was the biggest mistake in the Communist Party's history. [Yang] said although he no longer had any power to right the wrong [he] was confident this would definitely be corrected one day."
Dr Jiang then called on the Communist Party to seize the day and make amends. "The mistake made by our party should be resolved by the party itself, the sooner and the more thorough the better. I believe a correct assessment of June 4 is what the people want [and] this will not lead to chaos," he wrote.