Today's the 33rd anniversary of the 1989 #TiananmenSquare 'incident'. I was a student in #Beijing as it unfolded. China and its politics have run deep in my bloodstream ever since. Below, a thread detailing the eye witness account of a Chinese friend (17) and my own observations. 
Beijing witness (aged 17): “Saturday afternoon, 3 June. In the previous few days, the authorities have been arresting workers: morale is lowering. The government and PLA wait until people at Tian’anmen lessen, then move in the 27th Army in armoured vehicles.”
“The first lot of young soldiers sent in had joined forces with students in Beijing after students stopped them, and informed them of the actual situation: a peaceful demonstration for democracy. The tanks had turned back.”
“This time, when the [27th Army] tanks try to enter at the city limits, brave people try to block their path; but soldiers open machine gun fire on them. At Xidan at 5pm in the afternoon, people again try to block the tanks, and tear gas and machine gun fire are again used.”
“On the approach to Tian’anmen, city people attack the tanks and trucks with sticks and rocks, put down oil and set them alight. But the student [protesters] are very charitable, and ask the people to stop. They say ‘we should talk it over with the soldiers.’ ”
“As soon as the city people stop their attack, the soldiers give no opportunity for negotiation, just open machine gun fire, haphazardly, on people running away, on old people, on little children.”
“These soldiers [of the 27th Army] are 6 foot tall fighters, an elite said to have been drafted in from Vietnam [veterans of the Sino-Vietnamese border war, 1979?]. They are machines - mindless. Some say they are Deng Xiaoping’s private army. They have no mind.”
“A public bus at one point tries to block the path of a tank – its driver and passengers unite. But the tanks just plough straight through. And all the people die.”
“Once at the Square, things go strangely quiet for a few hours. At first, the soldiers just sit around on their steel helmets [in the Square], waiting.”
“Then, suddenly, at 2am in the morning, they charge. They are screaming violently and charging across the Square. They have steel clubs four feet long, and very thick; and beat people with them until they’re dizzy. They open up automatic machine gun fire from the hip.”
“It’s like a dream, slow motion. The students and citizens have no time to fear, only to run. They are gunned down as they flee. People are machine-gunned in the eyes, and in the back; the bullets are deadly. Once they enter the body they explode, leaving holes like shrapnel.”
“Around 100 students linking arms block the [passage of the] tanks. The soldiers open fire and mow them down. Another 100 replace them, and meet the same fate. Tanks mow down tents with students inside. One girl saw her friend run over flat by a tank, and went mad, hysterical."
“One student has a narrow escape: he stands three feet away from a tank which mows down several of his friends. He runs very fast and tearfully describes the scene to others: the ground was all red and yellow and green, the bodies completely squashed.”
“You don’t have to do anything to provoke; the soldiers just shoot anything that moves. They open fire with smiles on their faces. Soldiers are shooting people in the legs, so they can’t run away. Tear gas renders them dizzy, red streaming eyes. They've no idea where they are.”
“Students trying to rescue soldiers from a burning tank that had been set on fire are mercilessly shot dead. It is a river of blood.”
“In one case, two workers walk out from their workplace after leaving off. A third man comes out to find his two workmates already shot dead on the pavement. In another, a whole factory of workers is armed with steel cudgels and forced by the PLA to attack the students.”
“One man was just getting on his bike to try to get out of the area. A soldier goes up to him and hits him, knocking him off his bike. Then he kicks him in.”
“There are three massacres in all, one at 2am, one at 5am and one at 10am on Sunday morning [5 June]. Just before this third massacre, a crowd develops around the blocked-off Tian’anmen area, and soldiers again haphazardly open fire to force them back.”
“Many innocent people die. 40 odd people can immediately be seen lying dead on the ground. They are all unarmed civilians. The hospitals can’t cope with the numbers of dead and wounded, they are lying on bloody sheets in the corridors.”
My observations: On Sunday 5 June lunchtime, I go out on the streets [vicinity of Beijing Foreign Studies University, Xisanhuan Beilu], which are teeming with furious Chinese people. My UK classmate and I talk to many of them.
They say the soldiers are 'madmen,' and Li Peng and Deng Xiaoping are ‘the greatest criminals of all time’. They are so angry.
A 9 years-old boy is machine gunned dead. Angry students mount his small body on a truck and drive him round the city, urging folk on the streets to witness this pointless murder. They shout: ‘Come and look! Come and see what the People’s Liberation Army have done to the people!’
Just before that, a tank has shot past us [at a junction close to the Friendship Hotel] filled with cheering students: they have stolen an armed tank, and people say the driver is the heartbroken father of the 9 years-old child. This is his revenge.
Behind the tank are many students following on bikes in support. They are not afraid; they’re going back to Tian’anmen. The people on the street cheer back to them.
Many people had been giving the tired soldiers food and water over the last few days – they pitied them. Now, an old woman stands weeping at the roadside, feeling betrayed by soldiers who brutally butcher their own countrymen.
They say we’re on the edge of civil war. Fighting is still going on. Some people mown down by tanks have lost their heads, or limbs cut off. One pregnant woman was shot dead. Soldiers appear to be chasing people right into their homes and even shooting them inside their homes.
There’s been no mutiny against PLA officials; some soldiers around Tian’anmen have been reported to be reluctant to open fire on innocent civilians, but these were simply shoved out of the way by more soldiers who opened fire.
Sporadic gunfire continues. Many of the wounded are being arrested. Soldiers move in to impose martial law round the universities, having allegedly ‘cleared Tian’anmen of thugs and counter-revolutionaries who want to overthrow the socialist system.’ PLA declares ‘initial victory’
In fact, thousands of people have died, and the wounded are mysteriously going missing from the hospitals. One student friend, aged 19, told me: ‘this is an exchange of blood for democratic freedom’.
Soldiers have surrounded Qinghua and Beijing universities; Renmin university is the big core – it’s not yet taken. It’s said that broadcasts from there are now being made in secret, using machines buried underground.
The students are sitting ducks in their dormitories. The soldiers will seize the student leaders. They can’t even hide in citizens’ homes, as this would implicate other innocent people.
The soldiers have been given all powers by government leaders to do whatever necessary. The government has warned citizens that their safety is no longer guaranteed if they leave their homes. Soldiers have been let on the rampage.
They say that any soldiers who refused to fight the citizens were themselves mown down by tanks, as were the barricades put up by the students. The Goddess of Democracy statue erected by the students was also ripped down following the army’s occupation of the Square.
Students have called for an all-out strike of Beijing factory workers. But who will be brave enough to think rather of revolution and not of their own skins and family? People are scared, but they are also very angry.
The atmosphere is stormy, ominous. There’s a feeling of foreboding, impending massacre. There is no sunlight for the first time in ages. It is electric, nervous, emotional. The BBC and other camera crews are hiding out in the Palace Hotel, but for how long?
The bodies and the debris are being burned, covered in oil and set alight. There is the smell of burning flesh. The ground is all blood, littered with holes from bullets. The PLA insists there has been no killing of substance. END.
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