the_dunk_tank

Oooooooh, ok. There it is. You are just making shit up and telling us people are saying things that they aren’t actually saying.

Are you just going line by line and didn't want to waste your effort on the first two paragraphs you wrote?

It’s almost like no matter which details from first-hand accounts you choose to go with

Some have found it uncomfortable that all this conforms with what the Chinese government has always claimed, perhaps with a bit of sophistry: that there was no "massacre in Tiananmen Square."

But there's no question many people were killed by the army that night around Tiananmen Square, and on the way to it — mostly in the western part of Beijing. Maybe, for some, comfort can be taken in the fact that the government denies that, too. CBS News

This reporter and many other witnesses saw troops shoot and kill people before dawn on June 4. But these shootings occurred in a different place from that described in the Wen Wei Po article and in somewhat different circumstances. [...] Troops fired on civilians in many parts of the city, but the shooting was concentrated along the Avenue of Eternal Peace, or Changan Avenue, which runs on the north side of the square. There was heavy shooting in the Muxidi district to the west of Tiananmen Square, and there were also many casualties along the Avenue of Eternal Peace to the immediate east of the square, as well as on streets to the south of the square. NY Times

As to body count: I saw several people, young men, lying on flatbed tricycles being carried away from the square. They were inert and covered in blood. Dead or wounded, I have no idea. On the afternoon of June 4, I saw people fall on Changan Avenue as troops opened fire on them. I have no idea if they were wounded, killed or simply fainting.

How many people died that night in Beijing? What was the price of the years of superficial political stability that followed?

Most of the killing did not take place on or near the Square, that is clear. The official line, first espoused by Communist Party propaganda guru Yuan Mu a couple of nights later on national television, was that 23 people had died on the night of June 3/4. It was ludicrous. Nobody who was in Beijing at that time believed it.

In the weeks that followed, Amnesty International did the most thorough survey of the Tiananmen casualty toll. They spoke to everyone who could help build the picture. They questioned me at length in Tokyo, whwre In was already staying in a hotel prior to a move to Hong Kong to become Asian News Editor (a career boost from Tiananmen, perhaps?). Their report estimated 3,000 dead, with most of the killing taking place in the Muxidi district of western Beijing, where outraged Beijing residents — not students — tried to stop the army from entering their city. That number seems a bit high to me, but who knows? If I had to make a wild stab, from what I know and felt, I’d say several hundred were killed, but I have no proof of any number. Until the archives are opened in China’s next era and we can see the truth, surely recorded there somewhere, Amnesty’s 3,000 is the best outside estimate we have. REUTERS: Graham Earnshaw

ALTHOUGH HE DID NOT ACTUALLY WITNESS ANY LARGE SCALE SHOOTINGS ON THE SQUARE PROPER, GALLO SAW MANY CASUALTIES BROUGHT INTO THE SQUARE AND DID NOT DOUBT THAT HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE IN BEIJING WERE KILLED BY THE ARMY ON JUNE 3 AND 4. A Wikileaks cable

those ambiguities only show us that even where things are uncertain and discrepancies in first-hand accounts exist, they come nowhere near to the claims of the massacre narrative

Apparently I read half a dozen of the wrong first hand accounts.

You may even be shocked to learn how many of those student were protesting the liberalizing of the economy

I really don't care about this, the students weren't the ones killed for the most part. They're basically irrelevant to the conversation, aren't they?

there are discrepancies in the exact number of deaths, which no one here has denied

Right now the biggest discrancy I'm seeing is that most of the people here want to tell me that almost half of the people killed were state employees, but that red sails articlesays the official number is closer to 10%. That, and the fact that there really is no official number because China doesn't talk about it and doesn't want anyone else to either.

But I’m getting tired of answering your homework questions for you.

You'd think that after a few decades someone would have done that homework and posted it online somewhere. But I guess it's everyone's responsibility to become an amateur historian to figure it out themselves.