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The struggle to mourn Zhao
Ziyang
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - Although carefully censored, the
death reports concerning ousted Communist Party
leader Zhao Ziyang are stirring political
grievances in China and might still become - as
feared - a rallying point for protests and
demonstrations, though analysts say worries of
major protests are exaggerated. A low-key memorial
service is to be held on Saturday, one in
accordance with the protocol for a government
minister in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -
not a deceased president or party chairman, which
Zhao was.
Zhao, who opposed the crackdown
on peaceful Tiananmen Square protesters on June 4,
1989, will not be honored with a ceremony in
Tiananmen (literally, the "gate of heavenly
peace"; Tiananmen Square is the vast plaza in
front of the gate). There will be no eulogy; the
public and foreign press will be barred. The
location was not announced and Chinese press
coverage is expected to be scant or non-existent.
Analysts say Beijing is now racking its
brains in writing a posthumous judgment on Zhao's
political career. According to a knowledgeable
source, the authorities are likely to recognize
Zhao's contribution to the country's economic
opening-up and reform, but are unlikely to change
their attitude toward his "erroneous" decision
during the 1989 student-led pro-democracy
demonstrations. Zhao's family is opposed to the
position of the government and the party.
Although Zhao was divested of
power and had been held under house arrest ever
since, he was still an accredited member
of the CCP. His flag will be draped with
the CCP hammer-and-sickle flag, an honor accorded to every departed party member
- but not the national flag of
five yellow stars on a red field.
Political dissidents, pro-democracy
intellectuals and even some party elders here have
rallied to exert pressure on the government to
give due recognition to Zhao in the same manner in
which the state bestowed official honors on the
late paramount leaders Mao Zedong and Deng
Xiaoping.
A funeral committee set up by
Zhao's political supporters has called for a state
funeral, which would include a mass memorial
service at Tiananmen Square on Saturday, with
flags flown at half-staff.
"People from
all walks of life and from all over the country
should be allowed to pay their last respects to
Zhao Ziyang. Eternal glory to China's worthy son!"
said the committee in a declaration distributed
via e-mail.
Allowing the public to pay
respects to Zhao at the same square where 15 years
ago he tried to mediate a peaceful end to
pro-democracy protests that were eventually
crushed with brutal force would be tantamount to a
political rebuke of the current leadership.
Zhao had refused to accept the Communist
Party's verdict that the Tiananmen demonstrators'
quest for democracy was a "counter-revolutionary
rebellion". Beijing insists the crackdown on
pro-democracy students was justified because it
prevented China from slipping into chaos and paved
the way for the spectacular economic boom the
country has enjoyed in the past 15 years.
"They [Chinese leaders] don't want to lose
control over Tiananmen and what it symbolizes,"
said Dali Yang, a Chinese political scientist at
the University of Chicago.
Tiananmen, the
seat of Chinese political power, is where many of
the country's modern political movements were born
and defended.
Only Mao Zedong, who died
shortly before the end of the Cultural Revolution
in 1976, was accorded a memorial service in
Tiananmen Square. One million people attended the
service for the leader the nation reveres as the
founding father of communist China. His embalmed
body lies in a stone mausoleum inside the square.
Chinese leaders, however, are reluctant to
accord similar honors to a man the party regarded
as a pariah. In terms of public existence, Zhao
has been dead since 1989 when he was purged and
placed under house arrest, without trial.
He was last seen in public on May 18,
1989, when he visited the students on hunger
strike and begged them to leave the square.
Television cameras had shown Zhao with tears in
his eyes telling the students, "I have come too
late."
The next day, martial law was
declared, and on the night of June 3 and early
hours of June 4 army tanks moved in killing
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people.
The formation of an independent funeral
committee came during a deadlock between Zhao's
family and government officials over funeral plans
for the ousted leader, who died in a Beijing
hospital on January 17 at the age of 85.
According to Chinese funeral tradition,
the deceased must be buried at the latest on the
seventh day after death. However, it has been more
than a week since Zhao's demise and his family and
the government have not reached an agreement.
"There is disagreement over Zhao's
biography," said Xu Liangying, a retired academic
with knowledge of the wrangle. "Zhao's family has
decided to stand by his deeds during the Tiananmen
protests, while the government wants them to admit
that Zhao committed a mistake in 1989. I don't see
how this can be resolved - this is his family's
last chance to rehabilitate his name."
Party leaders have said they would hold a
simple ceremony for Zhao, with no memorial
services open to the public or to the press.
"In recent years, China has reformed rules
governing funerals [for the country's leaders].
Funerals have been simplified," Foreign Ministry
spokesman Kong Quan told a press briefing last
week. "No memorial services will be held, only a
ceremony to bid farewell to the remains. As an old
party member, Zhao Ziyang's funeral will be held
in accordance with this."
In the 1980s,
the party abolished grandiose memorial services,
fearing they could give cult-like status to the
dead. Nevertheless, when paramount leader Deng
Xiaoping died in 1997, Beijing encouraged people
from government institutions, work units and
factories to quit work and line the streets to bid
farewell to the paramount leader.
Zhao's
death, by contrast, has been kept under wraps.
State radio and television have virtually ignored
it and major newspapers have opted for a terse
announcement on the inside pages.
"The
government doesn't [want to] let us know what
arrangements for the funeral are being made," said
Gao Fang, a political observer at Renmin
University in Beijing. "I think ordinary party
members would not be allowed to attend."
Political scientist Dali Yang said: "Given
all the petitions and other protests and how
worried the Chinese leadership have been [about
social stability] last year in the absence of
Zhao's death, it is not surprising they would be
even more worried that a gathering in Tiananmen
could become a rallying point."
But Zhao's
supporters say they have applied to hold a public
memorial service in Tiananmen for him on Sunday.
The declaration signed by supporters both in
Beijing and the provinces described Zhao as a
"pioneer of China's political and economic
reforms".
"We call on all Chinese people
to transform the grief of their loss into one of
strength and aspiration towards democracy," said
the declaration.
(Inter Press Service) |
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