Tiananmen Square Document 30: Cable, Eyewitness Account of June 4 PLA Tank Crushing 11 Students and Related Early Morning Events in Tiananmen Square, 1989

This extraordinary document provides the detailed account of a source who witnessed firsthand the violence at Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4. The source indicated that the students had believed that the soldiers would be firing rubber bullets and that "he had a sickening feeling when he noticed the bullets striking sparks off the pavement near his feet." His and other eyewitness descriptions represent an effort by diplomatic reporters to gather evidence about the crackdown and get the story straight. Most impressive in the account is the source’s graphic description of a PLA tank crushing 11 students under its wheels on the morning of June 4. Comments at the end of the document indicate that the source’s version dovetails with the comments of other sources, concluding that, "We find his account of that episode credible. His accounts of other incidents are worth recording as other evidence becomes available."

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Original source: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/documents/index.html#d30