Two years ago we gathered together at the University of Miami to remember. Today we repost this here on our blog in tribute to the men and women who lost their lives in June of 1989 in China for freedom and justice.
June 4, 2009
The Free Cuba Foundation FIU, FIU Students for a Free Tibet, and UM CAUSA: Students United for a Free Cuba, Falun Gong, and Miami Friends of Tibet presented the documentary "Tank Man" holding a discussion ending in a candlelight vigil reading off a partial list of victims on June 3, 2009 and a moment of silence that ended at 10:31pm. A minute after the tanks entered the square and shooting began.
Video excerpts
Julio Menache, co-president of the Free Cuba Foundation served as the moderator and began the event reading the 20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE STATEMENT which is reproduced below along with signatories.
Following the documentary Sherwood Liu of the Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida, a university student in China at the time of the massacre gave a gripping presentation of what took place on June 3-4, 1989 and outlining two decades of repression and its impact on the Chinese people and their resigning from the Chinese Communist party.
Pt. 1
Pt. 2
Silvia Sarasua, Miami Friends of Tibet, analyzed US policy from George HW. Bush to the present and highlighted how US administrations had disengaged human rights from Most Favored Nation status and has been disastrous for human rights in China. She raised the question of what we as activists could effectively do raising the question of economic boycotts.
Tenzin Gayden, Students for a Free Tibet expressed his "solidarity and understand your feeling for the Chinese brothers and sisters who went through all this trouble twenty years ago. I am third generation Tibetan and I speak freely in front of you, but in Tibet there voices are being suppressed - they do not have the right to speak they do not have any human rights."
A representative of UM Causa recognized "the Cubans on the island that last year showed solidarity for the victims in China and wanted to show that we them support them also."
June 3, 2009
STATEMENT ON 20th ANNIVERSARY OF TIANANMEN SQUARE CRACKDOWN
We honor the victims, many of them students, who sacrificed their lives for freedom, democracy, and reform twenty years ago in China.
We join with our Cuban brothers and sisters who one year ago paid tribute to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre at the monument to the Chinese fallen in the Cuban War of Independence in Havana on June 4, 2008.
Like our counterparts on the island as students we feel a connection to those Chinese students who exercised their fundamental rights to associate and speak freely in defense of democracy and human rights. Many paid the highest price for freedom with their very lives.
On June 3-4, 1989 the Chinese military extrajudicially executed thousands of unarmed students and workers violently crushing the non-violent student initiated mass demonstrations. We will never forget this heinous crime.
Twenty years later China remains one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. Christians, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and people of other faiths are systematically persecuted. Freedom of expression and association are systematically denied and censorship is ever present.
We repudiate the brutal actions of the government of communist China and call on the civilized world to hold accountable all those responsible for this atrocity, that a full investigation with the participation of international human rights organizations be carried out, and that justice be provided for the Chinese people slaughtered twenty years ago inside and outside of Tiananmen Square and their families.
We call on the democracies of the world to stand with the Chinese people in their desire to be free and have their human rights respected recognizing that the advancement of Chinese relations with the democracies of the world depends on the advancement of human rights in China.
Finally, we call for the immediate release of all Chinese prisoners of conscience and in particular those still imprisoned for taking part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations that remain imprisoned twenty years later such as Li Yujun, Zhu Gengsheng, Shi Xuezhi, Li Zhixin, Chang Jingqiang, Wu Chunqi, Yang Pu and Miao Deshun.
Miami, Florida June 3, 2009
1. Julio A. Menache, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 11
2. Juan Carlos Sanchez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 11
3. Pedro Ross, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 09
4. Susana Navajas, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 10
5. Jennifer Grau, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 09
6. John Suarez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 96
7. Neri Ann Martinez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 05
8. Rebecca Martinez-Arguello, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 07
9. Isaac Martinez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 06
10. CAUSA: Students United for a Free Cuba, University of Miami
11. Silvia Sarasua, Miami Friends of Tibet
12. Jian Hu, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
13. Sherwood Liu, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
14. Linda Li, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
15. Nancy Xia, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
16. Victoria Wu, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
17. Yanling Zhang , Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
18. Edie Bassen, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
19. Regina Finnegan, PhD, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
20. Marcus Green, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
21. Kay Harmon, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
22. Diana Crouch, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
23. Kent McKinney, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
24. David W. Lee, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
25. Paulene Jasurek, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
26. Sebastian Arcos, Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Florida International University 99, 08
27. Prof. Antonio Romero Piriz Red Uruguaya por Democracia para Cuba
28. Aramis L. Perez, Young Cubans in Action
29. Belkis Landa-Gonzalez, Ed.D, OTR/L Miami, FL
30. Tina Giamei-Valera Florida Tech University
At the end of the event the activists gathered around a main fountain on campus and held a vigil reading the names of some known to have been killed that day and listened to the unofficial anthem of the Tiananmen protests "I Have No Name" by Chinese rocker Cui Jian who had gone to the square and sang to the students days before.
For additional information visit the following:
http://initiativesforchina.org/
http://www.freetibet.org/node/1498
http://www.laogai.org/
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