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Texas A&M
The Battalion
Vol. 88 No. 152 USPS 045360 8 pages College Station, Texas
WEATHER
FORECAST for FRIDAY:
Cloudy to partly cloudy with a 30
percent chance of thunder
storms.
HIGH:90s LOW:70s
Thursday, June 8,1989
Massacre bonds Chinese students worldwide
Photo by Phelan Ebenhack
Top:Chao Gao, a graduate student in petro
leum engineering from Qingdao, China,
puts a black band around the arm of Jin
Lan, a graduate student in agricultural eco
nomics from Beijing, at a memorial service
at All Faiths Chapel Wednesday night.
Bottom: Richard Burleson, an employee of
Brakes for Less House of Tires on Texas
Ave. in Bryan, proudly displays the compa
ny’s marquee asking the public to support
Chinese students struggling for demo
cratic reforms.
By Kelly S. Brown
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The horror of the 27th Army Division — the “people’s
army” — opening fire on unarmed pro-democracy
demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing Sunday
has tightened the movement for freedom and democ
racy within China.
But the bonding together of the people seems to
have spread beyond the streets of Beijing.
Throughout the United States, thousands of Chinese
university students, including many from Texas A&M,
have taken to the streets in peaceful demonstrations to
show support for their homeland and to fight for free
dom.
Xun Ge, an A&M graduate student in physics who is
from Beijing and has relatives living there now, said he
hopes democracy and freedom can be attained through
peaceful means, although he admits this is not likely.
“We don’t want a civil war,” he said. “But the govern
ment must understand that we will fight. Democracy
and freedom are rooted in Chinese people’s hearts al
ready, and no one can use anything, not even force, to
remove this belief from our hearts.”
Their conviction is so strong that many Chinese stu
dents hoped to return to China so they could express
support for the pro-democracy movement that began
more than six weeks ago.
Zhihua Sai, president of A&M’s China Club and a
graduate student in chemistry, is one of these students.
“Three weeks ago we were ready to go back to China
and enter the protest,” Sai said. “But things kept getting
worse there and it became impossible. We wanted to
speak directly with the students. I don’t know if that’s
possible right now.”
Sai and Chinese students like him say they aren’t
going to give up though.
“We can’t,” he said. “The students and citizens pro
testing in China are so brave and unselfish — they make
us so proud. When we first heard of the protest in
China we became very excited.”
See Unite/Page 5
Army sends reinforcements
to Beijing; unrest continues
BEIJING (AP) — Hundreds of
troop trucks, many piled high with
supplies, roared into the capital
Thursday to reinforce the military
occupation, and turmoil spread to
more than a dozen cities.
The United States ordered em
bassy dependents to leave China on
Thursday. Many embassies
scrambled to evacuate their nation
als a day after Chinese soldiers, say
ing they were looking for a sniper,
sprayed a diplomatic compound
with gunfire.
Trucks came into central Tianan
men Square for more than an hour
Thursday. Many were filled with
boxes of supplies, but a few carried
troops with rifles aimed at people bi
cycling along the road.
There have been reports of skir
mishes between soldiers, but no se
rious clashes.
In Washington, the State Depart
ment urged all Americans to leave
China at once.
State television broadcast a
statement from the Communist
Party that any members found to
have “plotted, organized and led the
rebellion” would be expelled and
punished severely.
Conservative party leaders who
ordered the crackdown were said to
have singled out party chief Zhao Zi-
yang as the instigator and ordered
his ouster.
Another government announce
ment said soldiers were authorized
to “forcibly dispose of, on the spot”
anyone who resisted arrest.
In the provinces, crowds protest
ing the army’s invasion of the capital
blocked major roads and railways
with barricades in anticipation of
military assaults.
Soldiers in Beijing sprayed bullets
at a diplomatic compound and seve
ral other buildings in a foreign resi
dential area. The U.S. Embassy or
dered the evacuation of all
dependents of staff members.
A major battle has yet to materia
lize between the 27th Army and sup
posedly rival military units on the
edges of the city, but a witness said
the 27th and 38th armies, based in
Hebei and Beijing respectively,
fought each other with automatic
weapons early Wednesday about 12
miles east of downtown.
“Not one person died on the
square,” a martial law official said.
Students driven from the square
after a three-week protest claimed
By Kelly S. Brown
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
“Long live the martyrs of June 4.
Their blood will help to grow the
flowering democracy. Their soul will
help to nourish the tree of free
dom.”
Written in Chinese, the above
words were hung on the altar at the
All Faiths Chapel during the
Wednesday night service in memory
of the demonstrators who laid down
their lives for freedom this past week
in Beijing.
The service, which was sponsored
by the Texas A&M’s China Club, be
gan with a silent tribute lasting three
minutes.
During the tribute, all that could
hundreds were shot down or
crushed by tanks during the invasion
early Sunday.
Specific information is difficult to
obtain because journalists cannot
cover all parts of the city, and travel
to the provinces is difficult. China’s
top leaders have not appeared since
the crackdown began and official
media report little about the vio
lence.
Meanwhile, in Shanghai, six peo
ple were run over by a train while
manning a barricade near the rail
way station Tuesday night. Shanghai
radio said angry crowds set the train
ablaze and beat 21 security officials.
be heard was the rain pouring hard
on the roof.
Howard Adkinson, a pastor at
Community Bible Church, read a
speech in English memorializing the
“martyrs for democracy”, and Re-
Xim Li read the same speech in
Chinese. It was written by a man who
wished to remain anonymous, Ad
kinson said.
After the speech, everyone was
asked to walk to the altar and bow.
As the single-file line wound around
the church and people began paying
their respects, various people ap
proached the microphone and re
read the speech in Chinese. The
speech, which was read with
See Service/Page 5
A&M China Club holds
memorial for 6 martyrs’
AIDS researcher says free needles help
curb disease, do not promote drug use
MONTREAL (AP) — Giving clean needles
and syringes to drug addicts does not promote
drug use and is essential for stopping the explo
sive spread of AIDS among narcotics abusers, a
researcher said Wednesday.
And, in a strikingly upbeat assessment, a lead
ing U.S. health official who pioneered the first
anti-AIDS drugs predicted that a cure for AIDS
will be found.
“In the early 50s and 60s, there were many
people who predicted there would be no pro
gress against childhood leukemia,” said Dr. Sam
uel Broder, director of the National Cancer Insti
tute. “They were as wrong then as they are about
AIDS now.”
In an address at the Fifth International Con
ference on AIDS, Broder noted that AZT, the
first approved anti-AIDS drug, has extended the
lives of people with AIDS.
A study of homosexual men showed that they
had a 30 percent chance of surviving for 18
months with AIDS in 1982, but a 60 percent
chance by 1987.
“I believe the widespread introduction of AZT
is one factor that contributed to this,” Broder
said. He directed the development of AZT, also
known as zidovudine.
In another report Wednesday, researchers at
Johns Hopkins University said they eliminated
any trace of the AIDS virus in a single AIDS pa
tient who was given AZT and a transplant of
bone marrow from a sister whose bone marrow
type matched his.
The experiment showed that bone marrow
transplants could work in AIDS patients. How
ever, such treatment is unlikely ever to become
widely available because matching bone marrow
cannot always be found and because transplants
are too expensive to be done on a large number
of patients.
Despite being cleansed of the AIDS virus, the
patient died of cancer six weeks after the trans
plant.
Enrollment hits
record high
for summer
The unofficial count for first day
summer enrollment at Texas
A&M was a record high of
15,957, Donald Carter, registrar,
said.
This number will fluctuate as
people add and drop classes, and
an official count will be released
next week, he said.
Today is the last day for stu
dents to register and pay for first
session and 10-week classes. Stu
dents must add and drop classes
at the Pavilion and pay upon reg
istration. Students who have not
paid for classes by 5 p.m. will be
dropped.
Gorbachev says troops cannot quell
ethnic violence; 67 reported dead
MOSCOW (AP) — More than 9,000 soldiers have
been unable to halt the bloody ethnic violence in Uzbe
kistan, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Wednes
day.
He told the Soviet congress that arson and slayings
are still going on in the Central Asian republic. Soviet
media reports said the death toll had reached 67 and
that authorities had lost control.
Accounts in state-run media on the strife in the in the
Fergana Valley 1,500 miles southeast of Moscow said
some people had been stoned to death, and others “per
ished under the burning debris of houses.”
“One thing is clear: the local authorities have lost
control of the situation, failed to cope with it on their
own,” the official Tass news agency reported from Uz
bekistan.
To protect them from marauding Uzbeks, several
thousand members of the Meskhi Turk ethnic minority
have been removed to a temporary camp outside the
city of Fergana “in the steppe under the scorching sun,”
Tass said.
Helicopters and armored personnel carriers are pa
trolling Fergana, a city of more than 200,000 people,
Tass said.
The Communist Party daily Pravda said 9,000 Inte
rior Ministry troops were in the eastern Uzbekistan val
ley trying to maintain order.
Violence in the grape- and cotton-growing region be
gan May 23-24 after a dispute in a bazaar, when a
Meskhi Turk spoke rudely to a fruit vendor because he
thought her prices were too high and knocked over her
plate of strawberries, Uzbekistan Communist Party
chief Rafik Nishanov said.
That incident triggered a marketplace brawl, and in
later incidents of ethnic violence that reached a cre
scendo last weekend, more than 400 houses, 116 cars,
See Soviet/Page 5
Nicaragua would have
aided Panama’s defense
from U.S.,
WASHINGTON (AP) — At
the height of the Panama crisis
last month, the Nicaraguan army
was prepared to assist the Pana
manian government in the event
of U.S. military intervention
there, administration officials
said Wednesday.
A top Nicaraguan diplomat
called the allegation false.
The U.S. officials said Nicara
gua also sent to Panama a ship
ment of Soviet-made weapons as
part of the Sandinista commit
ment to help Gen. Manuel Anto
nio Noriega defend his govern
ment against possible use of U.S.
military force.
Although the time frame of
these alleged activities was not
specified, they presumably oc
curred in the tumultuous post
election period when the Bush
administration was shaping a re
sponse and insisting that no op
tions had been ruled out, includ
ing the use of force.
In the end, Bush decided to
send about 2,000 combat troops
to Panama but made it clear that
the purpose was not to force out
Noriega but to ensure the safety
of Americans residing in Panama.
Bush felt that diplomatic pres
sure on Noriega was the surest
means to a democratic outcome
in Panama.
The officials, declining to be
identified by name, made known
their allegations about Nicara
gua’s activities to the Associated
Press as Organization of Ameri-
officials say
can States foreign ministers con
cluded another round of talks
about Panama’s political crisis.
Nicaragua has emerged as Pan
ama’s strongest hemispheric ally
in the wake of the failed election
process in Panama last month.
Asked about the U.S. allega
tions, Nicaraguan Vice Foreign
Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco ac
knowledged that Nicaragua was
concerned about the potential for
U.S. intervention in Panama.
“We knew there was movement
of troops by the U.S. toward Pan
ama apart from what was an
nounced,” Tinoco said.
“In the face of that situation,
Nicaragua felt that there was the
possibility of an intervention in
Panama,” he said.
“This possibility, in turn, cre
ated the possibility of a regional
conflict and for an intervention in
other Central American coun
tries. Based on an emergency sit
uation, Nicaragua declared a
state of alert for its forces. That’s
what happened.”
He said that after a few days,
when the U.S. military interven
tion did not materialize, the state
of alert was withdrawn.
Tinoco denied that Nicaragua
sent arms to Panama and added
that Sandinista authorities have
not promised to send troops to
Panama in the event of an Ameri
can invasion.
Nicaragua’s relationship with
Panama is limited to “moral and
political support,” he said.