Tank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, is the nickname of an anonymous man who became internationally famous when he was videotaped and photographed during the Tiananmen Square protests on 5 June 1989. Several photographs were taken of the man, who stood in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks, preventing their advance. The most widely reproduced version of the photograph was taken by Jeff Widener (Associated Press), from the sixth floor of the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile (800 m) away, through a 400 mm lens.
Another version was taken by photographer Stuart Franklin of Magnum Photos. His photograph has a wider field of view than Widener's picture, showing more tanks in front of the man. Franklin subsequently won a World Press Award for the photograph. It was featured in LIFE magazine's "100 Photos that Changed the World" in 2003. Variations of the image were also recorded by CNN and BBC film crews, on videotape, and were transmitted across the world.
The still and motion photography of the man standing alone before a line of tanks reached international audiences practically overnight. It headlined hundreds of major newspapers and news magazines and was the lead story on countless news broadcasts around the world. In April 1998, the United States magazine TIME included the "Unknown Rebel" in its 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
The incident took place just a minute away from Tiananmen on Chang'an Avenue, which leads into the Forbidden City, Beijing, on June 5, 1989, the day after the Chinese government began cracking down violently on the protests. The man stood alone in the middle of the road as the tanks approached. He held two bags, one in each hand. As the tanks came to a stop, he appeared to be trying to wave them away. In response, the front tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action. By looking at these two photographs and using the painted road lines as a reference, it is evident that the tank has moved forward. After blocking the tanks, the man climbed up onto the top of the lead tank and had a conversation with the driver. Reports of what he said to the driver vary, including "Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you"; "Go back, turn around, and stop killing my people"; and "Go away." Video footage shows that anxious onlookers then pulled the man away and absorbed him into the crowd and the tanks continued on their way.
Little is publicly known of the man's identity. Shortly after the incident, British tabloid the Sunday Express named him as Wang Weilin, a 19-year-old student; however, the veracity of this claim is dubious. Numerous rumours have sprung up as to the man's identity and current whereabouts, but none are backed by hard evidence.
There are several conflicting stories about what happened to him after the demonstration. In a speech to the President's Club in 1999, Bruce Herschensohn — former deputy special assistant to President of the United States Richard Nixon — reported that he was executed 14 days later; other sources say he was killed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests. In Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong writes that the man is still alive and is hiding in mainland China.
An eyewitness account of the event published in October 2005 by Charlie Cole, a contract photographer for Newsweek magazine at the time, states that the man was arrested on the spot by the Public Security Bureau.
The People's Republic of China government made few statements about the incident or the person involved. In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters, then-CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin was asked what became of the man. Jiang replied "I think never killed."
A June 2006 article in the Hong Kong Apple Daily stated that the man is now residing in Taiwan.
- Wikipedia Extract
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Assessing the fallout from Tiananmen
By Don Murray
The bloody scars of the past have been airbrushed out of the photo and those who try to draw attention to that cleansing of the historical record have been hustled away.
Consider the case of Liu Xiaobo, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen protests in 1989. I met him a year ago, just after the 19th anniversary of the crackdown.
Liu hadn't been available in the run-up to the day. Chinese security police had locked him in his apartment and cut him off from the rest of the world. When they did eventually let him out, they drove him to his meetings.
Some obvious symbolism as cannons fire a salute in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 2009, the day before the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in 1989. Security was heavy in the square and authorities blocked certain social networking websites. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press)Some obvious symbolism as cannons fire a salute in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 2009, the day before the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in 1989. Security was heavy in the square and authorities blocked certain social networking websites. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press)
Liu was sardonic about his treatment.
As a result of his role at Tiananmen, he had been tried for counter-revolutionary activity and jailed three times.
Still, he said, last summer as the Beijing Olympics beckoned, things were improving.
"When I was arrested in 1996, they ransacked my apartment and left a mess. When I was arrested a decade later they came with white gloves, and when they left, they put things back."
That was then
There will be no interviews with Liu this year, however. In December 2008, he led a group of intellectuals in drawing up and publishing Charter 08, a petition calling for respect for human rights, representative government, an independent judiciary and a federal system for China.
The petition was an updated, condensed call for democracy that was last heard loudly in public in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
An unidentified Chinese man stands in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, where hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed. (Jeff Widener/Associated Press)
It's an iconic image. A lone figure confronting a column of menacing tanks in Tiannamen Square in 1989. It seemed to symbolize the overwhelming odds faced by China's short lived pro-democracy movement. Though it happened just 20 years ago, the event seems like ancient history to most Chinese, observes the CBC's Michel Cormier (video runs: 4:01).
Right after the publication of Charter 08, Liu was promptly arrested and taken away. His wife has seen him just once since then. The authorities won't say where he's being held.
Charter 08 was consciously modelled on Charter 77, the Czech call for freedom and human rights drawn up by playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel in 1977 when the Communists ruled Eastern Europe.
Click here to read more Assessing the fallout from Tiananmen
The bloody scars of the past have been airbrushed out of the photo and those who try to draw attention to that cleansing of the historical record have been hustled away.
Consider the case of Liu Xiaobo, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen protests in 1989. I met him a year ago, just after the 19th anniversary of the crackdown.
Liu hadn't been available in the run-up to the day. Chinese security police had locked him in his apartment and cut him off from the rest of the world. When they did eventually let him out, they drove him to his meetings.
Some obvious symbolism as cannons fire a salute in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 2009, the day before the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in 1989. Security was heavy in the square and authorities blocked certain social networking websites. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press)Some obvious symbolism as cannons fire a salute in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 2009, the day before the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in 1989. Security was heavy in the square and authorities blocked certain social networking websites. (Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press)
Liu was sardonic about his treatment.
As a result of his role at Tiananmen, he had been tried for counter-revolutionary activity and jailed three times.
Still, he said, last summer as the Beijing Olympics beckoned, things were improving.
"When I was arrested in 1996, they ransacked my apartment and left a mess. When I was arrested a decade later they came with white gloves, and when they left, they put things back."
That was then
There will be no interviews with Liu this year, however. In December 2008, he led a group of intellectuals in drawing up and publishing Charter 08, a petition calling for respect for human rights, representative government, an independent judiciary and a federal system for China.
The petition was an updated, condensed call for democracy that was last heard loudly in public in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
An unidentified Chinese man stands in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, where hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed. (Jeff Widener/Associated Press)
It's an iconic image. A lone figure confronting a column of menacing tanks in Tiannamen Square in 1989. It seemed to symbolize the overwhelming odds faced by China's short lived pro-democracy movement. Though it happened just 20 years ago, the event seems like ancient history to most Chinese, observes the CBC's Michel Cormier (video runs: 4:01).
Right after the publication of Charter 08, Liu was promptly arrested and taken away. His wife has seen him just once since then. The authorities won't say where he's being held.
Charter 08 was consciously modelled on Charter 77, the Czech call for freedom and human rights drawn up by playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel in 1977 when the Communists ruled Eastern Europe.
Click here to read more Assessing the fallout from Tiananmen
The Tank Man
On June 5, 1989, one day after Chinese troops expelled thousands of demonstrators from Tiananmen Square, a solitary, unarmed protester stood his ground before a column of tanks advancing down the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Captured by Western photographers, this extraordinary confrontation became an icon of the fight for freedom around the world. Filmmaker Antony Thomas investigates the identity, fate, and significance of the tank man.
Click here to buy FRONTLINE: The Tank Man DVD
Click here to buy FRONTLINE: The Tank Man DVD
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Darfur Makes Sudan's Omar al-Bashir Barack Obama's Biggest African Foe
By William J. Dobson
Presidents don't get to choose their first foreign policy crisis. It usually chooses them. For President Clinton, it was the killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu. For President Bush, it came when a U.S. EP-3 military plane collided with a Chinese fighter pilot, forcing the American crew to land on the Chinese island of Hainan. Many think that President Obama's first crisis came last month in the unlikely form of Somali pirates. (Actually, pirates have been patrolling those waters longer than there have been American presidents and they will likely be there hundreds of years from now.)
While Obama may have handled the high seas showdown, his most dangerous foe in Africa isn't a rag-tag group of teenagers with AK-47s and speedboats. No, that adversary is Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, the world's first sitting president with a warrant for his arrest.
Darfur, the war-torn western region of Sudan, is being pushed perilously close to the edge by the Sudanese government. The biggest test for Obama's foreign policy in Africa will not be pirates; it will be Bashir.
The emerging crisis is of Khartoum's making. In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bashir immediately lashed out, expelling 13 foreign aid groups—groups such as Oxfam, Save the Children, and Doctors without Borders—from the country. These relief organizations were providing clean water, food, and medical attention to roughly 1.5 million people. Now, two months since Bashir's cruel directive, Darfur is again near the brink: water reserves have been depleted, food is in short supply, and medical care is desperately needed. The United Nations has scrambled to make up the shortfall before the rainy season begins. The hardest hit are Darfur's women and children, who make up more than 60 percent of the 2.7 million people driven from their homes.
Click here to read the full article
Presidents don't get to choose their first foreign policy crisis. It usually chooses them. For President Clinton, it was the killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu. For President Bush, it came when a U.S. EP-3 military plane collided with a Chinese fighter pilot, forcing the American crew to land on the Chinese island of Hainan. Many think that President Obama's first crisis came last month in the unlikely form of Somali pirates. (Actually, pirates have been patrolling those waters longer than there have been American presidents and they will likely be there hundreds of years from now.)
While Obama may have handled the high seas showdown, his most dangerous foe in Africa isn't a rag-tag group of teenagers with AK-47s and speedboats. No, that adversary is Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, the world's first sitting president with a warrant for his arrest.
Darfur, the war-torn western region of Sudan, is being pushed perilously close to the edge by the Sudanese government. The biggest test for Obama's foreign policy in Africa will not be pirates; it will be Bashir.
The emerging crisis is of Khartoum's making. In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bashir immediately lashed out, expelling 13 foreign aid groups—groups such as Oxfam, Save the Children, and Doctors without Borders—from the country. These relief organizations were providing clean water, food, and medical attention to roughly 1.5 million people. Now, two months since Bashir's cruel directive, Darfur is again near the brink: water reserves have been depleted, food is in short supply, and medical care is desperately needed. The United Nations has scrambled to make up the shortfall before the rainy season begins. The hardest hit are Darfur's women and children, who make up more than 60 percent of the 2.7 million people driven from their homes.
Click here to read the full article
Monday, June 1, 2009
China and the Olympics
China is pulling out all stops as its capital takes to the world stage as host of the 2008 Olympic games. Since winning the bid seven years ago, Beijing has undergone a construction boom, making this Olympics the world's most expensive games ever, at a cost of $43 billion. This week on 101 East we ask, what does hosting the 2008 Olympics mean for China and its people?
101 East - China and the Olympics - Part 1
101 East - China and the Olympics - 7 Part 2
Source: AlJazeeraEnglish
101 East - China and the Olympics - Part 1
101 East - China and the Olympics - 7 Part 2
Source: AlJazeeraEnglish
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Best Guide for Gitmo? Look to Singapore.
By William J. Dobson, The Washington Post.
What to do with the Guantanamo detainees? Uncertainty resurfaced last week, as the Obama administration backed away from earlier statements on U.S. anti-terrorism policies. The president reversed a decision to release photographs of alleged detainee abuse. Then he decided to keep the military commissions for trying terrorist suspects. The White House is now reportedly considering plans to detain some suspects on U.S. soil indefinitely, without trial.
As the administration struggles over the fate of the 241 remaining detainees in its charge, it may want to look to an old Asian ally for a hand.
Meet Ustaz Ibrahim Kassim, one of Singapore's most respected Islamic scholars. His business card describes him as "Assistant Registrar of Muslim Marriages." But Kassim is engaged in a more important enterprise. He is part of his country's innovative program to fend off the threat of Islamic extremism. "We are not scared of [the terrorists]," says Kassim, an older gentleman with a face framed by a neatly trimmed white beard. "We know that history repeats itself, but these problems do not need to be passed on."
ad_icon
Kassim, along with nearly 40 other Islamic scholars, is part of a select group of religious leaders called the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), which is trying to rehabilitate -- or, as its members say, "deprogram" -- Singapore's terrorist detainees. In 2001, Singapore's authorities had no idea that they had a terrorist problem. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government was tipped off that a cell of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian militant group with links to al-Qaeda, was planning attacks across the city-state. In raids in late 2001 and 2002, more than 30 members of the terrorist outfit were arrested; more arrests followed. So, while the United States was filling its detention center at Guantanamo with foreign fighters, Singapore began to house its own population of Muslim extremists in its jails.
Singapore's strict law-and-order government, which famously enforced a ban on chewing gum, may seem an unlikely candidate for believing terrorists could be reformed. But Singapore -- often referred to as "the little red dot" in Southeast Asia's Islamic sea -- is in a precarious position, and its government felt compelled to take action that would not only disrupt the terrorist group's operations, but also counter its ideological appeal. "We are what we are out of necessity," says Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo. "[Islamic extremism] is a long-term problem, and it's not going to go away in our lifetime. The only way you can combat it is to have an immune system."
Singaporean officials said they decided to use Islamic clerics because they were convinced that only religious leaders could "de-program" the detainees. "Once you have taken an oath of God, it will take another man of God to undo it," a senior security official told me.
After meeting several detainees and studying Jemaah Islamiyah's religious ideology, the Islamic scholars were disturbed to see how their faith had been distorted to recruit terrorist foot soldiers. During more than a thousand weekly hour-long sessions, the scholars worked to build personal relationships with the detainees. Some counselors said the process of de-radicalizing an extremist was similar to the one-on-one relationship that often exists between a terrorist recruiter and recruit.
The main battles were over the Koran. Islamic radicals, especially members of Jemaah Islamiyah, many of whom are born-again Muslims who adopted their extreme faith late in life, often quote from it to justify their actions. That was where a scholar's grasp of Islam came in, and it wasn't always a pleasant exchange. "They believe they have the right to kill. This is what they believe from years of indoctrination," says Ustaz Feisal Hassan, one of the counselors.
As with the rehabilitation of any criminal, there's always the possibility of backsliding. Two graduates of Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation program have reportedly taken leadership positions within al-Qaeda in Yemen. For this reason, the RRG also counsels the detainee's family to ensure that wrong lessons are not passed on to the next generation and to help wives, sons and daughters assimilate into the mainstream. Many families receive financial support from the government, and detainees have jobs waiting for them when they are released.
Sidney Jones, a longtime advocate for human rights in Southeast Asia now at the International Crisis Group, calls this aspect of the Singapore program a "stroke of genius."
"In some places, like Poso [in Indonesia], I have heard it is the wives who urge their husbands not to work with the police and to keep their resolve," says Jones. And unlike in many other countries with terrorist rehabilitation programs, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the detainees in Singapore are required to continue their counseling after their release.
Today, 40 former terrorists, or roughly two-thirds of the detainees Singapore has arrested since 2001, have been rehabilitated and released. None appear to have returned to their violent past. For Singaporean authorities, the best dividend may be the trust they have gained from the city-state's own Muslim citizens. "Singapore is the one place in the world I know where relations between the government and the Muslim community are better after 9/11," says Alami Musa, the president of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore
Of course, the biggest question is how we can ever know if a radical is truly rehabilitated. A detainee in Singapore is not released until his case officer, a psychologist and the religious counselor signs off. Even then the decision goes to the prime minister's cabinet to give its approval. Political accountability rests at the top.
Members of the RRG have traveled to Iraq to brief U.S. military officers on their methods. At a meeting in Singapore earlier this year, Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone Jr., who used to run the U.S. military's detention system in Iraq, said that 15 percent of Iraqi militants would typically return to the fight once released. Since the U.S. military introduced its own rehabilitation program, inspired in part by Singapore's example, that figure has dropped to 1 to 2 percent.
As the Obama administration contemplates what to do with the detainees who remain in Guantanamo, perhaps they should consider talking with Ustaz Ibrahim Kassim. I have his business card.
Source: Washington Post
link to the article: The Best Guide for Gitmo? Look to Singapore.
What to do with the Guantanamo detainees? Uncertainty resurfaced last week, as the Obama administration backed away from earlier statements on U.S. anti-terrorism policies. The president reversed a decision to release photographs of alleged detainee abuse. Then he decided to keep the military commissions for trying terrorist suspects. The White House is now reportedly considering plans to detain some suspects on U.S. soil indefinitely, without trial.
As the administration struggles over the fate of the 241 remaining detainees in its charge, it may want to look to an old Asian ally for a hand.
Meet Ustaz Ibrahim Kassim, one of Singapore's most respected Islamic scholars. His business card describes him as "Assistant Registrar of Muslim Marriages." But Kassim is engaged in a more important enterprise. He is part of his country's innovative program to fend off the threat of Islamic extremism. "We are not scared of [the terrorists]," says Kassim, an older gentleman with a face framed by a neatly trimmed white beard. "We know that history repeats itself, but these problems do not need to be passed on."
ad_icon
Kassim, along with nearly 40 other Islamic scholars, is part of a select group of religious leaders called the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), which is trying to rehabilitate -- or, as its members say, "deprogram" -- Singapore's terrorist detainees. In 2001, Singapore's authorities had no idea that they had a terrorist problem. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government was tipped off that a cell of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian militant group with links to al-Qaeda, was planning attacks across the city-state. In raids in late 2001 and 2002, more than 30 members of the terrorist outfit were arrested; more arrests followed. So, while the United States was filling its detention center at Guantanamo with foreign fighters, Singapore began to house its own population of Muslim extremists in its jails.
Singapore's strict law-and-order government, which famously enforced a ban on chewing gum, may seem an unlikely candidate for believing terrorists could be reformed. But Singapore -- often referred to as "the little red dot" in Southeast Asia's Islamic sea -- is in a precarious position, and its government felt compelled to take action that would not only disrupt the terrorist group's operations, but also counter its ideological appeal. "We are what we are out of necessity," says Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo. "[Islamic extremism] is a long-term problem, and it's not going to go away in our lifetime. The only way you can combat it is to have an immune system."
Singaporean officials said they decided to use Islamic clerics because they were convinced that only religious leaders could "de-program" the detainees. "Once you have taken an oath of God, it will take another man of God to undo it," a senior security official told me.
After meeting several detainees and studying Jemaah Islamiyah's religious ideology, the Islamic scholars were disturbed to see how their faith had been distorted to recruit terrorist foot soldiers. During more than a thousand weekly hour-long sessions, the scholars worked to build personal relationships with the detainees. Some counselors said the process of de-radicalizing an extremist was similar to the one-on-one relationship that often exists between a terrorist recruiter and recruit.
The main battles were over the Koran. Islamic radicals, especially members of Jemaah Islamiyah, many of whom are born-again Muslims who adopted their extreme faith late in life, often quote from it to justify their actions. That was where a scholar's grasp of Islam came in, and it wasn't always a pleasant exchange. "They believe they have the right to kill. This is what they believe from years of indoctrination," says Ustaz Feisal Hassan, one of the counselors.
As with the rehabilitation of any criminal, there's always the possibility of backsliding. Two graduates of Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation program have reportedly taken leadership positions within al-Qaeda in Yemen. For this reason, the RRG also counsels the detainee's family to ensure that wrong lessons are not passed on to the next generation and to help wives, sons and daughters assimilate into the mainstream. Many families receive financial support from the government, and detainees have jobs waiting for them when they are released.
Sidney Jones, a longtime advocate for human rights in Southeast Asia now at the International Crisis Group, calls this aspect of the Singapore program a "stroke of genius."
"In some places, like Poso [in Indonesia], I have heard it is the wives who urge their husbands not to work with the police and to keep their resolve," says Jones. And unlike in many other countries with terrorist rehabilitation programs, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the detainees in Singapore are required to continue their counseling after their release.
Today, 40 former terrorists, or roughly two-thirds of the detainees Singapore has arrested since 2001, have been rehabilitated and released. None appear to have returned to their violent past. For Singaporean authorities, the best dividend may be the trust they have gained from the city-state's own Muslim citizens. "Singapore is the one place in the world I know where relations between the government and the Muslim community are better after 9/11," says Alami Musa, the president of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore
Of course, the biggest question is how we can ever know if a radical is truly rehabilitated. A detainee in Singapore is not released until his case officer, a psychologist and the religious counselor signs off. Even then the decision goes to the prime minister's cabinet to give its approval. Political accountability rests at the top.
Members of the RRG have traveled to Iraq to brief U.S. military officers on their methods. At a meeting in Singapore earlier this year, Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone Jr., who used to run the U.S. military's detention system in Iraq, said that 15 percent of Iraqi militants would typically return to the fight once released. Since the U.S. military introduced its own rehabilitation program, inspired in part by Singapore's example, that figure has dropped to 1 to 2 percent.
As the Obama administration contemplates what to do with the detainees who remain in Guantanamo, perhaps they should consider talking with Ustaz Ibrahim Kassim. I have his business card.
Source: Washington Post
link to the article: The Best Guide for Gitmo? Look to Singapore.
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