Call for Tiananmen answers

On the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, China is being asked to account for its actions when the pro-democracy movement was crushed.

Bao Tong, the most senior Chinese official jailed for sympathising with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, said the time is right for China reveal the rifts in the leadership that led to the massacre.

He argued that China has been praised for its transparency in handling the devastating May 12 earthquake and it should carry over that openness to Tiananmen.

The 1989 demonstrations lured more than a million people on to Beijing's streets, and ended in a military crackdown.

The ruling Communist Party has kept the official death toll top secret, although witnesses have put the figure at anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand people when soldiers shot into crowds as they advanced towards the square on the night of June 3-4.

Now a fading memory, the massacre is still taboo in the Chinese media.

"Through this quake ... they have tasted the benefits of openness and should know that openness is better than being closed," Mr Bao said in an interview at his Beijing home.

"June 4 of 19 years ago was a man-made disaster, but like natural disasters it should be made known to the people of the entire country and the whole world," said Mr Bao, who was jailed for seven years and remains an outspoken critic of the government.

Despite efforts of dissidents and families of victims to keep memories of Tiananmen alive, the virtual silence on that period within China means few people know much about the movement.

Asked on Tuesday about the anniversary, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the government had given a verdict on 1989 long ago and the issue was an internal one.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack disagreed.

"The time for the Chinese government to provide the fullest possible public accounting of the thousands killed, detained or missing in the massacre that followed the protests is long overdue," he said.

A student from Sichuan, visiting Beijing to escape aftershocks from the May 12 tremor which killed at least 69,122 people, knew nothing about the events of 19 years ago.

"Today's a special day?" she asked. "I haven't studied that in my history class."

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