Commentary: From Staging the Tiananmen Self-Immolation to Hiring Gunmen to Attempt Assassination in South Africa

Looking at the Tiananmen self-immolation on January 23, 2001 and the South Africa assassination attempt on June 28, 2004, although the two incidents happened at different times and in different places and have different people involved, are there any connections between them?

Yes, there are. The former is used to stir up the hatred among common people in order to maintain the persecution of Falun Gong; the latter is to threaten Falun Gong's anti-persecution effort. Actually, "maintaining the persecution" and "holding back anti-persecution efforts" are two aspects of the same issue. The underlying purpose is the same. Moreover, the suspects behind two cases are the same, that is, Jiang Zemin, Zeng Qinghong and their gang.

Therefore, to those readers who do not believe that a dictator can manipulate a government to do such terrible acts, if one could prove that one of the acts had Jiang and Zeng behind it, it might not be too difficult to imagine that the other one is true as well.

The Tiananmen self-immolation tape shown by CCTV's "Focal Point Interview" has made a stir in public and greatly influenced many people. Some people who originally sympathised with Falun Gong began to grow hatred towards Falun Gong. However, the truth always ultimately prevails over evil. Slow motion playback of the CCTV videotape exposes the entire process of how Liu Cunling was struck to death by a police officer. No matter how Jiang Zemin's gang quibbled afterwards in every possible way, no explanations can change what we see at the scene of the murder. There are many flaws in the tape as well, certain issues about [another of the "Self-immolation" victims] Wang Jindong, the hospital, the photographer, the sudden death of the twelve year-old daughter of Liu Cunling two months after her mother was struck dead by police, and the rest of the people involved disappearing without a trace.

To expose the truth, that the self immolation was staged as a propaganda stunt to implicate Falun Gong, practitioners made a video called "Staged Tiananmen Self-immolation". In March 2002, practitioners in Changchun broadcast the truth-clarifying program by tapping into the local cable TV network. In response, Jiang Zemin issued a command to "kill [them] without mercy." Many practitioners involved were sentenced to long-terms in prison. Eight of them were killed. Clearly, Jiang's gang does not want the truth of the Tiananmen self-immolation to be exposed.

Their original plan was to eliminate Falun Gong in three months. However, the persecution has lasted five years and Falun Gong still survives in China and flourishes more and more widely around the world. The anti-persecution momentum increases more and more. To Jiang and Zeng, who were the backstage orchestrators of the killings at Tiananmen Square, what wouldn't they do to undermine Falun Gong practitioners' anti-persecution efforts?

On June 28, 2004, when Zeng Qinghong visited South Africa, practitioners from Australia went to South Africa to bring a lawsuit against Zeng Qinghong. Their car was shot by unknown gunmen while they were driving on a highway. The driver was hit on both feet. Apparently the gunmen attempted to make the car overturn in order to bring death and destruction to the car and the practitioners inside.

In the Tiananmen self-immolation incident, before police had even begun to investigate the case, Xinhua News Agency immediately claimed that Falun Gong practitioners were involved.

In the South Africa assassination attempt, before the South African police had even begun an investigation, a Chinese Embassy spokesperson in South Africa issued a statement and asserted "the Chinese government has nothing to do with the incident."

One of the reasons the spokesperson gave is, "When Chinese vice president Zeng Qinghong visited South Africa, the South African government was fully responsible for the security issue." Actually, it is not the security of Zeng Qinghong that people questioned but the safety of Falun Gong practitioners. If the security personnel in South African government were fully in charge of the security of Zeng Qinghong, wouldn't the security staff from China have more time and opportunities to "threaten" the safety of Falun Gong practitioners?

According to a BBC report, the embassy spokesperson said, "On every Chinese Spring Festival, that is Chinese Christmas Day, Falun Gong members would always conduct self-immolation." This untrue statement is simply more evidence of Jiang's regime's attempts to sink the hate-inciting propaganda value of the staged self immolation to even greater depths of depravity.

For such a regime, that dared to burn and kill people at Tiananmen Square publicly in order to maintain and even "justify" the persecution, it would not be a surprise to learn that they hired gunmen to attempt assassination in a remote foreign country in order to threaten and prevent practitioners' anti-persecution efforts.