Very true, and fair play for posting this.

Far be it for me to defend Galloway or the Chinese Army, but it looks like there was no massacre inside the square.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html

(And, yes, the Telegraph isn’t my usual haunt.)

it looks like there was no massacre inside the square

I think that may be true, but it’s sick-making to hear Galloway offering that definitional quibble in support of his usual whitewashing of brutal tyrants.

It was a Beijing-wide massacre.

Sunny, agree entirely. Odd how many don’t include the awful Chávez in that list, though, despite Galloway’s strong support for them as well.

I’ve always believed that Galloway will one day join the Conservative Party.

How could I have missed those 2,000 bodies?
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/1413589-lg.jpg

Hi Rob, you’re really comparing Venezuela to China? that’s absurd. I don’t think losing a sense of perspective helps.

We should feel bound IMO to acknowledge the monumental contributions of the Scots, such as George Galloway, to British politics.

According to this recent poll, the English are more in favour of independence for Scotland than the Scots are:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/3570

99% of all british politicians are apologists for some dictatorships. a few weeks ago the regime of rwandan tyrant paul kagame,a hero to many on both right and left(many tories support him and blair was a special advisor to him in 2008), was exposed as having sent a hitman to assassinate rwandan opposition figures in london. the silence from the british political class and most media is deafening.

@9

“was exposed as having sent a hitman to assassinate rwandan opposition figures in london.”

Exposed = accused, I assume…

On-topic – more evidence of Galloway’s idiocy is always welcome, a shame some on the left still hold him up as some sort of poster boy.

For documentation from Chinese sources on events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, try this collection:

Andrew Nathan and others (eds): The Tiananmen Papers (Abacus, 2002)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tiananmen-Papers-Andrew-J-Nathan/dp/0349114692

@Sunny: And your reasons for that opinion is backed up by what evidence? Human rights abuses denounced by Amnesty? Disappearance of activists?

Far be it for me to defend Galloway or the Chinese Army, but it looks like there was no massacre inside the square.

Come to that, the Srebrenica massacre largely took place outside the town. To call it the, “around and about Tiananmen Square massacre” – which I know you’re not proposing, Terence – might be somewhat pedantic…

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Thanks Sunny.

Let us not forget that the Chinese government do not allow their citizens to read information about this non-existent massacre and that citizens are not permitted to congregate in Tiananmen Square.

Rob Marchant -
Sunny is right. Your comparison is absurd. China is a brutal dictatorship. Chavez might be a bit fiery but he is perfectly above board and democratically elected, in a country with no death penalty or independently verifiable political prisoners (i.e. not someone from the opposition who also happens to be a convicted criminal under the democratic laws of the land.), and has introduced dozens of highly progressive laws under his tenure legislating against discrimnation and for freedom of speech and assembly. I don’t think he is perfect by any means, but to compare him to the totalitarian, reactionary mass killers of Iran and China makes you look at best a naive idiot, and at worse a disingenuous slimeball with a hidden agenda (see fellow labour revoltant Denis McShane)

AH. Rob. Just had a look at your ridiculous blog ‘centre left’ (no satire intended I presume.) and I can see what your problem is. You are one of these (like Denis McShane) loony Labour Israel-right-or-wrongers and that puts Chavez firmly in the two minute hate category, for his support of the palestinans/willingness to deal with Iran. It all makes sense now.
(the latter I don’t personally particularly agree with as I see Iran as a reactionary nightmare, but hardly as tick to unilaterally and unhypocritically beat Chavez with given some of our close allies.)

(none of this commentray in any way detracts from the fact that Galloway is a bit silly, though sometimes good entertainment value)

@Joe: we do not need to say that just because someone does not do all the bad things that another country does, that we should support or propagandise for them, as many on the left say about Chávez. Countries are either FULLY democratic (which Venezuela is not, read the articles about dubious elections and constitutional changes), FULLY respect human rights and have a FULLY free press, or they do not. That is all. Venezuela fails on all three counts. We are not required to take morally relative stances. We should criticise China and Venezuela equally, no more, no less.

Rather like Mugabe, Chávez is entrenching himself in power through semi-democratic means in order to legitimise himself. And slowly but surely the free press, human rights and democracy are all crumbling. Not to mention the disaster he is now making of the economy.

Can you explain quickly why Venezuela is a) any less democratic b) has more huma rights issues c) has a less free press than the United States.

Bonus question: Do you see the US as a democracy or one of these balck n white evildoers on the ‘other side’?

Show your workings. No extra marks for hypocrisy.

I was about to make a joke about George Galloway being the man with the white carrier bag stopping the tanks.

Alternatively I was going to remind Mr Galloway, that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence: but of course the evidence is there to see.

There is no humour in denying a demonstrable attrocity.

Galloway is behaving like a modern day Lord Haw-Haw: though they perhaps had a moral perspective. Galloway’s only moral compass is if it unpopular with Western Media it is a Good Thing.

I think discussions about Venezuela etc shouldn’t really be in this thread. More fire should be focussed on Galloway’s sickening apologism for mass murder (yes, that’s what this is). If someone denied the Holocaust we’d rightly be up in arms, why isn’t there more being said about this? We all know Galloway is quick to fill his lawyers pockets/bank accounts but ffs, he’s on record pretty much denying what everyone knows to be the case. This is how revisionism begins – people like Galloway pretending to act innocent with “did you see any bodies?” questions. 20 years time people will be quoting him as a legitimate source unless he is embarrassed enough into making a retraction or apology, and quickly.

yes i condemn galloway, equally i condemn hypocrites who try and use this as a stick to beat a democratically elected goverment in what can only be called a gargantuan flight of fancy.

@Joe: check out the link in my earlier comment. There are four articles there which link through to evidence on every one of those three areas. Facts are generally more useful than name-calling.

Oh yes, and the US is demonstrably democratic, with a free press and a generally pretty good record on human rights. Don’t be silly.

Countries are either FULLY democratic…, FULLY respect human rights and have a FULLY free press, or they do not. That is all.

Ludicrous and total nonsense. Countries are MORE or LESS democratic, respect human rights to GREATER and LESSER extents, and have a FREER and LESS FREE presses.

Guess what? Like most things in the world, freedom and democracy are matters of degree. No countries are perfectly good (though some are nearly perfectly bad). Shades of grey and all that.

Er the reason for no photographs might have something to do with the government George?

A complete tool of the highest order – he should slip quietly off to Cuba if he loves it that much…

http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/

Rob M: Human rights abuses denounced by Amnesty?

So I’m assuming you’ll also put the US in the same repressive category as China then?

Added: I see you made a point already to Joe on this. Sure, the US is more Democratic. Internally, that is. It’s also demonstrably support some quite undemocratic stuff externally, which has been criticised by human rights orgs. So if you’re going to create a measure, it should include all countries, yes?

I personally dont see how the US is more democratic internally either. Id like some clear examples. compare and contrast.

US – a widely used death penalty, one of the largest prison populations in the world, elections widely seen as stolen, use of torture both physical and psychological in interrogation, various wars of aggression some of them deemed illegal under international law, a mass media almost uniformly on the side of the ruling elite, in primary principle if not detail.

and Venezuela….
Hmm.

I’m not particularly interested in the purely personal question of whether an individual (many of whose arguments appear quite obvious leftist) really counts as a leftist because of other things he’s said.

A far more important question is: what’s that music playing at the end of the clip?

Galloway will have to explain his comments.
He could be acting out of extreme ignorance. Who knows.

In 1991, there was a demonstration in France to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1961 Paris massacre. I was shocked at the massacre and was probably shocked even more at the fact that there was so little awareness of it.

There can be no complacency over such matters.

From Wikipedia:

“Despite the extent of the massacre and publicity surrounding the event – anecdotes tell of piles of bodies in the street, as well as bodies being found downriver for weeks afterwards – the paucity of objective press coverage at the time of the massacre was likely due to two factors: successful censorship of the media by several levels of the government, and biased reporting by major media outlets in countries that were supportive of the French government’s policy regarding Algeria. Some censorship was enforced by the Paris government because of concerns about responsibilities within the Paris police department for the massacre, while other censorship was enforced by the government because of concerns about its deteriorating position in the Algerian War.

Furthermore, according to James J. Napoli, coverage of the massacre by major British and American media sources, such as The Times, TIME magazine and The New York Times, downplayed the severity of the massacre as well as the Paris government’s responsibility for the events.”

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/venezuela

Chavez is a chavista, not a socialist. That people like Chavez and Morales are “better than the old dictators” is not a valid excuse for the left to abandon South American countries as they struggle toward actual democracy.

Galloway isn’t the only one with reservations about Tiananmen Square:-

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/mirsky_06_11.html

This is not the place to examine the events that led to the tragedy at Tiananmen Square; each side has different perceptions depending on the various, often conflicting, origins of their participation in the crisis … The occupation of the main square of a country’s capital, even when completely peaceful, is also a tactic to demonstrate the impotence of the government, to weaken it, and to tempt it into rash acts, putting it at a disadvantage. [Yes, it's always a disadvantage to use tanks against unarmed protesters.]

That’s Henry Kissinger. He’s got financial interests in China so you can see why he doesn’t want to make too much of that unpleasantness. What’s GG’s excuse?

As for the Chinese leaders, they should view that tongue projecting towards their arses with misgivings. Galloway prostates himself at Saddam Hussein’s feet – result, Saddam at the end of a noose. He crawls to Assad – and Assad is having a hard time hanging on to power. He’s a bad omen for any dictator that he grovels to.

Rather like Mugabe, Chávez

In reality, nothing like Mugabe.

Wikileaks supports gorgeous George’s claim, but only in so far as the thousands who were killed died within a stones throw, but not actually IN, Tianamen Sq itself
http://www.wikileaksgear.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=959:wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-tiananmen-square-cables-claim-telegraphcouk&catid=48:wikileaks-news

The obvious question is WHY would the sexy dundonian peddle such a bizarre bit of sophistry – have his radio ratings plummeted again?

Daniel rivas – if you took the time to read those amnesty stories you would see that 90% are cases of police corruption or killings/intimidation in collusion with local landowners. Many police and practically all old landowners are opposition supporters, what with venezuela being a democracy and all, rather than a totalitarian fiefdom under the infernal control of an omnipotent chavez as our swivel-eyed friends like marchant would have us believe. The case of the judge is the one always trotted out as it is about the only one linked to the government in some way.
One thing i cant stand is fake leftwingers, worse than tories. See oldpolitics, marchant, you etc etc.

“One thing i cant stand is fake leftwingers, worse than tories. See oldpolitics, marchant, you etc etc.”

Haha. Oh no! You found us! We’re everywhere. Have you checked under your bed?

@32

“what’s that music playing at the end of the clip?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMT8dZ5UYgY < Requiem for a Dream

It is sooo saddd!!!! Any human being who doesn’t cry from the heart seeing this video is not a human being! I was very moved to see the tear at the end of this horrifying clip coming down from the chinese eyes of a man! I am SURE Mr. GEORGE GALLOWAY is just as much affected by what has happened as anyone else. He DID NOT DEFEND the chinese government for having killed those thousands!!!! he ONLY expressed his astonishment as to why something we’ve been told for 20 years was a massacre, that not a single photograph of a single dead person has been aduced. This is his way of opening the minds of people to THINK further down the line than just automatically beilieving the MEDIA and judging facts that may not be real and fed to us wrongfully…questioning is NOT A CRIME!!! Searching for the truth on your own is what GG and the like are after.

@41

“he ONLY expressed his astonishment as to why something we’ve been told for 20 years was a massacre, that not a single photograph of a single dead person has been aduced.”

Which is a bloody nonsense, because as that clip shows there are plenty of pictures/video clips of dead bodies. GG either a) can’t be bothered finding out or b) wants to whitewash the Chinese governments involvement in the murder of thousands.

I’m reminded of holocaust deniers claiming that photos of concentration camps were faked.

I would have liked to defend Chavez against some unfair allegations, but Joe really hit the nail(s) on the head.

More needs to be said to debunk myths about the US, however. By Rob’s logic/own definitions, the US is a dictatorship. The US has: freedom of speech but not free press (in Venezuela it’s better – you have TV stations calling for the overthrow of the system; in US no one calls for the overthrow of the business dictatorship, because said businesses run the press and TV); many political prisoners (note America’s brutal prison camps in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, far worse than anything in Venezuela); is essentially a one party state (both main parties are totally subservient to business interests, enriching the elites but making the general population actually poorer over the years).

Also, less relevant, but in terms of comparing Venezuela and China, China has Stalin-style mass labour camps. Just saying.