Tiananmen soldiers 'laughed' during crackdown, archived US reports claim - CNN

Ousted General Secretary of the Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, dies at age 73 on April 15, 1989. The next day, thousands of students gather at Tiananmen Square to mourn him -- Hu had become a symbol of reform for the student movement. A week later thousands more marched to Tiananmen Square -- the start of an occupation that would end in a tragic showdown.

May 13, 1989, student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square escalate into a hunger strike with thousands taking part and calling for democratic reforms.

Student hunger strikers camp out on top of buses parked at Tiananmen Square.

May 16, 1989, then Chinese President Deng Xiaoping (center) takes then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa by the hand at the Great Hall of the People. Gorbachev's visit coincided with the student hunger strikes, forcing the official reception to be moved from Tiananmen Square to the airport -- embarrassing for the Chinese leadership.

May 17, 1989: Five days in and the hunger strike begins to take its toll on students. Paramedics evacuate ailing protestors from the square.

May 18, 1989 and Gorbachev has been in China for three days, witnessing street protests for each of those days. At the height of demonstrations, a million people were marching through Beijing.

May 18, 1989, Chinese workers parade on motorbikes in support of student hunger strikers.

May 19, 1989, the sixth day of hunger strikes. Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang arrives at Tiananmen Square to address the students. He begins his now-famous speech by saying: "Students, we came too late. We are sorry." The next day, Premiere Li Peng declares martial law in parts of Beijing.

May 20, 1989, teachers from Beijing Normal University arrive at Tiananmen Square by the truckload to support their students after martial law was declared.

May 20, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrators raise their fists and flash the victory sign while stopping a military truck filled with soldiers on its way to Tiananmen Square.

May 30, 1989, students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts create a 10-meter-tall statue of the Goddess of Democracy to boost morale amongst student protestors in Tiananmen Square. Erected in just four days, the statue was unveiled in front of the Monument to the People's Heroes.

This photo was taken on June 2, 1989, showing hundreds of thousands gathered around the Goddess of Democracy.

Countdown to the crackdown: Unarmed troops first approached Tiananmen Square on June 2.

On the night of June 3 and into the early hours of June 4, armed troops and tanks moved in on students and other civilians in the areas around Tiananmen Square, opening fire on the crowds.

June 4, 1989, journalists covering the crackdown were caught in the line of fire.

June 4, 1989, students set fire to tanks. An official death toll has not been released but witnesses and human rights groups say hundreds were killed in the clash.

In the weeks following June 4, activists who were directly or indirectly involved in the pro-democracy demonstrations were arrested.

Today, Hong Kong is the only Chinese territory where commemoration of the June 4 crackdown is allowed. Here, pro-democracy legislator Lee Cheuk-yan (left) unwraps a replica of the Goddess of Democracy at Hong Kong's June 4 Museum that opened on April 24, 2014.

A pro-democracy group takes part in a rally outside the June 4 Museum on its opening day. A candlelight vigil commemorating the martyrs of the 1989 crackdown is held in the city's Victoria Park each year on June 4, attended by thousands.

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• U.S. releases classified documents to mark 25 years since Tiananmen crackdown


• 25 documents reveal details from June 4, 1989, including observations of troops


• On that day, Chinese troops fired on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing


• Some troops were said to be "laughing" as they shot randomly at students

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Soldiers from outside Beijing called to the Chinese capital to boost troop numbers "were laughing" as they shot randomly at protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, according to declassified U.S. documents.

The documents were among 25 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) records released to mark 25 years since Chinese authorities sanctioned a brutal crackdown that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-democracy protesters.

Each typed report is clearly marked as "not finally evaluated intelligence," and some contain obvious inaccuracies including claims from the U.S. source that Supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping had "died of heart failure."

The source even went as far as to quote a Chinese official who reportedly said Deng's final words were: "Originally, I did not want to use force."

In fact, Deng died almost 10 years later, in February 1997.

Still, the existence of a separate set of observations helps build a picture of the confusion and anger in China as authorities attempted to arrest and silence student protesters.

Soldiers shot 'at random'

According to one report, a source, whose name has been redacted, claimed members of the "27th Army" shot "'at random at any assembly of persons they encountered' whether demonstrators or not."

Another information report is said to contain details of an exchange between a U.S. source and a female doctor who worked the night shift at Beijing's Capital Hospital on June 4.

The doctor said the hospital's director stepped in to prevent the release of any more bodies after they discovered corpses were being cremated soon after being handed over to the Public Security Bureau, the report said.

Hospital staff then started photographing the dead so they could later be identified. The doctor told the U.S. source, 85% of the hospital's doctors had been trained in the U.S., and they were confident "friends in the U.S." would protect them from persecution by Chinese authorities.

In the same report, the U.S. source said "the real heroes of the massacre were the flatcar pedicab operators who volunteered their services to transport the wounded and dead from Tiananmen Square area to the hospital at the risk of losing heir own lives in the process."

'Very calm in Beijing'

Information filed back to the U.S. also described the atmosphere in Beijing in the months after the crackdown when the city was still under martial law.

"On the surface, Beijing appears very calm," one report said. "Shattered glass windows in buildings have all been replaced, but in the area of the foreign diplomats' apartment houses, one can still see marks on the streets left by tanks."

Standing guard at Tiananmen Square were martial law forces, the report said. The "neatly dressed" troops "looked sharp" and stood at "rigid attention," according to the report, which noted that it was the first time in recent years that the source had "seen such well disciplined People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers."

However, outside Tiananmen Square the report said other martial law troops were seen hanging around in groups of three or four "chatting or smoking, slovenly dressed, and appeared to lack discipline."

After the crackdown, China's leaders were said to be on alert for a possible terror attack. One report claimed leaders rarely left their homes and the license plates on their cars were changed "as an added security precaution." The report noted that in the past observers could tell who was at a conference by checking the Mercedes Benz cars parked outside.

There was division, the report claimed, within "the top level of the party" as to whether the search should continue for students who had taken part in the protests. At that stage, the government had "more arrested students than they have prison space," the report said.

Exit checks seemed to have been stepped up at Beijing International Airport, the report claimed, and were "especially strict for any Chinese who happened to look like a student or an intellectual."

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