Wednesday, May 6, 2009

This Day in 1989: May 6, Dialogue Delegation Submit Petition

On Saturday, May 6, 1989, most colleges in Beijing had resumed their regular classes and the emerging movement seemed to be moving toward an end. Except for at Peking University. In a campus-wide vote at that school, 64.2% of students chose to continue their class boycott. So the strike continued there. Beijing Normal University followed suite as a solidarity measure. Those were only two schools that continued the class boycott.

The newly formed Dialogue Delegation was slowly finding their footing. Its co-leaders Xiang Xiaoji and Shen Tong delivered a dialogue petition of their own to the government. Compared to the ultimatum authored by Beijing Students Autonomous Federation a few days earlier, this one was significantly more moderate.

Growing pain continued in the student organizations. For his "unilateral" decision of announcing the resume of classes, Zhou Yongjun was formally expelled from Beijing Students Autonomous Federation. Feng Congde also resigned from both the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation and the Preparatory Committee at Peking University. He was tired and thought he was not quite up to the job. Wuer Kaixi resumed the leadership role.

Things were also changing on the government side. Official press started to report the ongoing student movement in positive tunes. Zhao Ziyang made an internal speech to encourage reporters and editors to exercise their rights in fair and truthful reporting.


Days of 1989


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