Max Uechtritz: “It still sends chills down my spine”

“It still sends chills down my spine,” Max Uechtritz remembers.

“He said, ‘Max, look at this!’

“I went and looked in the eyepiece on the camera and there was this amazing scene unfolding.”

Tomorrow marks the 30th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing when thousands of Chinese were killed in a battle between Democracy and Communism.

Former ABC journalist Max Uechtritz was there when tanks rolled in and gun fire broke out, and the hardline government quashed an uprising into the history books. No other Australian TV crew left there. And he was on the balcony to see 1 lone man standing up to tanks on the streets.

Last week he spoke to TV Tonight about the days he says are “seared into my soul.”

Uechtritz joined ABC in 1986 and was a senior reporter when he was sent to replace tired correspondents in Beijing with ABC Radio’s Peter Cave. Demonstrations by students had been underway in Tiananmen Square since mid-April 1989. Little did he realise it was about to take a turn when a 10 metre tall statue was wheeled into the Square.

“There was a notion we would be doing the mopping up of the story. As we got there it was still in play but the Goddess of Democracy was brought down and that changed everything. It reignited the protest and brought back the crowds and led to what happened,” Uechtritz recalls.

“The Generals won’t like this.”

“About a million people poured out of the darkness and joined this amazing cavalcade taking the Goddess of Democracy to Tiananmen Square, the heart of Communism. They were singing ‘Long Live Democracy.’ It was quite surreal. Spine-chilling.

“It was placed before a painting of Chairman Mao on the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

“Willie Phua who was the head of our camera crew team there said, ‘The Generals won’t like this.’

The “legendary Phua,” now 91, was Uechtritz’s cameraman from Singapore, joined by two young assistants Sebastian and Joe Phua plus Kone Chang on sound. The team was based at two hotels including the nearby Beijing Hotel, which had a bird’s eye view on the conflict.

Filming on the streets when the army tanks and Armoured Personnel Carriers bore down on their own people, Uechtritz and his cameraman tried to escape.

“We filmed young men and women, bloodied, put onto the back of trays on pedicabs, either dead or wounded,” he says.

“We made a run for it but there was a convoy of APCs and tanks coming down. Whether they were aiming at us or firing warning shots…. there was machine-gun fire.

“The secret police had locked the doors to our hotel so we had to take cover under a minibus.”

The events of June 4 1989, also known as Six Four, were denounced around the world, as figures about how many victims were slain could never be verified. Amnesty International puts the figure at 1000 but Uechtritz estimates deaths around the city at closer to 10,000. It would have a lasting impact on political, social and economic relations for years to come.

“There was a brave young man with shopping bags standing in front of a steel monster.”

But it was footage of one incident that crystallised the defiance of the demonstrators, which comprised students, workers, doctors, nurses, police and more. It lingers long after the bloodshed, 3 decades on.

On July 5 Uechtritz was with his team on the 10th floor of the Beijing Hotel when Willie Phua called him to their balcony.

“It still sends chills down my spine, he said, ‘Max, look at this!’ I went and looked in the eyepiece on the camera and there was this amazing scene unfolding.

“There was a brave young man with shopping bags standing in front of a steel monster.”

ABC footage filmed by Willie Phua

The unnamed man was facing off with army tanks, in an almighty David & Goliath face-off. He would come to be known as “Tank Man.”

“It moved to one side and he jumped in front of it. We were holding our breath,” Uechtritz recalls.

“All the tanks behind them had guys in the turrets with machine guns.

“He clambered up onto the tank and was telling something.

“The only words we know he said were, ‘Why are you here? You have done nothing but create misery. My city is in chaos because of you.’

“In my report that night I said ‘The luckiest man in China was rushed off by friends.’

“Let’s hope he survived. Nobody will ever know.”

 

ABC was one of 3 broadcasters to capture the moment (CNN & NBC were the others).

But Uechtritz still had to get the footage out for the world to see, given the Chinese had blocked all Live satellite coverage.

They copied the footage and paid a local pedicab $US500 to courier it to the airport to find an Australian. Any Australian.

“We had no way of knowing if it would ever get out.”

“We gave them a big bundle and a letter in English, with a big note saying ‘Anyone on the Qantas flight going to Hong Kong?’” he continues.

“He pedalled out to the airport and gave it to an Australian. We had our hearts in our mouths.

“We had no way of knowing if it would ever get out.”

A passenger took it to a Hong Kong broadcaster which transferred it to ABC. Reports and vision shocked Australians and the Hawke-led government, with the late PM reduced to tears as he described the slaughter.

Uechtritz won a Walkley Award for his coverage and would go on to work with Nine, Al Jazeera and Seven. But he credits Willie Phua with getting the world-famous Tank Man without the due recognition.

“The ABC was at the heart of the story all the way through. Willie’s footage, and that shot by the other young men, was just extraordinary,” he insists.

“He got the best close-up pictures.”

“I have an overwhelming sense of sadness”

Today Uechtritz runs his own production company specialising in documentaries. On the 30th Anniversary of the massacre I ask how he looks back on the tragedy.

“I have an overwhelming sense of sadness about the waste of all those young people’s lives,” he reveals.

“The sheer illogical naivety of the protestors confounds me still. It was wonderful to see all this verve and they believed so deeply in the People’s Liberation Army.

“All their lives the People’s Army had served them in floods, droughts, famine. But the trust didn’t extend to the Generals and Polit Bureau who had been humiliated for weeks.

“The Goddess of Democracy was almost a death sentence for people.

“You see things you wish you’d never seen.”

Four Corners: Tremble & Obey airs 8:30pm tonight on ABC.