From: "J. Cen [404] 727-4676" <PHSJJC@EMRYCC.BITNET>
Subject:      Forward: Shen Tong? (III)
Reply-To: "J. Cen [404] 727-4676" <PHSJJC@EMRYCC.BITNET>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 18:54:00 GMT

Dear Netters:

        THe following is a news article appearing in the front page of the
October 5 issue of Daily Free Press, the student newspaper of Boston
University.  It painted a damaging picture of the Alliance of Hong Kong
Chinese in the United States (AHKCUS).  It all started after one of the
reporters called Stephen Ng (Wu in Manderin), the Chairperson of AHKCUS,
to check what he knew about Shen Tong.

James J. Cen
Emory University
============================================================================

Date:     Tue Oct 06, 1992  2:50 pm  EST
From:     Waishing Choi
          EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
          MBX: waishing@buengf.bu.edu
Subject:  Shen Tong and ahkcus

[Comments Deleted]

*********************************************************

The Daily Free Press
(student newspaper of Boston University)

Monday, Oct 5, 1992.

Columbia Professor Questions Shen's Role in China.
Allies of Imprisoned Student Deny Charges.

[copied without permission]

A Columbia University assistant professor charged yesterday that Shen Tong,
the Boston University graduate student imprisoned in China, falsely
presented himself as a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising and
endangered other students when he returned to Beijing  this summer,
but Shen's BU colleagues said that such rumors are untrue and possibly
disinformation.

"I am not sure why someone would say these things, but it's my sense that
this information is being spread by double agents or some disinformation
organization," BU history professor Merle Goldman said.

The accusations came from Columbia professor Steven Ng,
who is also president of the nation wide organization Alliance of Hong Kong
Chinese in the U.S.

Ironically, Ng's organization is lobbying for the release of Shen and
the others who were arrested with Shen Aug. 31. Shen was in
Beijing to announce the opening  of a Democarcy for China
office when he was arrested.

"I'm not calling him a liar, he just doesn't get the facts straight,"
Ng said. "Shen was not involved in the leadership of Tiananmen Square
and he was not active in the revolution. That's why he could leave
the country easily. There were no official warrants for his arrest."

"Shen told people he was a deputy leader in the revolution when in fact
he was only an aide and a marginal player," Ng added.

Ng also charged that Shen put the other students involved in the
underground democratic movement in China in jeopardy when he did not tell
them about his plans to hold a Beijing press conference to announce the
opening of a Democracy for China [Fund] office.

But Michael Berlin, a BU journalism, firmly denied the allegations against
Shen, saying that Shen had been on the Chinese goevrnment's most-wanted
list and had to return China through an "underground railroad."

"I've known Shen for four years and he's not the kind of person who would
do this," Berlin said.

" He was always very open about what he was doing and what he stood for,"
Berlin said . "He wouldn't lie, especially not to fellow members
of the dissident movement."

" I can assure you that Shen Tong was one of the starters of the movement,"

Berlin said. " He was involved in one of the two original movements
which served as the seed for what started the revolution in Tiananmen
Square."

" After May 13 [1989], Shen was shouldered out of activity i Tiananmen by
radical leaders who supported a radical stance. He was no longer an
insider," Berlin explained.

Ross Terrill, Boston writer and friend of Shen, denied Ng's charges
that Shen was responsible for the arrests of the other student
dissidents in August.

"It's basically not true. This is a complicated situation in which
people are going to say different things. He gave the underground
contacts a pretty full account and offered them options to be filmed
[during the Democracy for China news conference] with their heads
covered," Terrill said.

While no official reports have been released as to the whereabouts
of Shen, Berlin said," I was told by someone in the Chinese community
that Shen has spoken to his mother and asked her to send his winter
jacket."

"This seems to imply that Shen will be imprisoned for a while," he added.

" One might say he made the wrong decision [to go back to China] but
I think at this stage the only thing you can accuse him of is having
courage ," Berlin said.

==============================TO BE CONTINUED=============================
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china