Harry Wu on the real China
WND interviews former political prisoner, human-rights champion
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Editor’s note: In this exclusive interview with WorldNetDaily.com, Harry Wu,
one of the world’s leading human-rights dissidents, spoke to international
correspondent Anthony C. LoBaido. Wu discussed his views on communist China,
the spy-plane situation, espionage at the labs in New Mexico, North Korea,
Taiwan, the West and its transnational corporations, human-rights issues,
Bill Clinton, nuclear war and the new Marxist government of South Africa. Wu
also spoke about his ordeal as a prisoner for 20 years in a Chinese
slave-labor camp and his maverick journey to America.
By Anthony C. LoBaido
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
NEW YORK — The name Harry Wu needs no introduction to freedom-loving
Americans. Having survived the laogai or slave-labor gulags of communist
China, Wu came to America and testified before Congress about the horrors of
China’s slave-labor system.
Wu was born into a bourgeois family that was fairly affluent when compared
to the rest of China’s population.
"My father was a banker and my mother had descended from a family of
well-to-do landlords," Wu told WorldNetDaily. "My youth was one of peace and
pleasure. Then in 1949 came the communist revolution, led by Mao. My life
changed dramatically. During my teen-age years, my father lost all his
properties. We had money problems. The government took over all the property
in the country. We even had to sell my piano."
"At first things seemed OK in China. The government was busy with the Korean
War and suppressing the old government elements. The first four to five
years after the revolution we were basically OK as a nation. But then the
government began to wipe out religion — Buddhists, Catholics and all
Christians."
Harry Wu
Wu said that during the initial years after the communist revolution, "the
majority of the Chinese people wanted to dedicate their efforts toward
serving the people of the nation. We believed this would make China a
wealthy nation."
"The communist government told the people, ‘There will be no more
imperialism, no more colonialism.’ In China at that time, the government
stopped prostitution, gambling and drugs. We believed that if we worked
hard, we would have a bright future. The communist leaders killed many
bourgeois landlord elements and demolished the churches.
"There had been many problems in China since the Japanese invasion. We
believed at first that the new communist government would be clean and
straight and honest. We wanted to work hard and discipline ourselves for the
good of the next generation. We believed in the future of communism, and Mao
was treated as a god."
But that initial euphoria did not last for Wu and his family.
"When I was 18, I went to Beijing to begin studies at the Beijing College of
Geology. At that time, I realized that my parents were at the top of
society, a banker and the daughter of a landlord. I began to question myself
and say, ‘Do I deserve this when so many are so poor?’ I thought that maybe
the communist revolution would be good for the whole country."
This sentiment was shared by many Chinese intellectuals of the time,
including the Dalai Lama, who, in September 1999, told Time Magazine, "It
was only when I went to China in 1954-55 that I actually studied Marxist
thought. Once I understood Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a
Communist Party member. Marxism talked about self-reliance, without
depending on a creator or a god. That was very attractive. I still think
that if a genuine communist movement had come to Tibet, there would have
been much benefit to the people."
"When I was 20, I was a sophomore and majoring in geology and engineering. I
played shortstop on the baseball team and was the captain. I had a
girlfriend, too," said Wu.
Little did Wu know that storm clouds were gathering on his horizon. It was
to be the last "normal" era of his life for several decades.
"In 1957 came something called ‘The 100 Flower Movement.’ The communists
named it as such because all Chinese were supposed to ‘blossom,’ [no matter
what their views were]. The Communist Party invited me to a meeting where I
was encouraged to speak my mind. Actually, I didn’t have much to say."
Wu told WorldNetDaily about the events that transpired at that meeting and
how he had been lured into a trap by the Communist Party.
"Well, first of all, I said, ‘I think the Communist Party has to correct
their privileged status. The common Chinese have second- and third-class
status under them.’ Then I said secondly that ‘the 1956 Soviet invasion of
Hungary is a violation of international law.’ At that time, the People’s
Republic of China was a supporter of the Soviet Union."
Wu told WorldNetDaily that he never attended any other political conferences
or walked or demonstrated on the streets of Beijing.
"Then two weeks later, we had another meeting with the Communist Party
branch at my university. At this meeting, they said, ‘Harry Wu is a
counter-revolutionary rightist. He comes from bourgeoisie. He has actively
attacked the Communist Party. He is a very dangerous enemy of the Party of
the People.’"
Wu added that the Communist Party had members at every university, factory,
farm, school and hospital to keep an eye on the people.
Speaking of the political goal behind the 100 Flowers Movement, Wu told
WorldNetDaily, "The CP (Communist Party) leaders’ idea was, `We have to let
the snake [anti-communists] come out — then we will destroy them.’ They
said that even though I had not committed a ‘bad’ crime. I erred by not
admitting the crime. I had resisted it. Therefore, I was to receive a
certain kind of punishment."
"I had 24-hour surveillance put on me. Every week, I had to write a
self-examination paper and a confession. My parents, girlfriend and friends
had to denounce me publicly. I felt that my future and freedom was gone.
People feel I am a criminal. Nobody sympathized with me. I was one of the
550,000 purged during the 100 Flowers Movement. The actual figure of those
purged is closer to 1 million."
Soon after, Wu decided that he would have to escape from China.
"At that time, I still believed in communism and that it would do good for
the country. Then I realized, however, that I must escape from this country.
To the CP, I had committed a very serious political crime. We had a small
group of dissidents who planned to flee from China. But we were under
surveillance. The communist police state found out about our plans to
escape, and they caught us.
"Of course there was no trial, court or paperwork. I was sent to a
slave-labor camp. The first night in the camp, they told me that I had been
sentenced to life imprisonment. I was bourgeois, stubborn and had resisted.
I was sentenced to a life of re-education on April 27, 1960. I was only 23
years of age."
Life in the laogai
"According to Chinese law, all prisoners must perform labor. There was
construction, railroads, iron mines, livestock, farming wheat and rice,
machinery. All of these fields had forced labor. If we didn’t perform any
labor, the police guards would say, ‘How can we help you to become a newborn
person if you don’t work?’"
Inside the camp, Wu told WorldNetDaily, the prisoners were graded on
political performance and labor performance.
"We worked seven days per week and 30 days per month. Each worker had to
fulfill a quota. If you did not meet the quota, they would reduce your food
or send you to solitary confinement. For your political performance, we had
to make a confession for our crimes. A prisoner could not practice his
religion. You have to betray yourself.
"At first I worked in a chemical factory in Beijing. We would work from 12
p.m. till a.m. in a straight shift. There was no protection for the slave
laborers. We got burns on our skin, and many people were injured. Later, I
worked at a brick factory and then in a iron mine. Later, a steel factory
and then a farm. Between 1972 and 1979, I worked in a coal mine. Through all
my 20 years in the slave-labor camps, I never once saw my family. My mother
passed away in 1960 shortly after I was sentenced to the laogai.
Wu said that he found it difficult to resist the horrendous dehumanization
of the slave-labor camps.
"I realized that I cannot resist them. I am no longer a human being. When
you think of being a human being, what do you think of, Anthony? You think
of freedom, your future, dignity, sex, business, children. I was sentenced
for life in the slave-labor camps. There was no freedom for thinking. How
can you fight for those things? In the beginning, the first two years in the
slave-labor camp, I tried my best to say to myself, ‘I am innocent.’ But you
had to give up your political beliefs and your faith or you would get
tortured. So you pretend. You work hard and obey, or there would be big
trouble for you."
During this time, Wu became spiritually despondent.
"I had been baptized as a Catholic when I was 12-years-old. This was one of
the biggest events of my early years. When I went to the laogai, I tried to
remain calm. When I prayed I would say, `Where are you God? We are human
beings, and we are suffering!’"
Wu’s mindset was greatly altered inside the slave-labor camps.
"Ideals like love and kindness — you don’t think about these things inside
the laogai. Food was a major problem. The prison guards told us, `You will
get good food for good behavior.’ But we did not. We never had any eggs.
Maybe some pork scraps once per month. We ate corn, soybeans and vegetable
soup. Everyone in the laogai system wanted to steal food. All of the slave
laborers became animals. You can take the very best men in the world, and if
you put them in the laogai, after a time they will all become beasts,"
lamented Wu.
"I lost weight. My lowest weight was 36 kilograms [About 80 pounds]. I
almost died. I
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