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SCMP Reporter

CHINESE President Jiang Zemin and other key players in the suppression of the democracy movement of 1989 have tried to dissociate themselves from the crackdown.

  They have apparently already moved to head off any settling of scores which might take place after the death of patriarch Deng Xiaoping.

  Chinese sources said that in recent internal addresses, Mr Jiang made repeated reference to the way in which the student movement in Shanghai had been defused in a ''peaceful'' manner.

  Mr Jiang was party boss of Shanghai before his elevation to party general-secretary on June 24, 1989.

  The speeches were made in the context of measures the leadership was taking this year to prevent an outbreak of massive social disorder, the sources said yesterday.

  ''The central leadership must be careful and judicious in handling national disturbances,'' said Mr Jiang in a thinly-veiled reference to June 4.

  ''We in Shanghai were able to neutralise the trouble-making elements without upsetting stability.''   The leadership decided soon after the crackdown to freeze the ''Tiananmen Square issue'', particularly the question of responsibility, until the death of Mr Deng.

  Informed sources said, however, that the moment Mr Deng went, major contenders for the post-Deng leadership would try to bludgeon their rivals by holding them responsible for the catastrophe.

  The sources said that while Mr Jiang's remarks were a pre-emptive move to clear himself of complicity, the party chief was not uninvolved in the train of events leading to the gunshots.

  They said on the orders of Mr Deng, Mr Jiang was transferred to Beijing in May to help handle the revolt, whereupon he took up the position of the head of a secret body in party headquarters called the Emergency Committee to Handle the Tiananmen Square Turmoil.

  While the military side of the operation was supervised by Mr Deng and Yang Shangkun, respectively the chairman and secretary-general of the Central Military Commission, Mr Jiang played a sizeable role in crisis management, including ousting then-party chief Zhao Ziyang and other ''bourgeois liberals'' in the party.

  ''Technically, Jiang remained Shanghai party boss till late June 1989, and he can claim credit for the way the Shanghai leadership, including then-mayor Zhu Rongji, managed to put out the rebellion without bloodshed,'' a source said.

  Diplomats in Beijing said that after Mr Deng's death, three politicians would be susceptible to be made scapegoats: Premier Li Peng, Beijing party boss Chen Xitong, and his predecessor, Li Ximing.

  ''For the sake of unity, Deng's successors will not finger their patron,'' said a senior Western diplomat.

  ''However, just as the Gang of Four were accused of misleading Chairman Mao, the two Li's and Chen might be stigmatised for giving Deng the wrong advice.''   According to party sources, Li Ximing, who retired from the politburo and his position of Beijing party boss in late 1992, recently tried to exonerate himself in a seminar on recent party history.

  ''Historical events, including those in the party, were never caused by a small group of people,'' Mr Li reportedly said.

  He cited the Cultural Revolution as an example of an entire faction of the party going astray.

  The party sources said Mr Deng's assessment of the severity of the student demonstrations in April and May 1989 were partly based on verbal accounts given to him by Mr Li and Mr Chen, then mayor of Beijing.

  Premier Li became the symbol of the suppression partly because he declared martial law in Beijing on May 20, 1989   However, the sources said, because he was not as close to Mr Deng as Mr Yang, Mr Jiang or Mr Li, his role in the decision to use drastic measures against the students might have been less than expected.

  The sources said National People's Congress chairman Qiao Shi could benefit most from the ''blame game'' that would be played after Mr Deng's demise.

  At a crucial meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee in late May, Mr Qiao abstained from a vote on whether to move the troops to the capital.



Leaders dodging blame for massacre