Thirty years ago, on May 12, 1990, members of the Ukrainian Students Union began a hunger strike at Kyiv’s Bohdan Khmelnytsky Square in memory of the Chinese students who were massacred by the Chinese army a year prior in Beijing on Tiananmen Square.
The hunger strike was in response to a worldwide appeal from Harvard University students to commemorate the massacre of 1989.
Student hunger strikers arrived in Kyiv from local universities and from Warsaw universities, and the strike was conducted under the slogans: “For your freedom and ours,” “Long live student unity,” “Ukrainian students at Kruty – Chinese students on Tiananmen Square died for the ideals of freedom and democracy.” On separate placards, written in Chinese, were such slogans as “Freedom for students” and “Away with the Communists.”
Holding Ukrainian flags, the hunger strikers lit candles and held a moment of silence in memory of those who died.
Also that month in 1990, Ukrainian students – not only in Ukraine but around the world – led protests in solidarity with the Baltic states, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, that were moving forward with independence efforts to sever ties with the Soviet Union. Protests were widespread in the U.S. in anticipation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to the U.S. on May 30 through June 3.
Rallies, concerts and demonstrations were held in various locations across Washington, including Lafayette Park near the White House, near the Vietnam War Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as near the U.S. Capitol Building. Similar protests and actions were organized in other major cities, with participation by various ethnic groups representing the Captive Nations, including Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Ukraine and others.
The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and its information arm, the Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS), organized demonstrations in Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and other locations, with the participation of other concerned ethnic groups.
Source: “Students remember Tiananmen,” The Ukrainian Weekly, May 27, 1990.