Protesters Handle Food, Water, Roadblocks, Security

Students camped in Tian An Men Square in defiance of Chinese authorities have displayed organizational skills matching those of the army ordered to confront them.

Student leaders have set up food and water distribution outlets, broadcast facilities, roadblocks, medical centers and a complicated security check system complete with special passes.

The remarkable organization by the students, helped by Beijing citizens, has put them in effective control of the city center in the most dramatic show of anti-government defiance since the Communists took power in 1949.

The organization has also kept alive students’ morale and brought a method to the madness prevailing in the square, the symbolic heart of Communist China that now looks like something midway between a refugee camp and a rubbish dump.

A Beijing resident described the scene this way: “There is no chaos. There has been no violence, and the students have been generally nice to the citizens.”

About a dozen student leaders are believed to control the demonstrators’ nerve center, situated at the base of the Monument to the Peoples’ Heroes, a giant obelisk at the center of the 100-acre square.

The leaders, mostly from universities in Beijing, are huddled inside makeshift tents and surrounded by a human wall.

All students entering Tian An Men have to produce student passes, while key personnel have been issued special passes that they said help prevent penetration by plainclothes police.

Sheltered by giant beach umbrellas, students from Beijing University, China’s premier college, distribute food and water donated by, or bought with funds from, Beijing residents.

“Up to 50,000 people came for food during the critical periods,” said Xu Hongbing, 22, a student who heads a group distributing bread and bottled drinks.

“During the initial demonstrations, we brought our own food and drinks,” said student Wu Lizhi, 20. “But from mid-May on, we saw the need for organized food outlets to cater to the guards and medical personnel.”

Hundreds of doctors, nurses, medical students and volunteers from the Chinese Red Cross have set up medical centers around the monument, mainly treating colds, coughs and diarrhea. Donations of money and supplies have poured in, according to students running a medical supply center.

However, for all the organization, the students appear to have neglected collecting piles of rubbish, mostly empty plastic and glass bottles and abandoned flags and poles.

The authorities say rubbish and poor sanitation, causing a stench hanging over the square, could spark a health epidemic.

“We know it is an eyesore, but rubbish collection is just not a priority for us right now,” one student leader said.