Of late Harry was becoming impatient with himse1f, afraid he had not made enough progress in his mission, and so at the age of 58 he decided to make one last trip into China to update his information. Three times before, twice in 1991 and once in 1994, he had succeeded in entering China and collecting audiovisual documentation firsthand, even in a camp where he had once been a prisoner himself. This time he failed.
At a border post in northwestern China, police stopped him on June 19, with the help of a computer database listing undesirables. They could have turned him back, as they did his assistant. But they didn’t; they wanted to punish Harry again for his criticism of the communist system.
Millions of people who had never before heard of Harry Wu now know of him and of the reasons he, a free American citizen, would take such huge risks. The Chinese government used its huge propaganda machine recently to make it seem as if he had “confessed.” They titled the 13-minute video Just See the Lies of Wu Hongda," which was Harry’s name as a Chinese citizen.
My heart fell in sadness as I watched an excerpt from that video. In one brief scene that showed him signing an arrest warrant on July 8, Harry appeared normal. In subsequent shots, taken as he was being interrogated by four policemen, Harry was a different man. He was unshaven and looked downcast and weary. He had clearly lost weight. His posture was odd, as though he had been dumped into the chair sideways with his legs tangled beneath him. The voice was his, but strangely low. How many days, or hours each day, had he been interrogated? How much sleep had he been deprived by his interrogators?
On the day this story broke (July 27), reporters in at least 10 separate interviews asked me how I felt about Harry’s “confession.” “It’s a joke,” I said. Chinese propaganda called it a “confession” and the media repeated the false charge, but Harry “confessed” to nothing. In his answers to police, he conceded that a 1994 BBC TV production which he had helped research contained several errors, but denied that he was responsible.
The Laogai Research Foundation, of which Harry is executive director. in January 1995 published an extensive report of his titled “Communist Charity, the Use of Executed Prisoners’ Organs in China.” That report, which the tape did not mention, cites evidence from other sources, including an internal government document and human-rights organizations, on how China harvests the organs of executed prisoners for transplants, and supplements that information with testimony that Harry gathered firsthand from Chinese medical personnel and patients.
The communist officials hate Harry because he keeps telling the ugly truth about the communist system in all its horrors. About two months ago, Harry, speaking to a group of business executives in New York City, summarized his indictment of that system this way:
The Laogai serves as the “machinery for crushing human beings physically, psychologically and spiritually.” It “is not a prison system; it is a tool for maintaining the Communist Party’s totalitarian control.” It’s an integral part of China’s national economy, producing for domestic and foreign markets. Despite a U.S. law prohibiting forced-labor imports and China’s signed agreement to respect that law, Laogai products “continue to enter U.S. markets.”
These are “lies” that infuriate the communist officials. Harry once warned me that the more his message became known, themore the regime would try to smear him. He told me to prepare for this. Anyone who takes the time to look at the evidence he has accumulated will see that it stands up to scrutiny.
Harry will be surprised to learn how much support his cause has mustered. Both the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament passed strong resolutions urging Harry’s immediate release. Australia’s foreign minister, Gareth Evans, had his government make very early representations to the Chinese government, both in Beijing and in Melbourne. Archbishop Desmond Tutu intervened personally with the Chinese Trade Mission in South Africa. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher has demanded Harry’s release.
In my travels to Washington, Parris and London I pinned yellow ribbons on Newt Gingrich, Dick Gephardt, Margaret Thatcher and other political leaders I had previously seen only on television. On July 29, hundreds of demonstrators marked Free Harry Wu Day in Hong Kong, Sydney, London, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities.
What all this means is that the longer Chinese communists keep Harry, the more interest they will stimulate in the hidden truths about the Laogai. Now, perversely, the Chinese government is helping his cause.
The regime in Beijing wants to silence Harry Wu. It can’t, whatever it does. It can’t silence other survivors of the Laogai, now coming forward to tell their stories. And it can’t silence me.
