Taipei - Wu'er Kaixi shot to fame during China's 1989
pro-democracy movement by being one of the student leaders and
lecturing premier Li Peng on National TV.
Now 20 years after the Tiananmen massacre, which killed 155 people
and forced him to flee China to avoid arrest, he wants to go home.
On June 3, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen
crackdown, Wu'er Kaixi, now a Taiwan citizen, flew to Macau asking to
be sent to China so he could serve his jail term and then reunite
with his family.
Macau, which is part of China, denied him entry and deported him
back to Taipei the next day.
'I have not seen my family for 20 years. This heart-piercing pain
increases with each passing day. I will continue trying to return to
China as China does not allow my parents to go abroad and see me,' he
said.
Wu'er Kaixi's move is part of homecoming campaign launched by Hong
Kong Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, who helped many Chinese student leaders
and intellectuals flee to the West after the Tiananmen crackdown.
The purpose of the campaign is to help exiled Chinese dissidents
return home through legal means as many of them find it hard to adapt
to life in the West.
In an interview with the German Press Agency dpa, Wu'er Kaixi said
nearly 200 pro-democracy activists fled China in the 1980s and 90s.
China has refused to renew their passports and bars them from
returning home.
Besides Wu'er Kaixi, several other exiled Chinese student leaders
also tried in vain to return to China ahead of this year's June 4
anniversary.
For Wu'er Kaixi, 41, who lived in France and the United States
and settled down in Taiwan 1994 after marrying a Taiwanese student he
met in the US, the longer he stays in exile, the more guilty he feels
for his parents who suffered because of him.
'When I was on the run, my mother was so worried about me that
she suffered a minor stroke which left one side of her face
paralyzed. My family, not wanting me to worry, did not tell me until
10 years later,' he told dpa.
'If I have the chance to see my mother, the first thing I want to
do is to give her a big hug and say: Mom, I am sorry!' he said in a
voice choked with tears.
Wu'er Kaixi is a member of China's Uighur minority but grew up
in Beijing, China's capital. His full name is Uerkesh Davlet, but
goes by the Chinese spelling of his first name, pronounced as Wu'er
Kaixi.
He is now the Taiwan managing partner of an international
financial investment company in Taipei. He has two sons, aged 10 and
14.
He dismissed friends' warning that China has changed and that he
wouldn't be able to adjust
'I believe that the moment I step on China's soil, I will feel
at home,' he said.
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