【双语阅读】在288名小学生的“牺牲”面前，中国惊呆了

 　　China aghast at ‘sacrifice’ of 288 pupils
　　Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent
　　From The Sunday TimesMay 6, 2007
　　WHEN the first flames flared around the theatre’s stage, many of the excited Chinese children watching must have thought it was all part of the show.
　　Within minutes 288 of them were dead, a tragedy that has haunted their parents for more than a decade but was forgotten by many as China began its headlong rush to prosperity.
　　It is not forgotten any more, thanks to a band of internet campaigners who have exposed the shameful truth: the schoolchildren perished because they were ordered to sit down in their theatre seats so that Communist party officials could leave first.
　　The revelations have prompted millions of Chinese to discuss the incident in recent weeks and forced the state-controlled media to acknowledge it for the first time.
　　The facts were suppressed for more than 12 years until Chen Yaowen, a reporter for China Central Television, posted on his website a documentary that he had made about the disaster but which the censors had banned.
　　Scant details of the fire, which has come to be known among Chinese as the “12/8/94 incident”, were reported by the state news agency and by a few foreign media outlets at the time.
　　On December 8, 1994, 500 schoolchildren were taken to a special variety performance at a theatre in Karamay, an oil-producing city in China’s northwest Xinjiang province.
　　Most were the best and brightest pupils in their classes, aged between seven and 14, the offspring of well educated Han Chinese engineers and physicists brought in to exploit the mostly Muslim region’s natural resources.
　　After they were seated, a delegation of the city’s most senior officials entered to ritual applause and took their seats. The show began.
　　From the accounts of survivors, it appears that lamps near the stage either short-circuited or fell. The scenery caught fire, then exploded in a conflagration that engulfed the auditorium within a minute or two.
　　The first few seconds became the most controversial of the disaster. Survivors insist that a woman official immediately stood up and shouted: “Everyone keep quiet. Don’t move. Let the leaders go first.”
　　She has since been identified in online articles as Kuang Li, who was vice-director of the state petroleum company’s local education centre, although there has been no official confirmation of this.
　　The teachers obeyed, telling their charges to remain seated. Children who survived recall that everyone was paralysed by fear and confusion as flames and poisonous fumes filled the air.
　　By the time the dignitaries had filed out, it was too late. Teachers hurried the pupils out of their seats to other exits, only to find that the emergency doors were locked.
　　“My teacher asked me to run out of the theatre,” said Li Xiang, then a boy of 10, “but when I stood up the hall was smothered in smoke and fire. The power then cut out. People could see nothing. The place was full of crying and shouting. I was lucky, as at last I crawled out of the hall.”
　　In their haste to save themselves, a Chinese court later heard, none of the officials had bothered to order the fire exits to be unlocked.
　　Parents and survivors alleged that Kuang took refuge in a ladies’ cloakroom that could have sheltered 30 people and barred the doors behind her.
　　After the fire was put out, the city’s emergency services retrieved the bodies of 288 children and 36 adults. Most of the adults were teachers who perished alongside their pupils. About 100 of the children’s corpses were heaped up outside the cloakroom.
　　The state media recorded the calamity in dutiful but sparing dispatches. A secret party investigation began. Legal proceedings were started, although no publicity was given to them.
　　For the bereaved and the survivors, the long years of silent endurance were beginning. In 1995, 300 families of the dead and injured sent representatives to the National People’s Congress in Beijing, supposedly the venue for Chinese citizens to seek justice and a fair hearing.
　　They were led off by security guards to a walled government compound, where five buses were waiting to ferry them back to the airport. The group were then escorted through special channels to a plane bound for Xinjiang.
　　Chen was filming what he thought would be a hard-hitting television report about official negligence. “Even then, 12 years ago, when I tried to set up interviews with the victims, some refused to talk because they were under pressure. I knew local officials were following me. But I never thought my report would be banned or that the local government would conceal the truth,” he said on his website.
　　According to a new account in the online edition of Nanfang Weekend, a campaigning newspaper, the Communist party was dealing out its own justice. A court convicted 14 people, four of them senior officials, of neglecting their duty and imposed prison sentences of up to five years. Public access to the court was tightly restricted.
　　Fang Tianlu, the highest ranking official in the theatre, received five years for fleeing the scene, failing to organise the escape of the children and neglecting to alert the fire brigade. Zhao Lanxie, the vice-mayor, and Tang Jian, a city education official, got four and five years respectively. Kuang was given four years.
　　All 14 were freed within two or three years, however. Fang was allowed to retire with a pension and others have been relocated to other cities. Kuang is said to have rejoined the Communist party and entered the insurance business.
　　For the survivors, the pain was just starting. The 10-year-old Li grew to adulthood with his face scarred and without his fingers, which had to be amputated from his charred hands.
　　“I’m now a student at Sichuan University and I can fit in because I’m an open-minded person and a great footballer,” he said, “but at first my appearance scared everyone off.”
　　Li Jiang, another victim with facial burns, fell in love but was rejected by his fiancée’s parents. He stays shut in his room all day.
　　Hu Ping, a girl of 10 at the time of the fire, refuses to meet anyone and has vowed never to marry because her hands remain fused and twisted while her legs are scarred by skin grafts. She was offered a university place to read medicine, but could not summon the courage to accept it. Her parents “cry all the time”.
　　“I felt constantly distressed,” said Chen. “I believed I should do something to console those innocent souls.” Emboldened by the growth of online debate in China – where at least 137m people now use the internet – he posted his material on a website last year.
　　It opened a door to a long suppressed public outpouring of grief and rage. Parents of the victims and badly burnt survivors of the fire have revealed their sorrow and suffering in extensive online commentaries, prompting thousands of angry internet users to accuse officials of a cover-up.
　　“Those leaders should have protected children but cared only for themselves,” said Gao Liwen, 54, an engineer who lost Xiaoyin, his eight-year-old daughter, in the blaze. “They should have been tried for murder.”
　　The father of a dead nine-year-old, who did not disclose his name, said the Chinese people would never forget the words “let the leaders go first”. The government promised a memorial, but never built one, he said.
　　Families received compensation of up to ￡4,000, yet this has failed to purchase any consensus that the case is closed. Instead people are demanding a public apology, commemoration of the dead and proper punishment of the guilty.
　　These are the kind of demands that are made every year on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 and which the party considers nonnegotiable.
　　Extraordinarily, China’s army of censors have not blocked the discussions. Chen believes that the issue of a “pure-hearted” government apology, so important in Chinese culture yet so politically sensitive, explains the huge public interest in the case.
　　Some Chinese internet users say they were profoundly affected by Chen’s interview with Li Ping, 47, a teacher and the mother of 10-year-old Teng Teng, who died in the fire.
　　Like a traditional grieving parent in ancient times, she still talks to his portrait every day. “I always address my son’s photo like this,” she says. “My dear son, in this world which you have left, there is one proverbial rule for all, be they white or black, brown or yellow: when danger strikes, let women and children go first.
　　“It might not be in our constitution or any party document, but it’s a basic law of human behaviour. This law broke down that day in our city.”
 　　在288名小学生的“牺牲”面前，中国惊呆了
　　翻译：纳米阿东
　　简介：泰晤士报回顾克拉玛依大火。谨以此文纪念“让领导先走”发表十四周年
　　当火苗从剧场的舞台上蹿起之时，很多兴奋的中国孩子肯定还以为那是演出的一部分。
　　几分钟之内，288个孩子死去了。这场悲剧在他们父母的心头十多年来萦绕难消，但是在中国奔向繁荣之际它已经被很多人遗忘。
　　它再也不会被遗忘了，这多亏了一群网民。他们曝光了可耻的真相。学童们的死因是有人命令他们坐在座位上，让共菜党官员先走。
　　这一事件曝光后，在最近几星期里激起了数百万的中国人的议论。这迫使由国家控制的媒体第一次承认此事。
　　事件真相被掩盖了长达12年，直到中央电视台的记者陈耀文（音）在他自己的博客上贴出了一部他自己制作的纪录片。这部纪录片被禁止播放。
　　中国人管这场火灾叫“一二八事件”。当时，只有国家新闻社和少数几个外国媒体发布了简短报道。
　　1994年12月8日，500名小学生在克拉玛依市的一家剧场里面观看演出。克拉玛依市是中国西北部新疆省的一个产油城市。
　　很多学生都是他们班级里面最聪明，最优秀的，年龄从7岁到14岁都有。他们是受过良好教育汉族工程师和物理学家的孩子，他们的父母来到这个穆斯林占多数的地区开发自然资源。
　　当他们坐好之后，这个城市最高级的官员代表们在仪式性的掌声中入场。演出开始了。
　　根据生还者的记忆，大概是舞台附近的灯具发生了短路或者是坠落。布景着了火，大火在在一两分钟之内就吞噬了整个剧场。
　　最初的几秒钟成为了这场灾难最有争议的时刻。生还者坚称，一位女性官员立即站起来大喊，“大家安静，不要动。让领导先走。”
　　网络上的帖子认为她名叫况丽，在国家石油公司的本地教育中心任副主任，但是官方从来没有证实过这一点。
　　老师们遵守指令，告诉他们的学生坐在座位上。活下来的孩子回忆说，当火焰和浓烟弥漫的时候，所有人都被吓傻了。
　　当这些高官显贵鱼贯而出之后，一切都太晚了。老师催促学生们离开座位，奔向其他出口，但是他们发现紧急出口的门却锁住了。
　　李翔（音）当年是个10岁的孩子。他说：“我的老师叫我跑出剧场，但是当我站起来的时候，整个大厅都弥漫着浓烟和火苗。电力也切断了，什么都看不见。满是哭声和呼叫声。我还算走运，至少我还爬出了大厅。”
　　后来在法庭上，据说当这些官员奋不顾身的拯救自己的时候，没有一个人命令打开消防出口。
　　父母们和幸存的孩子们宣称，况丽本人躲在女用卫生间里面。卫生间本来可以容纳30人，但她用门闩锁上了门。
　　当大火被扑灭之后，消防队员找到288名儿童和36名成人的尸体。多数成人都是和自己的学生共生死的老师。就在卫生间外，大约有一百名儿童的尸体堆在一起。
　　国家媒体守本分的简短记录了这场灾难。秘密的党内调查开始了。法律程序启动了，尽管没有任何报道。
　　对那些失去亲人的家庭和幸存者来说，漫长的沉默忍耐才刚刚开始。1995年，300个死伤者的家庭派出代表前往北京的人民代表大会。据说，那里本应是中国公民得到公平听证，伸张正义的地方。
　　保安们带领他们去到一个高墙环绕的政府大楼，那里有五辆公共汽车等着送他们回机场。然后，他们被护送经过特别通道，送上去新疆的飞机。
　　在拍摄的时候，陈耀文就认为这部纪录片是对官员渎职的猛烈抨击。“即使在那时，12年前，当我采访受害者的时候，有些人拒绝了，因为他们受到了压力。我知道地方官员在跟踪我。但是我从没有想到我的纪录片会被禁止播放，也没想到地方政府会掩盖真相。”
　　南方周末是一家敢言的报纸。根据这家报纸网上版的新报道，空菜党实现了它自己的正义。14人被定罪，其中4人是高级官员，罪名是渎职，最高刑期达5年。庭审的公众旁听受到严格控制。
　　方天录，剧场中的最高级官员，由于逃离火灾现场，未能组织学生疏散，以及未能报告火警，得到五年刑期。副市长赵兰秀，和另一名教育官员唐舰，分别获刑四年和五年。况丽获刑四年。
　　然而，所有14人都在两三年内获释。方天录拿到一笔退休金，退休了。其他官员调职去了别的城市。况丽据说重新入党，干起了保险行当。
　　对幸存者来说，痛苦才开了个头。10岁的李翔现在已经是成年人了。他的脸上被火烧伤留下了疤痕，他的手指也被截除。
　　“我现在是四川大学的学生了。我可以融入大家，因为我是个心胸开阔的人，而且我足球踢得很好。” 李翔说，“不过一开始我的长相可是把大家都吓跑了。”
　　李江是另外一个面部被火烧伤的受害者。他谈恋爱时被女方家长拒绝，整天把自己锁在房里。
　　胡萍是个女孩，在火灾时也是10岁。她不见任何人，而且也发誓不结婚，因为她的手现在依然扭曲着融合在一起，她的腿上也留下了植皮的疤痕。她被一所大学的医学系所录取，但是却没有勇气去上大学。她的父母“终日哭泣”。
　　“我时刻都感到心灵的重负”，陈耀文说，“我觉得我应该做点什么来安慰这些无辜的心灵。” 网络辩论在中国发展壮大，至少一亿三千七百人在使用互联网，这给了他勇气。去年，他把他的材料贴到了网上。
　　这些材料打开了通向长期压抑的大众的一扇门，悲伤和愤怒喷涌而出。在网上的评论中，受害者的父母和严重烧伤的幸存者表达了他们的痛苦和哀伤。这激起数千名愤怒的互联网用户指责官员们掩盖真相。
　　“这些领导本应该保护孩子，但是他们只关心自己”，高立文，54岁。在火灾中他失去了自己8岁的女儿小茵。“应该起诉他们谋杀罪。”
　　另外一个不愿具名的父亲失去了他9岁的孩子。他说中国人民永远不会忘记“让领导先走”这句话。他说政府承诺建立一座纪念碑，但是从未兑现。
　　这些家庭最多收到了四千英镑的补偿金。但是这不能收买他们同意以后再不追究此事。相反，他们要求公开道歉，纪念死者，并且对犯罪者作出适当惩罚。
　　类似的要求在每年的八平方纪念日都有人提起，党认为这个问题不可谈判。
　　不同寻常的是，中国的审查机关没有封锁这些讨论。陈耀文相信“真诚”的道歉在中国文化中非常重要，在政治上也非常敏感。这就是在公众对这一事件如此感兴趣的原因。
　　一些网民说他们被陈耀文对李萍的访问深深打动。李萍，47岁，一名教师。她的孩子腾腾在火中死去时10岁。
　　就像古代悲伤的父母那样，她依然每天跟他的遗像讲话。“我总是这么跟我的孩子的相片讲话，” 她说，“我亲爱的儿子，你离开的这个世界上，有这么一条众所周知的规矩，不管是白种人，黑种人，还是黄种人都知道：当灾难来临的时候，要让妇女和儿童先走。
　　“也许这条规矩宪法里没有，党的文件里也没有，但是这是一个人做事的基本。这条规矩那一天在这个城市没有人理睬。”