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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Loong Siew, post: 3299695, member: 75799&quot;]China. Tiananmen Massacre 1989. Berkeley International Student Society Freedom Dollar. </p><p><br /></p><p>Anti-communist stamp on Mexican Silver Dollar. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]873845[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>This coin was issued by the Berkeley International Student society as a fund-raising attempt to support student activists displaced from the government military crackdown of the student activists demanding democracy in 1989. </p><p><br /></p><p>The incident known as the Tiananmen Square massacre was a major historical event which saw the use of the People&#039;s Army of China deploying tanks to crush student activists demanding democracy from the Communist Government under Deng Xiaoping. Whilst it started as a peaceful demonstration at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the demonstration started gathering wide appeal and involvement especially among the students which lasted months. The students movement started gathering momentum, largely from foreign support and ignored the government&#039;s warning to disperse. </p><p><br /></p><p>Eventually on June 1989, the government proceeded to adopt military action when the students refused to budge. This was seen as a severe act to prevent and stem a student revolution which could spread across the nation at a time when China started it&#039;s modernisation efforts not long after the end of Mao&#039;s regime. The crackdown saw as many as 10,000 deaths and many more injured which became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre which was a significant event of international coverage. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]873859[/ATTACH] </p><p>&nbsp;Many of the student leaders involved became public enemies and fled in exile to the west where they received aid such as the proceedings from sale of these coins. These coins were believed to be sold for a slight profit by a slight premium above junk silver and carrying anti- communist propaganda by the Society through underground facilities both inside and outside of China for a short time. The clandestine nature of it&#039;s issue and limited supplies meant that very limited quantities exists. Needless to say, having these on hand especially back then were viewed as pro-separatists and may land one in trouble with the authorities.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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