'After turning myself in, I hope to use the Chinese court to express my opinions and debate the matter with the government,' said Mr Wu'er. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
TAIPEI - ONE of the main student leaders from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests told AFP Thursday he had been deported to Taiwan after a failed bid to enter Macau to turn himself in to the Chinese government.
'I am on a plane bound for Taipei now,' Wu'er Kaixi told AFP by telephone, shortly before the scheduled departure of an EVA Airways flight headed to Taiwan.
Mr Wu'er Kaixi flew to Macau from Taipei on Wednesday, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the bloody military crackdown, saying he wanted to turn himself in to face trial on the mainland.
Speaking briefly to AFP on Wednesday by phone while detained by immigration officials in Macau, the dissident said he wanted to get into the mainland via the southern Chinese territory but had been prevented from doing so.
He said Macau immigration officials had asked him to return to Taipei but he had refused.
'After turning myself in, I hope to use the Chinese court to express my opinions and debate the matter with the government,' he said in a statement, adding he did not believe he had done anything wrong in 1989.
Macau, like its neighbour Hong Kong, is part of China but operates a separate legal and immigration policy, part of a deal agreed when it was handed back by former colonial power Portugal.
A member of the Uighur ethnic minority, Mr Wu'er Kaixi was number two on the government's 'most-wanted' list of student protesters following the military crackdown, which left hundreds, possibly thousands, dead.
He was able to flee China after the demonstrations were ended and now lives in Taiwan, working as an investment banker. -- AFP
