The ruling Chinese Communist Party has enshrined the ashes of a general who presided over a Cultural Revolution massacre that included cannibalism of those deemed “enemies of the people” by late supreme leader Mao Zedong. On Oct. 24, officials reburied the ashes of People’s Liberation Army founding general and former Guangxi regional party chief Wei Guoqing – 35 years after his death. The full-honors burial ceremony at Beijing’s Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery – the resting place of China’s high-ranking leaders and revolutionary heroes – was attended by high-ranking guests, including the descendants of late revolutionary leaders Zhu De and Peng Dehuai.
The news prompted outrage and satire on Chinese-language social media, with comments highlighting Wei’s role in the Guangxi Massacre in which members of factional gangs killed an estimated 100,000-150,000 people through beheadings, beatings, burial alive, stoning, drowning, boiling and disembowelment, according to historical research.
Wei’s name is most strongly linked in the public mind with cannibalism during the massacre period in Guangxi’s Wuxuan and Wuming counties and Nanning city, after the victims were targeted as “enemies of the people” amid the factional violence of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
