American photojournalist Charlie Cole, author of the historic "Man in the Tank" photo of Tiananmen Square , passed away last week in Bali (Indonesia), the independent South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported today.

Cole, 64 and a resident of Bali for 15 years, was one of the cameramen who took pictures of the scene from the balcony of a Beijing hotel : he and his famous photo won the 1989 World Press Photo.

In the snapshot, which went around the world and became one of the most iconic photos of the last century , a man planted in front of an armored column appears on the Peking Avenue of Chang'An, as an individual protest, after Hundreds of young people died in the square hours before.

In an interview with Efe conducted a decade ago, Cole explained that he took the photo "with a Nikon and a 300 mm lens, from a balcony that was far away, about 200 meters from the scene ", from Stuart Franklin's room , on the eighth floor of the hotel. "

After having dispersed the people who had returned to the square that morning, a column of 25 tanks advanced along the avenue.

" Out of nowhere that young man appeared , with a jacket in one hand and a bag in the other, and stood in front of the tanks. I couldn't believe it. But I kept shooting convinced that they were going to kill him. To my amazement, the tank it stopped, "the photographer explained.

Then, anticipating the Police, who assaulted him last night with an electric pickaxe at the hotel reception, hid the reels in the toilet tank.

Precisely last June, 30 years of the Tiananmen massacre were completed , an event that the Government continues today without recognizing, avoiding responsibilities, denying the evidence and criminalizing the victims of the repression that ended the student demonstrations.

In fact, to this day, the identity and destiny of the "tank man" are still unclear and the image remains locked in the censored Chinese networks.

Born in Bonham (Texas, USA), Cole graduated in journalism at the University of Texas at Denton in 1978 and, thanks to his father's military profession, his work was frequently linked to the army, covering conflicts such as the uprising of the people Filipino in 1985 or the South Korean student demonstrations in the mid-eighties.

After a traffic accident, his leg was shattered and he ended up changing his profession for commercial photography.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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