NEW YORK (AP) -- Falun Gong claimed Tuesday that China's President Jiang Zemin cracked down on the spiritual movement to solidify his power base against "real or imagined enemies" in his own government and outside the country.
The group claimed it had new information, verified recently by a Communist Party source, about the government crackdown that followed an April 25, 1999, protest by 10,000 Falun Gong supporters. China's communist government banned Falun Gong three months after the Beijing demonstration.
Falun Gong said Jiang, in communications at that time, indicated that he believed neither the group nor its founder, Li Hongzhi, could have amassed such a large power base.
"He voiced suspicions that the practitioners assembled outside the State Council Appeals Office had been orchestrated by rival senior officials within the Chinese government itself or by foreign forces," Falun Gong said in a statement read by spokesman Scott Chinn in New York.
The statement claimed that Jiang, attempted to "solidify his power base" by cracking down on the Falun Gong.
"Consequently, what the world has been witnessing over the past 20 months is a wide section of the Chinese people being used as pawns in a desperate political struggle carried out by Chinese President Jiang Zemin against real or imagined enemies," it said.
A spokesperson at China's U.N. Mission called Falun Gong "a heretical cult" and said its founder, Li, has now "politicized" the movement and is spending most of his time seeking "confrontation with the Chinese government." The spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said China banned Falun Gong "to safeguard and promote human rights in China" and prevent the movement "from creating social disorder."
Shiyu Zhou, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor and Falun Gong follower who put together a report on the April 25 incident, said Jiang's statements about the crackdown have circulated in China for months but that the movement only recently was able to verify them through a Communist Party source. He did not produce the documents or further identify the source.
According to the report, Jiang wrote a letter to members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and other top leaders on the evening of April 25 accusing masterminds working "behind the scenes" at the Falun Gong protest of "planning and issuing commands." The report gave the letter's number and official title.
Zhou was asked whether there was evidence of a disagreement over Falun Gong in the current Chinese government.
He said Falun Gong had no direct information but China scholars have told the movement that their own sources indicated "certain disagreement regarding this issue inside the Communist Party."
The report quoted high-ranking Communist Party officials as saying the two classified documents from April and June 1999 "revealed Jiang's mentality of being overly protective of his personal power and interests, and how, without any concrete evidence, he made the erroneous policy decision to persecute Falun Gong."
China's government considers Falun Gong a cult that threatens public order and communist rule and has led more than 1,600 followers to their deaths, mostly by encouraging them to eschew modern medical treatment.
Practitioners say its exercises and philosophies promoting good health and moral living are drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and Li, the group's U.S.-based founder. It denies causing any deaths, and claims that 191 followers have been tortured to death in police custody.