An electronic newsletter Produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center No: 29 14 March 1997 In this issue: (1) RESTIVE CHINESE REGION PLAYS DOWN VIOLENCE, APPEALS FOR INVESTMENT
(2) CHINA-XINJIANG
(3) HOW CHINA SEES ITS ETHNIC SEPARATISTS DIFFERENTLY
(4) "SUPPORT, PROTECT, AND REWARD PEOPLE WHO MAKE REPORTS"
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BEIJING (AP) -- Blaming bombings and rioting on a handful of terrorists and separatists, government leaders from northwest China insisted Friday that their restive region was politically stable and appealed for investment. It was the first time senior leaders from Xinjiang had spoken to reporters in Beijing since bus bombs and separatist riots jolted the Muslim-dominated region last month, killing at least 19 people. At a news conference to publicize an upcoming trade fair, they painted a picture of a stable, united region eager to develop its rich resources, including oil, gas, minerals and agriculture. "Cases of violent conflict are unpreventable the world over, including in a few developed countries,'' said Wang Lequan, the Communist Party chief for Xinjiang. "But this absolutely does not affect a region's overall social stability.'' Wang said Xinjiang's government was doing its utmost to avoid a repeat of last month's unrest. He said separatists account for an "extremely small number'' of Xinjiang's 16.6 million people, less than 40 percent of whom are ethnic Chinese. Abdulahat Abdurixit, who chairs Xinjiang's regional government, said stability in Xinjiang offered a favorable climate for domestic and foreign investment. Backed by a central government campaign to accelerate economic growth in poorer western regions, Xinjiang "faces an unprecedented opportunity for development,'' he said. Xinjiang is one of China's most volatile ethnic regions. The region's Turkic-speaking Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic groups resent Chinese migration into the region as a threat to their hopes for prosperity. Xinjiang's separatists draw inspiration, and perhaps help and weapons, from groups in newly independent former Soviet states that border the region. Wang said a criminal gang bent on violent conflict planted the bombs on three buses in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, on Feb. 25 and that most members of the group were detained. Nine people died and 74 were injured, according to official accounts. Two days of rioting in Yining city, near Xinjiang's border with Kazakstan, in early February was caused by "a small handful of people subverting the government and trying to engage in separatist beating, smashing and looting,'' Wang said. "These people incited ordinary people who were unclear about the facts, engaging in one or two days of rioting,'' he said. The riots left, at official count, at least 10 dead and 140 injured. A pipe bomb also exploded on a bus in Beijing last week, injuring 10 people according to police. Police have not identified culprits but the bomb raised concern that separatists are trying to export their terrorist efforts to the Chinese capital. A group in Turkey called the Eastern Turkestan Freedom Organization claimed responsibility for the Beijing bomb. Xinjiang's Uighurs ran an independent republic called East Turkestan from 1944-49. (Provided to WUNN by Socrat Saydehmet) (2) CHINA-XINJIANG
A communist party official says the restive, far-west Xinjiang Region of china is stable and blamed unrest there on a few criminals. VOA's Gil Butler has more from Beijing. The head of the communist party in Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region said most of those responsible for last month's violence are in custody and Xinjiang is safe. Wang Lequan said the acts of terrorism were committed by an extremely small number of people. Last month, Muslim Uighur youths rioted in the city of Yining attacking ethnic Han Chinese. Chinese officials reported 10 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the clashes. On February 25th three bus bombs exploded in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, killing nine and injuring 74 people. Uighur separatists have claimed responsibility for the bus explosions. Turkic-speaking separatists, many of whom are based outside China in Central Asian countries, want to establish an independent "East Turkistan" in Xinjiang. Mr. Wang told reporters in Beijing the unrest was quelled very quickly. He denied that hundreds of people had died in the Yining rioting. The Xinjiang communist leader held his news conference to publicize a trade fair later this year. Mr. Wang said the region is stable and its safety is guaranteed. He and other Xinjiang officials said Xinjiang offers a good investment climate for business. (GIL BUTLER) (3) HOW CHINA SEES ITS ETHNIC SEPARATISTS DIFFERENTLY
BEIJING -- Almost daily, China pillories him in the state-run press as a former ruler of one of the world's largest "slave" societies. For decades, he has been branded a "political hooligan" who seeks to chop off part of China to recreate his own superstition-laden Buddhist fiefdom. Yet for Beijing, the Dalai Lama serves a useful purpose. He keeps his former kingdom of Tibet relatively calm, albeit in exile. Now, with trouble brewing in another western province, China may wonder if it needs another Dalai Lama-type of figure. An explosion that rocked the capital last week may not only mark the escalation of protests by separatist Muslims in the province of Xinjiang, but also change Beijing's perception of the Dalai Lama. Despite being denounced as a would-be leader of Tibet's secession from China, Tibet's spiritual leader is widely credited - even by liberals in the Chinese government - with minimizing violent protests in the Himalayan region. The Tibetan Buddhist leader's pacifist stance was brought into sharp contrast by a series of terrorist bombs that went off in Xinjiang and the most recent one in Beijing. Friday's bomb in Beijing injured at least 10 passengers on a bus that minutes later would have traveled past the congressional hall, where legislators have been discussing a new antiterrorism law. A group of radical Muslims that seeks autonomy for Xinjiang in remote northwestern China has since claimed responsibility for the attack. A statement released by the group said that "similar bomb incidents will continue until Xinjiang achieves complete freedom." Already tight security in the Chinese capital has been strengthened, with heavy police patrols near Tiananmen Square and in the Muslim areas scattered around Beijing. "Xinjiang's Muslims need someone like the Dalai Lama - a figure of international standing who could get their story out to the West," says a Western official in the Chinese capital. "Without a world spokesman, some separatists in Xinjiang have resorted to using bombs to publicize their cause, but the governments and peoples of the West are not going to sympathize with terrorists," he says. The group that claimed to have planted the Beijing bomb includes exiles from Xinjiang, which has been rocked by Communist Party-led clampdowns on religious and ethnic-inspired nationalism and by a sporadic antigovernment terrorist campaign. Although Beijing has carried out a parallel crackdown in Tibet, most dissent there takes the form of Buddhist chants or whispered prayers for deliverance by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for using nonviolent means to protect the people and customs of Tibet from what he terms "cultural genocide" at the hands of China. "The Dalai Lama has threatened to resign [from the Tibetan government-in-exile] if any Tibetans, within or outside Tibet, use any violence to protest Chinese communist rule," says a young Tibetan here. In contrast, three separate bombs exploded simultaneously in the capital of Xinjiang on Feb. 25, and were apparently timed to coincide with a state funeral for supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in Beijing. The attacks succeeded in drawing world attention to the clash of civilizations between Xinjiang's Muslims and their ethnic Han Chinese rulers. Beijing's ongoing moves to halt the building of new mosques and religious schools, along with the mass migration of Han Chinese into the "New Frontier," as Xinjiang is called, are deepening interethnic conflicts. "These were not isolated or spontaneous events," said the Western official, "but part of longstanding tensions that from time to time erupt in clashes." The Red Army's march into Xinjiang in 1949 ended the short-lived Republic of East Turkestan, and the Communist Party oversaw the execution of Muslim clerics and destruction of mosque in a bid to extinguish the embers of nationalism. Similar policies were enforced after the Chinese Army crossed into Tibet in 1950 and deposed the 15-year-old Dalai Lama as head of the Himalayan kingdom's Buddhist theocracy. Beijing attacked Tibet's rigid social pyramid, with priests at its pinnacle and serfs at its base, in order to "liberate the peasants." The Dalai Lama initially cooperated with Beijing to mediate the harshness of communist rule, but fled into exile in 1959 after reports that the Chinese Army planned to assassinate him. Mao Zedong's death in 1976 saw the partial liberalization of the party's rule, but also unleashed demonstrations for greater autonomy by Tibet's Buddhists and Xinjiang's Muslims. "The Dalai Lama has succeeded in uniting Tibetans behind his calls for a peaceful dialogue on Tibet's future, but no similar figure has emerged in Xinjiang," says Dru Gladney, a senior researcher at the East-West Center in Honolulu. "Many people in Xinjiang are fed up with the government's religious and economic policies, but most do not support the killing of innocent Chinese to vent that anger," says a young Muslim migrant from the region who now lives in Beijing. "Chinese atheists are in control of our mosques, and that causes widespread resentment in Xinjiang," he adds. "The Chinese say we must learn their language if we want to get a job; every day they carry train-loads of Xinjiang's oil out of the region and put nothing back in." "If Xinjiang had someone like the Dalai Lama, we could try to protect our religion, our economic rights, and our culture through talks with the government," says the youth. "But until now, no one in Beijing has heard our calls for change." Following reports of massive troop movements into Xinjiang, the Dalai Lama this week warned Beijing that the use of the Army to crush Muslim nationalism could trigger more violent protests. He told the India-based Hindustan Times that "the military clampdown on Xinjiang and Tibet will never ... suppress the people's urge for freedom." (Kevin Platt, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor) (4) "SUPPORT, PROTECT, AND REWARD PEOPLE WHO MAKE REPORTS"
By correspondent Xu Wentao: The discipline inspection commission and supervisory committee of the production and construction corps recently announced in the news media its four promises to the public: 1. The discipline inspection commission and supervisory committee will send someone to verify any concrete evidence reported by a person or in writing. 2. They will provide feedbacks on the actual situation to a person who reveals his true identity when making a report. 3. Discipline inspection commissions and supervisory committees at all levels must observe strictly the regulations on handling cases, earnestly do a good job in protecting informants, and rigorously investigate cases involving retaliations against the latter. 4. Those who contribute toward such reports will be rewarded. The discipline inspection commission and supervisory committee of the production and construction corps have further tightened measures concerning such reports in order to fulfill their promise. They have improved such systems as those concerning registration (reception) for those making reports, preliminary investigation on reports, and supervision on handling such reports. They have also implemented the "Provisional Method on Rewarding People Who Render Meritorious Service in Making Reports." They have established different criteria for rewards based on different circumstances under which meritorious service is rendered in making reports. It is understood that since 1994 the discipline inspection and supervisory departments of the production and construction corps have received over 8,000 reports annually from the masses, and the number is increasing every year. Reports from the masses have resulted in investigation of 80 percent of all the cases related to law or discipline violation. In 1996, the discipline inspection and supervisory departments of the production and construction corps received and handled a total of 9,251 reports delivered in person or in writing by the masses, an increase of 9.1 percent over those received in 1995. Of these reports, 6,392 involved party members and 7,302 people under supervision. A total of 3,889 leads were confirmed in preliminary investigations, 2,795 cases were concluded, and party and administrative disciplinary actions were taken against 732 people. Some leading cadres who committed serious law-violating acts were subject to legal sanctions. (Provided to WUNN by Bill Mitchell) Prepared by: Abdulrakhim Aitbayev (rakhim@lochbrandy.mines.edu) WUNN newsletter index*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= The World Uyghur Network News electronic newsletter is produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center (ETIC) in cooperation with the Taklamakan Uighur Human Rights Association (USA), and is devoted to the current political, cultural and economic developments in Eastern Turkistan and to the Uyghur people related issues. Eastern Turkistan (Sherqiy Turkistan in Uyghur) is a name used by the indigenous people of the region for their motherland located in what is at present the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic China. The World Uyghur Network News brings information on situation in Eastern Turkistan from the Uyghur and other sources to the attention of the international community. *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= EASTERN TURKISTAN INFORMATION CENTER |