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Produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center No: 57 18 September 1997 In this issue: 1) THE 15TH PARTY CONGRESS CULPRITS 'ALL ROUNDED UP' IN XINJIANG South China Morning Post, 9/18/97 2) CHINESE OFFICIAL DISCLOSES ASSASSINATIONS IN RESTIVE MUSL REGION Associated Press, 09/17/97 3) CHINA/TIBET AND XINJIANG Voice of America, 9/17/97 4) TWO MEN PUT ON WANTED LIST CND-Global, 9/17/97 5) PROGRESS ON DEMARCATING KAZAKH-CHINESE BORDER RFE/RL Newsline, No. 120, Part I, 9/18/97 *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= (1) THE 15TH PARTY CONGRESS CULPRITS 'ALL ROUNDED UP' IN XINJIANG South China Morning Post, 9/18/97 JASPER BECKER in Beijing Xinjiang leaders said yesterday they had found all the culprits behind a wave of terrorist attacks and murders that began in April last year but declined to say how many had been sentenced to death. Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan admitted there had been no arrests in connection with a bomb that went off in Beijing's Xidan district during this year's National People's Congress. He insisted there was no evidence linking the explosion to Xinjiang elements. People from Xinjiang did not have a monopoly over such things, Mr Wang said at a joint press conference with Abdulat Abdurixit, the regional government chairman. Mr Wang blamed the unrest on Pan-Islamists who belonged to no particular ethnic group and who had targeted patriotic religious figures and murdered them in batches. Sometimes they killed three or four people together, he said, insisting that all those responsible had been caught. Separatists assassinated seven pro-government religious leaders in one day in April last year, Mr Wang said. "How can we be lenient towards these ferocious thugs?" he said, adding that social stability had now returned to Xinjiang. Ethnic Uygur exiles - Muslims of Turkish origin - have claimed Chinese security forces carried out mass executions and other reprisals against them. Although the party secretary said Xinjiang separatists were responsible for the bus bombs that rocked the regional capital, Urumqi, on February 25, killing nine and injuring 58, he reserved most his anger for what he called religious reactionaries. He said they wanted to establish an Islamic kingdom, and accused them of trying to eliminate all those who did not share their beliefs, with the support of reactionary forces abroad. They cruelly killed those Islamic leaders who loved their country and who served the people, he said. The terrorists were social rejects who hated work and were disciples of hedonism. Among those funding the rebels was the husband of Robiya Kodir, the richest and most successful entrepreneur in Xinjiang, and a member of the provincial NPC. He now lives in the US. Mr Wang said that although she had not been allowed to leave the country, she was still at liberty to carry on her business and political activities. Ms Kodir was believed to have been in the border town of Yining in February when fierce rioting broke out leaving at least nine dead and 198 wounded. (2) CHINESE OFFICIAL DISCLOSES ASSASSINATIONS IN RESTIVE MUSLIM REGION Associated Press, 09/17/97 BEIJING (AP) - Seven pro-Chinese clerics in northwestern China were assassinated last year during a bloody campaign by Muslim separatists, a Chinese official said Wednesday. The comments by Wang Lequan, secretary-general of the Communist Party in Xinjiang, were the first official word of the April 1996 attacks by rebels accused of arson, murder and bombing public buses in the far northwestern province 1,600 miles west of Beijing. The indigenous Muslim minority resents Chinese rule in Xinjiang, which had its own independent republic from 1944 to 1949. Little independent information is available about the violence in the remote, sparsely populated region of deserts and rugged mountains. Three to four people died in each incident during the attacks that began Feb. 10, 1996, Wang said at a news conference with party leaders from Xinjiang and Tibet. He did not give a total death toll or say if the attacks have ended. Wang said Beijing would refuse to compromise with the separatists. ``The most serious murders happened on April 29th of last year. On that day alone, they killed several patriotic religious figures,'' he said. ``We cannot be expected to be lenient with those thugs.'' There have been scattered reports of attacks on pro-government figures in Xinjiang over the past two years. In April 1996, two men in a town near the Pakistani border tried to assassinate a high-ranking Muslim cleric who advises the government. Earlier this year, separatists were blamed for bombs that exploded Feb. 25 on three public buses in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital, killing nine people. They also were blamed for a Feb. 5 riot that killed 10 people. At least 12 people have been executed in connection with that violence, the worst in Xinjiang since the start of communist rule in 1959. At the news conference, party officials from Tibet also defended the forced ``patriotic education'' of tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns as a security measure against separatist forces. Some 30,000 residents from 900 monasteries have completed the course on law and citizenship, said Raidi, a former monk who is executive deputy secretary of the Communist Party in Tibet. Tibet activists say participants are required to sign denunciations of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader who fled into exile in 1959 after a failed uprising. Tibetans who have left the country recently say they were motivated by opposition to the campaign. ``Our purpose is only to crack down on a small number of people who try to damage the country,'' Raidi said. China contends Tibet has been a part of the country for centuries and calls the Dalai Lama a subversive. Tibetans, however, say they had been independent for centuries before communist troops arrived. Asked for information about a 6-year-old boy detained after the Dalai Lama identified him as the reincarnation of a major Tibetan Buddhist leader, Raidi said only that he was ``living a happy and free life, and he is receiving an education at school.'' China detained the boy and his family after the Dalai Lama announced he was the 11th Panchen Lama. The announcement robbed Chinese leaders of the chance to name the new leader. Chinese officials then forced Tibetan religious leaders to repudiate the Dalai Lama's choice and choose another boy. (3) CHINA/TIBET AND XINJIANG Voice of America, 9/17/97 By Stephanie Ho China has re-emphasized its sovereignty over the restive border regions of Tibet and Xinjiang -- where Chinese authorities have worked to put down independence movements. Stephanie Ho reports officials from Tibet and Xinjiang insist there is ethnic harmony between minorities and the Han-Chinese majority. Although China has spent hundreds-of-millions of dollars on projects in Tibet and Xinjiang, the country has had difficulty integrating minority groups. In Tibet, ethnic Tibetans are regularly arrested for what Chinese authorities say are separatist activities. Several bombs have exploded in Xinjiang, and bombings in Beijing earlier this year are blamed on Xinjiang separatists. The deputy secretary of the Tibet communist party committee, Raidi, says the central government has maintained its policy of freedom of religion, but admitted to some problems. He blamed bad management at temples, accusing some religious figures of being involved in pro-Tibetan independence activities. (Chinese) "This was complicated by the factor of the serious penetration into the monasteries and temples by the separatist cliques led by the Dalai Lama." To strengthen government management of religion in Tibet, the communist official says the government started a program of what he called patriotic education in the region's 17-hundred temples. (Chinese) "So far, we have completed the patriotic education or the education is going on in over 900 monasteries and temples since last year. And a total of over 30-thousand lamas and nuns have received or are receiving the education on patriotism. As for the content of the education, we educate the lamas and nuns on the rule of law, on our ethnic and religious policies, as well as national unity." In Xinjiang, Uighers are the largest minority. They are turkic-speaking muslims. Earlier this year, Uigher separatists were accused bombings in several cities in Xinjiang. The secretary of the Xinjiang communist party committee, Wang Lequan, raised the possibility bombs that exploded in Beijing during an important meeting of the national people's congress, were not set by people from Xinjiang. (Chinese) "You may check the Beijing daily, there is a notice there. this case is still under investigation. It has not been broken yet. So far there is no evidence indicating that this crime is committed by people from Xinjiang. Besides, bombing is not a monopoly for people from Xinjiang." All the Chinese officials were quick to point out that the source of separatist activities in Tibet or in Xinjiang came from what they called outside forces -- which is their way of saying the unrest was instigated outside China. (4) TWO MEN PUT ON WANTED LIST CND-Global, 9/17/97 [CND, 09/16/97] Two men in their thirties, after killing six innocent shoppers and injured a number of others in a daylight robbery in Urumqi last month, have been put on wanted list by Chinese authorities. These two men, armed and dangerous, could "stage terrorist activities to seek revenge" for the troubles in Xinjiang, or they might disrupt the ongoing congress of the Communist Party in Beijing, according to public security officials. AFP reported. (Tongbin LI, Guochen WAN) (5) PROGRESS ON DEMARCATING KAZAKH-CHINESE BORDER RFE/RL Newsline, No. 120, Part I, 9/18/97 Kazakhstan and China have delimited another 11 kilometer stretch of their common border, near the Khan-Tengri peak, Interfax reported on 17 September. An agreement on that section of the border is expected to be signed when Chinese Premier Li Peng visits Kazakhstan on 25 September. Sections on the 1,700 kilometer border east of Almaty and in the far eastern part of Kazakhstan have still be determined. Prepared by: Abdulrakhim Aitbayev (rakhim@lochbrandy.mines.edu) and Bill Mitchell (turpan@ix.netcom.coms). 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 |