The Desperate Situation in East Turkestan and the
Emergence of ETNC
Mr. Enver Can
President of the East Turkestan National Congress
In the year of 1949, the Chinese People's
Liberation Army occupied East Turkestan, a country in the centre of
Asia and the homeland to the Uyghur people. Presently, this occupied
country is a Chinese colonial province named Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region.
Under the Chinese colonial occupation, the Uyghurs
are experiencing a life and death struggle for survival, their
fundamental rights and freedom, including civil, social, political,
and economic rights continue to be violated and even deprived. It is
very common in today’s East Turkestan that the Uyghurs are arrested,
imprisoned and even executed by the Chinese authorities, among whom
there are intellectuals, religious scholars, businessmen, students
and peasants. The Uyghurs are persecuted just because they advocate
the adherence to human rights and demand to share equal rights as
the Chinese in their political, economic, and social life.
Amnesty International said East Turkestan is the
only place in China where political prisoners known to have been
executed. Amnesty recorded 210 death sentences and 190
executions in two years from 1997 to 1999 in East Turkestan. Even
after the Amnesty report published in April 1999, China has been
executing more than 100 Uyghurs every year, and thousands are
imprisoned for suspected nationalism, separatism, and so-called
religious extremism. Torture and disappearance of Uyghurs are
commonplace.
So-Called Autonomous
Status
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was created
on the 1st of October 1955. But 45 years' experience has
proved that this autonomy exists only on the paper and it is the
Chinese who take full control over all matters concerning the Uyghur
people and their country. Furthermore, this country is divided into
many autonomous prefectures, counties, and even townships, which are
run by other ethnic groups rather than the Uyghurs. This kind of
administrative structure is a typical reproduction of a colonial
policy, which is to divide and rule, applied by previous Chinese
dynasties over the non-Chinese people inhabited areas, so as to
manipulate the interethnic relations and to gain advantage to the
Chinese ruling over the minorities. In fact, the autonomy of Eastern
Turkestan is designed to the advantage of the Chinese government,
and heavy Chinese military and paramilitary forces deployed in this
country maintain this unjust autonomy.
Apart from the ethnic divisions, there is another
phenomenon: there are two acting provincial authorities in this
colony. The first one is certainly the authority of Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region; the second is that of the Xinjiang Production
& Construction Corps, which is a paramilitary organisation and
has its own administrative, educational, and judicial system.
Supported by the central government in Beijing, this organisation is
given absolute priority over any local needs. As a matter of fact,
this organisation expands increasingly its territory within the
scope of the Autonomous Region, to the detriment of the local
population. Presently the Xinjiang Production & Construction
Corps is made up of 2.5 million Chinese, most of whom are veterans
from the Chinese Liberation Army and prisoners finished their prison
terms in East Turkestan and China's inland provinces. Its 15
divisions are deployed in almost all parts of East Turkestan,
occupying some 48% of this country's territory.
Military Camp and State Terrorism
During its' 50 years of occupation, the Chinese
Government has turned Eastern Turkestan into a veritable military
garrison, presently there are some one million men of the Chinese
People's Liberation Army and the General Armed Police Force
stationed in East Turkestan. Most of them are generally deployed in
the surrounding areas, where there are important Uyghur habitations.
It is evident that this kind of deployment is to watch the move of
the indigenous people. Apart from that, there is another
paramilitary organisation of 2.5 million Chinese: The Xinjiang
Production & Construction Corps, whose mission is also to
exploit Eastern Turkestan in the time of peace, and to participate
in the repression of the uyghur people in times of insurrections and
unusual situation.
In recent years, the Chinese Government has
reinforced its policy to terrorize the entire Uyghur population in
Eastern Turkestan at state level. The military and paramilitary
forces have been playing an important role in the accomplishment of
such policy against the uyghur population. For example, there have
been numerous peaceful Uyghur demonstrations and most of them were
severely suppressed by Chinese military force. In today's Eastern
Turkestan, fully armed Chinese soldiers, policemen and militias can
be seen everywhere patrolling in the streets of towns, in the fields
of countryside. They can virtually interrogate, beat and even arrest
Uyghur civilians without any due legal process.
Sinicization and
Population Transfer
The process of the Chinese colonisation of East
Turkestan is a process of sinicization; its dimension surpassed the
single fact of military occupation, involving all aspects of the
society, such as those of politics, economy, culture, and religion.
The present Chinese government also considers East Turkestan an
ideal place to transfer its surplus population from China Proper. To
take a few examples:
By the end of 1949, the Chinese People's Liberation
Army (PLA) occupied East Turkestan; between 1952 and 1954, 170'000
soldiers were ordered to retire from PLA and then incorporated into
the newly founded XPCC (Xinjiang Production & Construction
Corps). By 1961, the XPCC had absorbed 610'000 Chinese transferred
from China Proper.
When the Ili-Chochek Incident happened in the
northern Sino-Soviet border areas in 1962, the Chinese government
decided to strengthen its defence along the borders. This decision
resulted a settlement of 341'500 Chinese, forming some 58
agriculture units near the border zone, most of them were retired
soldiers from China Proper. These units belonged to the "Xinjiang
Production & Construction Corps," which was a paramilitary
organization.
From 1963 to 1966, 100'000 young Chinese in
Shanghai, one of the most densely populated Chinese cities, were
sent to East Turkestan to colonise the region. They permanently
settled down there.
It is also known that China has built its largest
Labour Camp in East Turkestan to put criminals from all over China.
In 1954, the XPCC took over 34'759 Chinese criminals (under reform
through labour) and reformed criminals from East Turkestan Military
Command. The same organization received some 57'000 criminals from
Sichuan, Zhejiang, and Shanghai between 1955 and 1956, again an
estimated number of 100'000 from the eastern Chinese provinces and
large cities between 1973 and 1986. By March 1997, there were still
49'000 criminals in the labour camps of the XPCC, most of them were
sent from the Chinese provinces, and even some Tibetan political
prisoners were seen in the labour camps. Most of the Chinese
criminals, originally sent from other Chinese provinces, were
settled in East Turkestan after finishing their prison terms.
A famous and confidential state project called Yuan
Mu Plan, which put forward a population transfer of five million
China Proper into East Turkestan, was adopted by the Chinese State
Council in 1992 and put in application in 1993. According to the
project, a transfer of five million Chinese from China Proper into
East Turkestan should be accomplished by the end of the year 2000.
The exact number of actual Chinese population in
East Turkestan is a state secret, not only to the outside world, but
also to China's ordinary people, especially the ethnic minorities.
As the Chinese Government declares only the Chinese under the
jurisdiction of Xinjiang Administration, and those under the direct
jurisdiction of the central government in Beijing, are never
included in the Chinese population in East Turkestan's census. A
latest report, released by the Bureau of Statistics of Xinjiang
People's Government after China's 5th National Census
conducted in November 2000, declares that there are 7'497'700
Chinese residents in East Turkestan by November 1st 2000.
And this very report has specified that the figure of 7'497'700
excludes those from the departments not under the jurisdiction of
the regional administration, which mainly involves the People's
Liberation Army, the Armed Police Force, the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps, professional units from Chinese inland provinces
deployed in the exploitation fields. "The Xinjiang Statistical Year
Book 1999 confirms the number of persons under these departments
totals up to 4'526'500. The effective figure of the Chinese
population in East Turkestan should be 12'024'200.
The following table helps to understand how the
Chinese population has evolved during the last five decades. The
most striking evidence is the reversed order of the proportions
between the Chinese and other ethnic populations in East Turkestan:
The Chinese proportion is now more than 9 times as much as it was in
1944, while the local population has dropped from 94.34% to 47.96%
for the same period.
Proportional Evolution in East Turkestan's
Demography From 1944 to 2000
|
Year |
Chinese population |
Proportion |
Other ethnic groups
(Uyghurs included)
|
Proportion |
Total |
|
1944 |
222'401 |
5.66% |
3'709'649 |
94.34% |
3'932'050 |
|
2000 |
12'024'200 |
52.30% |
10'964'900 |
47.70% |
22'989'100 |
Today the Chinese population in East Turkestan has
surpassed 12 million and become a majority ethnic group. The Uyghurs
have become a real minority in their own autonomous region; massive
human settlement in this country has created both human and
ecological disasters.
Exploitation to the
Detriment of the Indigenous People
Together with the sinicization and population
transfer, the present Chinese Government is also applying series of
policies, so as to accelerate the economic exploitation in East
Turkestan, favouring the Chinese population to the detriment of the
Uyghur people, particularly in the exploitation of oil, gas and
other natural resources.
In order to exploit the natural resources in East
Turkestan, industrial and commercial companies have swarmed in from
China Proper with proposed jobs in East Turkestan, bringing together
with them their own Chinese labour force. The Chinese government is
in fact encouraging the Chinese population to go to East Turkestan
with a job in prospect. The Chinese monopolise absolutely the local
labour market and they only employ people who speak Chinese. Thus,
the Uyghur people, who don't speak Chinese, are excluded. The
enlarging scale of economic exploitation in East Turkestan doesn't
benefit the Uyghur population. As a matter of fact, more than 85% of
the Uyghur population work in agricultural plantation; the
illiteracy is as high as 25%.
Today, the Chinese government considers the
exploitation of oil and cotton two most important industrial pillars
in East Turkestan. Like the oil, the cotton is under the state
monopoly of purchase and marketing. This means that the state buys
the cotton at the price of raw materials, and allocates it either to
the processing enterprises in the China Proper or for exports.
As more than 85% of the Uyghur population in East
Turkestan work in the agricultural plantation, it is the duty of the
Uyghur people to produce the cotton demanded by the Chinese
government. So, when the government reduces the purchasing price of
cotton, it is the Uyghur people who suffer the economic
consequences. The Chinese government admits that these cotton
growing areas in southern part of East Turkestan are among the
poorest, more than one million people in the areas live below the
poverty line, which is nearly US $60 annual income per capita.
Cultural Destruction and
Poor Education System
The destruction on the Uyghur culture is not a
simple phenomenon, but a programmed and systematic process imposed
by the Chinese Communist Government. This destruction is carried out
to the full, which involves as many details as one could imagine,
such as Uyghur terminology, music, gastronomy, clothing,
architecture, etc. The ultimate objective of this destruction is the
integration of Chinese culture into the Uyghur life. After 1949, the
Chinese Government has closed down many nongovernmental Uyghur
organisations and institutions relating to Uyghur culture,
education, and history; and all non-official activities of these
characters are strictly banned. Thus, during the 1950s, the Uyghur
cultural and educational work was at a standstill. In the second
half of 1950s, the Chinese Government initiated a series of reforms
in the domain of the Uyghur culture and literature work, setting up
special organs to supervise the reform execution. One of the most
notorious was the reform of Uyghur alphabet.
The Arabic alphabet had been used for many
centuries by the Uyghurs, In 1957, Zhou Enlai, the then Chinese
Prime Minister proposed that the Uyghurs should adopt the Chinese
Pinyin alphabet, which, according to him, would fit better the
Uyghur phonetic inflections, and the idea of Zhou Enlai was
materialized in 1965. But in 1982, the government ordered the
re-establishment of the Arabic alphabet. On could imagine the
disorder thus caused by the alphabet changes to the Uyghur young
generations and the heavy damage brought to the Uyghur
literature.
In today's East Turkestan, there are two kinds of
schools, one with Uyghur language teaching, and the other with
Chinese teaching. Although an Uyghur school-age child is free to
choose either of the two, the problems come later when he has
finished school: If he followed the Chinese teaching school, he
would have a better chance in his professional choice. Otherwise, he
could hardly find a job without any knowledge of Chinese language,
as all the vacant posts considered good job require the Chinese
language. It seems there is no direct intervention in the Uyghur
education system, but the Chinese style economic structure is
pushing it aside, and the survival of the Uyghur language itself has
become a serious question and this situation will go worse in the
years to come.
The development of Uyghur literature is also facing
serious problems in recent years, and little by little, it gives way
to the Chinese literature along with the accelerated sinicization.
On the one hand, the Chinese restrictions on the Uyghur literature
are very severe, no text containing Uyghur patriotic thinking is
allowed for publication. On the other hand, the Uyghur authors have,
if they want their books to be published, to appreciate the history
of the Chinese presence to the detriment of the authentic Uyghur
history.
Intervention in the Social
Life of Indigenous People
In the domain of the religion, things are even
worse, numerous regulations on the religious activities. For the
Chinese government the religious question is a political one as they
consider it a threat to the stability of the region.
After the Chinese government suppressed a peaceful
Uyghur demonstration on the 5th of February 1997 in the
city of Ghulja, the capital of Ili Prefecture. It launched a
three-month campaign called "Strengthening National Unity and
Putting down National Separatist Activities Incited by Religious
Personalities". In June 1997, Xinjiang Daily started to comment on
Ghulja massacre demonising it as a criminal and reactionary act
instigated by religious separatists. After the incident, 105 private
Koranic schools and classes were closed down, 499 religious figures
were disbanded. 133 mosques were demolished or turned in for other
use. Apart from that, 40 important religious personalities were
arrested immediately after the incident and till now their where
about are not clear.
Even the local authorities in East Turkestan have
the power to intervene religious activities that are supposed to be
under the protection of the state constitution. In the City of
Hotan, the local government stipulated that retired Muslims are not
allowed to participate in religious activities, not allowed to
contribute to build mosques and persuade others to believe in
Islam.
The East Turkestan (Uyghuristan) National
Congress and Its Objectives
East Turkestan, once venue of peace, tolerance and
civilisation and a rich country, without hunger, now most Uyghurs
live under the United Nation’s poverty line, and the land is centre
of state sponsored violence with weekly executions of Uyghurs for
demanding their rights to live in dignitary as human beings.
Why?
Presently, the Chinese communist government
has not only deprived the Uyghur nation of her basic right to
self-determination, but has also been implementing a policy of total
assimilation, through systematic population transfer, coercive birth
control, economic exploitation, sinicization of educational and
other institutions of social and economic characters, and deployment
of extra proportional PLA, Armed Police Force and the so-called
"Bing Tuan" Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Especially, beginning in early 1990s, with the
downfall of former Soviet Union and emergence of newly independent
Turkic republics in Central Asia, who share common linguistic and
cultural heritage with the Uyghurs, alarm bells rang in Beijing.
Thus, the Beijing government launched various campaigns of
repression and persecution against the Uyghur nation: peaceful
demonstrators, believers, freedom seekers and advocates of democracy
are being arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned, tortured with inhumane
methods, killed in hundreds, if not thousands, some even
extra-judicially executed. What Jiang Zemin said a decade ago was
repeated recently by Wang Lequan, regional party secretary in
Urumqi, "Take in thousand if necessary, but let no single so called
"separatist" escape." In short, a great Nation who contributed so
much to the world civilization is very much on the verge of
disappearing from the scene of mankind, and the Uyghurs at home are
forced to a "life-and-death" struggle. The whole Uyghur nation is in
desperation, and frustration. Such a situation could lead to
explosive events, which in return would lead to destabilization of
the entire region.
The democratic world community is not aware of the
facts, partly due to the restrictions to free flow of information
imposed by the communist Chinese regime, and partly due to
negligence. Amnesty International said, what was found in Xinjiang,
concerning gross violations of human rights might be just the pick
of an iceberg, and the world community can NOT stand idle and do
nothing.
Under such circumstances, to help the people of
East Turkestan to voice their sufferings to the free world, to
contribute to a peaceful solution to the problems and to
establishment of durable stability in the region, the Uyghur
communities abroad decided to establish an umbrella organization, so
as to inform the world about what is happening in East Turkestan, to
unveil the human rights violations perpetuated on the Uyghur nation
by the communist Chinese government, and to convey the national
aspirations of the Uyghur people of East Turkestan to the free
world, which is nothing more than the basic and natural right to
self-determination under the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
The idea to create an international body existed
for many years. Thus, the first try to establish such a forum was
made in December 1992 when all Diaspora Uyghur community leaders
gathered in Istanbul, Turkey for the first General Assembly or
National Congress. As the repression in East Turkestan grew more
severe, and especially after the "5th February 1997"
events in Gulja was suppressed by the Chinese military by force,
Uyghur organizations in Turkey, initiated to create an international
body and on December 18, 1998, announced the establishment of the
East Turkestan National Centre with participation of 11 Uyghur
organization in Turkey, Central Asian Republics and Germany. We,
Uyghurs in Germany joined the Centre, giving the condition of
calling a second National Congress within one year, in order to
formalize it as an united voice of Uyghur people of East Turkestan
with the participation of all the Uyghur Diaspora groups,
personalities and by holding democratic elections.
Accordingly, the Uyghur organizations in Germany
hosted the second East Turkestan National Congress in Munich, on
October 13-16, 1999, in which the by-laws of the international body
was debated and approved; the permanent office of the Congress was
decided to be in Munich, the name of the Uyghur umbrella
organisation was decided to be "East Turkestan (Uyghuristan)
National Congress, and its leadership, including a 15-member
governing body, was elected democratically. Heads of 13 Uyghur
Diaspora organizations, and some Uyghur personalities who were not
included in any organization, attended the gathering. East Turkestan
(Uyghuristan) National Congress is registered, according to German
law, as an association with affiliates in other countries.
Presently, There are 18 organizations that are
either members of the Congress or intend to become members at the
third General Assembly which will begin tomorrow in this room, all
of the member organisations are officially registered in their
countries of origin and acknowledged by their respective governments
as associations. The organs of the ETNC are: a 51 member General
Assembly, including the chairmen of the member organizations and
elected delegates from Uyghur communities around the world; the
Presidency; The Standing Committee; the Treasury, Auditory and
Advisory Committees, and the General Secretariat with its
sub-committees.
The ETNC is an inevitable Alternative for all the
parties concerned by the actual situation in East Turkestan. Why?
Because the essential role of ETNC is to serve positively both the
Uyghur people as a unique democratic voice abroad, and offer itself
as a reliable democratic partner to the free world, and perhaps,
also be a counter part for the Chinese side in the perspective of a
possible dialogue in the future, as we believe sooner or later China
will be democratised. Furthermore, it could be the best alternative
to those groups or individuals who have been cornered to violent
acts out of desperation, frustration and…. Thus, an early
recognition, participation, and consolidation of the ETNC would be
beneficial to all parties… |