Weekly Political and Scientific Newspaper - A Eastern Turkistan News Agency Publication

3.  Chinese Government Treats Uighur Military Staff with Suspicion

According to the report of our correspondent Abdulla Pamir from the Homeland , the Chinese authorities treat every Uighur soldier and officer of the national army with strong disbelief, especially in the Southern part of Eastern Turkistan. It was reported that the Chinese authorities expressed concern about “some local people backing their compatriots and religious brethren” and that the Chinese regime was taking away weapons from the ethnic Uighur soldiers and officers.
For many years the majority of commanders and soldiers in Eastern Turkistan were recruited from among the Uighurs. Recently the Chinese authorities pursued the policy of replacing local ethnical personnel by the ethnic Chinese commanders. Ethnic Uighurs had no choice but to leave the army and go in other professions.

In the Hotan region, as a first step the Chinese authorities have filled in the positions of party committee secretaries (primarily composed by Uighurs) by the ethnic Chinese. And as a second step they did the same thing with political commissars. The third step was to take away the weapons from the Uighur military personnel.
In case of emergency Uighur soldiers receive weapons, however, after the emergency is over the firearms would be taken away again.

The Uighur military personnel regard such double standard policy as “a mere discrimination”. One soldier who did not want be identified stated that “his weapons were never taken from him during 8 years of military service but now this happened”. Also, only ethnic Chinese soldiers constantly get promotions. In the western region average district garrisons have presently 10-20 staff, and most positions are held by the ethnic Chinese officers.

©1997-2002  ETIC. 25 Jan, 2002  Designed By A. Karakash