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KYRGYZSTAN: IRIN Focus on
Uyghur community caught in “political games”
[ This report does not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
BISHKEK, 2 Jul 2001 (IRIN) - Political pressure as a
result of sensitive Kyrgyz-Chinese relations continues
to take its toll on Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic Uyghur
community, leaving many feeling increasingly
victimised. “We feel that the Uyghur community is a
card in political games in Sino-Kyrgyz relations,”
Nurmuhamed Kenji, director of the Central Asia Uyghur
Information and Project Centre in the capital, Bishkek,
told IRIN. “Unlike other ethnic groups, we are part of
international politics,” he said.
With a population of 4.5 million, Kyrgyzstan is home
to a number of predominantly Turkic Muslim nations,
and counts some 50,000 Uyghurs among them. After the
fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Uyghur community
started reorganising itself, creating the Ittipak
association to defend its cultural and political
rights in Kyrgyzstan.
The Uyghur are one of the many Turkic nations living
in Central Asia.
Despite a population estimated at 10 million, they do
not have their own country. Scattered throughout
Central Asia and in the former Soviet republics of
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan, the majority - eight million - live in
China. In 1955, former Chinese leader and founder Mao
Zedong created the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
in northwestern China to sustain the development of
the Uyghur nation. But this policy has resulted in
increasing tension between the local Uyghur population
and the Han Chinese. In recent years, this tension has
led to terrorist acts in Xinjiang and the Chinese
capital, Beijing.
Today, the Uyghur communities of the former Soviet
republics of Central Asia face many challenges in
their efforts to assume their identity:
China’s stand on Uyghur issues, Central Asian states’
ambivalent relations with China, and the little
attention the West pays to the problem of the Uyghur
nation.
According to Muzapparkhan Kurban, chief editor of the
Uyghur-language monthly ‘Vizhdan Avazi’, “there is no
open pressure on the Uyghur community in Kyrgyzstan,
but in state structures there are no Uyghurs”. He told
IRIN the reason was that the position of the Uyghurs
in the country was linked to that of their
counterparts in China.
China takes the threat of Uyghur separatism very
seriously, because part of the Uyghur population
supports the idea of an independent Uyghuristan, also
known as Eastern Turkestan. In mid-June, Chinese
Vice-President Hu Jintao toured Xinjiang and announced
strict measures to crush Muslim separatists in the
autonomous region. Hu, widely seen as President Jiang
Zemin’s likely successor, also called for an increase
in surveillance of Islamic activists so as to
“resolutely curb illegal activities carried out in the
name of religion”.
His inspection tour coincided with the 14 to 15 June
summit in Shanghai which brought together the leaders
of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan and established, together with Uzbekistan,
the new Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. During the
summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Jiang
drew attention to Muslim separatists in their own
countries - Chechens and Uyghurs, respectively - as a
source of ongoing instability.
According to Kenji, China’s perception of the Uyghur
issue is irrelevant. “How can you label a whole nation
as terrorist? If you look at the history of the Uyghur
nation, you will see that Uyghurs are extremely
tolerant. They brought different religions to Asia -
Nestorianism, Buddhism, and finally Islam. Uyghurs
have always lived mixed with other nations, and there
has never been any ethnic conflict on Uyghur territory.
Turkestan has always been a land of tolerance, where
nomads and urban populations lived together.”
Kurban explained that “Uyghurs have always been looked
at suspiciously, even by Stalin, who ordered the
deportation and killing of many Uyghurs in the 1920s
and 1930s. People have been taught to distrust Uyghurs,
and today they call us terrorists, Wahabbites [a sect
of ultra-orthodox Muslims], because this is how we are
portrayed in the media.”
But Kenji admits that the idea of an independent state
is foremost in the minds of all Uyghurs. “For 200
years, the Uyghur people have fought for the creation
of an independent state. We cannot lose hope, because
otherwise this means the death of our nation. Yet we
need big changes in the world to come: the legal frame
of international relations needs to be amended. The UN
itself is in contradiction; on the one hand it defends
the inviolability of international borders, on the
other hand it defends the right to self-determination
for all nations.
Obviously there is a double standard here.”
Kurban is more direct, and asks: “If
self-determination is offered to the people in Kosovo
or Palestine, why is it denied to Uyghurs?”
Yet for the Central Asian governments, the priority is
elsewhere. Kyrgyzstan shares a 1,100 km border with
China, and strives for economic development to
overcome its geographic isolation and lack of natural
resources. Stable relations with Beijing are therefore
essential and many signs point towards a
Kyrgyz-Chinese rapprochement; there is a no-visa
regulation between the two countries, and cross-border
business is rapidly expanding. The Sino-Kyrgyz border
point on the Torugart Pass in the Tien Shan mountains
is regarded as a possible gate of the future TRACECA
road, an international project supported by the
European Community, and aimed at facilitating road and
rail transport of goods and persons between Europe,
the Caucasus, Central Asia and China.
In this context, the Uyghur community becomes a key
political card in negotiations with China for the
Kyrgyz government. Recently, a number of prominent
Uyghur leaders died in suspicious circumstances.
Dilbirim Samsakova, a women’s rights activist, was
found dead in Kazakhstan in June.
Nigmat Bazakov, chairman of the Ittipak Society, was
shot to dead at point-blank range in front of his
house in Bishkek on 28 March 2000.
Hashir Wahidi, chairman of the Uyghuristan Liberation
Organisation in Kazakhstan, was fatally attacked in
his house by unknown individuals in 1998; he died just
a few months after the attack. Eminzhan Osmanov,
director of the Uyghur section of the Writers’ Union
of Uzbekistan, was murdered in jail in early March,
2001. Local authorities usually put the blame on
criminal structures or terrorist groups, as Uyghurs
are often involved in business. According to Kenji,
however, “in the eyes of the Uyghur community, all
those deaths are politically motivated and perceived
as political assassinations”.
Today, the Uyghur community can only rely on itself.
Kenji founded the Central Asia Uyghur Information and
Project Centre in 1997. The centre operates as a
non-profit organisation focusing on the cultural
development of the Uyghur community in Kyrgyzstan, and
to a certain extent in Central Asia. It also publishes
‘Taraqqiyat’, an information and analytical bulletin
in Russian, English and Uyghur. Kenji describes the
centre’s mission as “defending the right to develop
ourselves, as we do not have our own state”.
As for support from abroad, Kenji is rather critical:
“The West does pay attention to our situation in
Central Asia, but there are no preventive measures.
Besides, all the help goes through governmental
channels and very little is left for ethnic minorities.”
The main danger, according to him, is radicalism out
of desperation. “If we don’t support the human
development of ethnic minorities, people will select
radical ways. We are not listened to, and all we want
is to live normally,” he explained.
While Kurban praises Western attention, and the
recently opened Radio Free Asia Uyghur service that
broadcasts to Central Asia, he points to a very little
known refugee crisis in Kyrgyzstan and neighboring
Central Asian republics. “Many desperate Uyghurs from
China try to seek political asylum in Central Asia,
believing that local governments will support them, as
Turkic brothers. Yet there is no support; on the
contrary, most governments threaten to deport them
back to China, where they will be jailed and shot,”
Kurban said. “Those people cannot move to a third
country.
They are at a dead end and become easy victims of
terrorist or criminal groups. I don’t understand why
UNHCR is not helping those people,” he added.
[ENDS]
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