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Separatist Leader Vows
To Target Chinese Government
2003-01-29
Uyghur Leader Denies Terror Charges
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (RFA)--The secretive leader of a
minority separatist group said his East Turkestan
Liberation Organization (ETLO) will “inevitably” form
a military wing to target the Chinese government. But
Mehmet Emin Hazret denied engaging in any previous
attacks and rejected links with another Uyghur faction
that the United States and the United Nations last
year branded a terrorist group.
“Our principal goal is to achieve independence for
East Turkestan by peaceful means. But to show our
enemies and friends our determination on the East
Turkestan issue, we view a military wing as inevitable,”
Hazret told Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur service in a
telephone interview from an undisclosed location. East
Turkestan is the name many Uyghurs prefer to designate
what is now known as the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in
northwestern China.
"The Chinese people are not our enemy. Our problem is
with the Chinese government, which violates the human
rights of the Uyghur people,” he said. Hazret, one of
China’s most wanted men, also denied Chinese
allegations that ETLO has engaged in arson and deadly
violence against Chinese interests and nationals in
China and Turkey.
“We have not been and will not be involved in any kind
of terrorist action inside or outside China,” he said.
“We have been trying to solve the East Turkestan
problem through peaceful means. But the Chinese
government's brutality in East Turkestan may have
forced some individuals to resort to violence.”
Hazret, 53, a former screenwriter in Xinjiang who
immigrated to Turkey in 1989, said his group had no
connection with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM),
designated a terrorist organization in 2002 by the
Bush Administration and the United Nations. ETIM is a
small, militant group seeking independence for Uyghur
Moslems in Xinjiang. ETLO is known as a more secular
organization.
“I hadn’t even heard of ETIM until the Chinese
government mentioned its name in a report in January
2002,” he said. “But I knew the leaders of this group
whom the report mentioned. For many years, they were
in Chinese prisons for political reasons, and they
escaped from China. We don’t have any organizational
relations with them because politically we don’t share
the same goals. But I cannot believe they carried out
any terrorist attacks as the Chinese authorities say
they did, because they themselves are victims of
Chinese state terrorism.”
Hazret insisted that ETLO has no ties to al-Qaeda or
to Osama bin Laden. He also welcomed the stepped-up
U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Central Asia and the
overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban regime in
Kabul. “I have never been to Afghanistan and never met
Osama bin Laden. We have nothing in common with him or
any group associated with him. We want to concentrate
on our issue, which is independence for the Uyghur
people. We don't have any problem with any government
in the world except China.”
Washington’s labeling of ETIM as a terrorist group
dismayed many Uyghur exiles who reject violence and
accuse China of repressing the Uyghur people.
China’s State Council, in a report dated Jan. 21,
2002, charged that from 1990-2001 various Uyghur
separatist groups “were responsible for over 200
terrorist incidents in Xinjiang” that resulted in the
deaths of 162 people and injuries to 440 others. The
report, titled “East Turkestan Terrorist Forces Cannot
Get Away With Impunity,” also dismissed allegations
that Beijing had used the U.S.-led war on terror as a
pretext to crack down on Uyghurs.
The report condemned numerous Uyghur groups including
Hazret’s ETLO; the ETIM; the Islamic Reformist Party
“Shock Brigade”; the East Turkestan Islamic Party; the
East Turkestan Opposition Party; the East Turkestan
Islamic Party of Allah; the Uyghur Liberation
Organization; the Islamic Holy Warriors; and the East
Turkestan International Committee.
ETIM was notably cited as maintaining close links to
Osama bin Laden and allegedly sending trained agents
and weapons into Xinjiang in 1998. The report also
cited attacks on police stations, the killing of
judicial officials, and the bombing of civilian buses.
In many of these instances, no one has ever claimed
responsibility, and the Chinese government has never
named those responsible.
The Chinese report notably accused foreign-trained
ETLO agents specifically of committing “15 cases of
arson” in the busiest areas of the Xinjiang provincial
capital, Urumqi, in May 1998. In October 1999,
Istanbul police detained 10 members of ETLO in
connection with a series of attacks on Chinese
nationals in Turkey.
On its Chinese-language Web page, the Xinjiang
Autonomous Region police bureau alleges that Hazret
has personally dispatched alleged terrorists to the
Chinese-Kazakh border on 18 separate occasions--armed
with handguns, bullets, and bombs. In a report dated
April 6, 1998, and headlined “Mountain of Evidence,”
the police bureau describes seven gunfights between
Chinese police and ETLO operatives at the border,
which it says left four Chinese police dead and seven
injured. Among numerous alleged culprits, it
identified only Hazret and another man, Hameet, by
name.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) broadcasts news and information
to Asian listeners who lack regular access to full and
balanced reporting in their domestic media. Through
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a critical gap in the lives of people across Asia.
Created by Congress in 1994 and incorporated in 1996,
RFA currently broadcasts in Burmese, Cantonese, Khmer,
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Tibetan (Uke, Amdo, and Kham), and Uyghur. It adheres
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exemplify accuracy, balance, and fairness in its
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