|
China's Uighur minority
lacks international cache
 By
Tim Johnson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
KASHGAR, China - China's ethnic Uighurs don't have a
Dalai Lama or a slew of movie stars to present their
cause to the world
TIM JOHNSON, KRT
A stream of Muslim faithful enter the Idh Kah Mosque
in Kashgar on a recent Friday afternoon.
They
fight some of the same battles for religious freedom
and autonomy as Tibetans, but Uighur exile leaders say
they can't muster the same global sympathy.
"The world cares less about us Uighurs than about the
Tibetans," said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the East
Turkestan Information Center, an exile group in Sweden.
China's Uighurs are moderate Muslims, while Tibetans
are Buddhists.
Like the Kurds of Asia Minor and the Tamils of Sri
Lanka, the Uighurs are a dissatisfied transnational
ethnic minority spread across several countries (mainly
China, but also Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan),
without an independent homeland or a strong leader.
They certainly have no one of the stature of the Dalai
Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 and set up a government
in exile in India. Feted by presidents and pop stars
alike, the Tibetan spiritual leader travels the globe
in a campaign on behalf of Tibetan autonomy.
"The Uighurs never had the kind of Shangri-La
treatment that the Tibetans have," said Dru Gladney,
an expert on China's Muslims at the University of
Hawaii.
Movie stars such as Richard Gere speak out and faxes
fly around the world whenever Chinese security forces
arrest Tibetan monks or nuns.
"The whole international community reacts. But when
they do something like that to us, nobody cares," said
Alim Seytoff, a leader of the Uyghur American
Association, a U.S.-based exile group.
While the Dalai Lama espouses nonviolence, Tibetans
and Uighurs have, at times, resorted to bloodshed for
their cause. The label "terrorist" sticks more easily
to the Uighurs, though. "Tibetans don't get labeled as
terrorists," Gladney said.
|
