An electronic newsletter Produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center No: 31 26 March 1997 In this issue: (1) NEIGHBOURS VOICE FEARS OVER UNREST IN XINJIANG
(2) GORE TAKES CHINA TO TASK OVER RIGHTS
(3) THE SECURITY OF KAZAKSTAN'S BORDERS.
(4) CHINA DENIES EXECUTING FIVE UIGHUR RIOTERS
(5) WESTERN CHINA EXPLOSION INJURES DOZENS
(6) BEIJING TELLS CENTRAL ASIA REPUBLICS NOT TO HARBOUR SEPARATISTS
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(Provided by Bill Mitchell) AGENCIES in Almaty and Moscow The head of Kazakhstan's Security Council said yesterday he was concerned about events across the border in Xinjiang. "We are disturbed by events in Xinjiang," Beksultan Sarsekov, secretary of the Security Council, said in the Kazakh capital Almaty. It was Kazakhstan's first official reaction to the Xinjiang troubles. Last month, anti-Chinese riots in the town of Yining, near the Chinese-Kazakh border, left nine dead and 198 wounded. This followed increasing tensions between ethnic Chinese and Xinjiang's Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uygur population. On Monday, one of several Kazakhstan-based Uygur organisations fighting for an independent East Turkestan in Xinjiang claimed China had executed five Uygur rioters. Chinese officials denied the allegation. The ex-Soviet states bordering Xinjiang share the region's Turkic language, Islam and a nomadic past and have fuelled Uygur dreams of independence. However, the Central Asian states are sensitive to pressure from China, with whom they and Russia plan to sign a pact next month reducing troop levels along their common borders. Some Uygur exiles believe that may make them unwelcome in Kazakhstan. "We will probably have to set up our headquarters in Istanbul or Germany," a Uygur leader told a congress of Uygur exile groups in Kazakhstan on Monday. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen held talks with his Russian counterpart Yevgeny Primakov yesterday to discuss plans for a presidential summit next month between the former communist rivals. Mr Qian was to meet President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin later. Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said: "Today's meeting will be the main stage in preparations for the planned visit in the second half of April of the President of China Jiang Zemin." China, Russia and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are to sign their border disarmament agreement during the visit. The agreement will reduce border troops between China and Russia, and China and the former Soviet republics, building on a key agreement signed by the five parties last year. Stung by its failure to stop Nato giving membership to former Soviet pact nations, Russia has recently emphasised its "strategic" partnership with Beijing. (2) GORE TAKES CHINA TO TASK OVER RIGHTS
BEIJING - Vice President Al Gore lashed out at Chinese suppression of political dissent Wednesday on the second day of his four-day visit to China. In a speech to students at prestigious Qinghua (``Cheeng-hwa'') University, Gore says Washington believes political and economic freedoms are inexorably linked. Without making a direct reference to China's communist government, Gore adds old totalitarian regimes throughout the world are ``being swept aside'' by powerful economic and political forces. And in a strong but indirect criticism of China's ongoing efforts to muzzle dissent, Gore says he believes the freedom to ``inquire and debate and when necessary challenge existing institutions'' is key to creating a prosperous and free world. Gore's speech comes after a banner day of meetings and business deals for the vice president. He met with Chinese Premier Li Peng (``LEE Pung'') Tuesday and presided over signing ceremonies for a multi-million-dollar Boeing aircraft purchase by Beijing and a US$1.6 billion deal with General Motors for a joint-venture auto plant in Shanghai. Gore will meet with Chinese President Jiang Zemin (``JEEANG Tse-m meen'') later in the day for the highest-level Sino-U.S. meeting on Chinese soil since 1989. The vice president will leave Beijing for Shanghai and Xian (``She'ann'') early Thursday before traveling to South Korea for the third and final leg of his Asian tour. (Provided by Tughluk Abdurazak) (3) THE SECURITY OF KAZAKSTAN'S BORDERS.
The secretary of Kazakstan's Security Council, Beksultan Sarsekov, on 25 March expressed his country's concern about events along the borders with China and Russia, Reuters reported. In the first official reaction to the February clashes between Uyghurs and Chinese in neighboring Xinjiang Province, Sarsekov told a press conference in Almaty "we are concerned by events" and by the "harsh measures" used by the Chinese against the Uyghurs. However, Kazakstan signed a treaty with China in 1996 in which both sides promised not to help separatist movements in the other's country and Sarsekov said Kazakstan has nothing to do with the problems in China. Addressing the issue of the Kazak-Russian border, he criticized the use of Cossack formations to guard the border, which Sarsekov said was at odds with the Kazak-Russian border agreement, especially as "these Cossacks received uniforms and weapons (from Russia). -- Bruce Pannier (4) CHINA DENIES EXECUTING FIVE UIGHUR RIOTERS
Xinjiang officials denied reports that five ethnic Uighurs accused of leading a riot in Xinjiang last month had been executed, according to two Reuters reports. Mukhiddin Mukhlisi, spokesman for the United National Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan, said at a congress of exile Uighur groups near Almaty, the Kazakh capital, that one of the five executed was Abdukhalil Abdulmedchit, who was reported to have been a prominent leader of the rioting. (Yinrong HUANG, Daluo JIA) (5) WESTERN CHINA EXPLOSION INJURES DOZENS
BEIJING - At least 39 people were injured in two explosions on buses in China's western city of Urumqi Tuesday, hospital officials said. An official at the Military Region General Hospital in Urumqi, capital of the restive western region of Xinjiang, said at least 37 injured had been admitted after the two bomb blasts. She declined to give further details. An official at another hospital near the site of one of the blasts said two people who had been slightly injured had been treated and released. The bombs were planted in two city buses and went off at about 6:30 p.m. on the same day China marked Deng's memorial rites on the last of six days of mourning for the paramount leader, who died last Wednesday at age 92. One of the explosions in Urumqi occurred on Northwest Road, involving a vehicle believed to be a minibus, a worker at a nearby hotel said.The second blast occurred at the south gate of the city, officials said. Both explosions were believed to involve time-bombs, possibly set by members of the ethnic Uighur minority, city officials said. "We suspect that these incidents involve splittist elements," said one official, referring to pro-independence activists among Xinjiang's native Uighur population. "These people want to disrupt the atmosphere during the memorial ceremonies for Comrade Deng Xiaoping," said another official. No arrests had yet been made, city officials said. "People have been warned not to go outside," one resident said. Roads were blocked for about one hour but normal traffic has since resumed, one resident said. It was the first violence reported in Xinjiang since anti-Chinese riots in the far western Xinjiang town of Yining Feb. 5-6 left nine people dead and 198 wounded. (6) BEIJING TELLS CENTRAL ASIA REPUBLICS NOT TO HARBOUR SEPARATISTS
BEIJING - China Tuesday told the Central Asian republics along its border not to offer santuary to Moslem separatists from the Chinese province of Xinjiang. "Our neighbours have promised not to allow their territory to be used for separatist activities against China," foreign ministry spokesman Cui Tiankai said. Kazakhstan and China signed an agreement in July during a visit to Almaty by Chinese President Jiang Zemin opposing all forms of separatism, while Tajikistan made a similar agreement in September. The third Central Asian republic, Kirghisstan, was a signatory to a security treaty signed by the other two republics and China and Russia in April last year providing for the demilitarization of their respective borders. On Tuesday Kazakhstan officially blamed China for the first time for cracking down on Uighur activists in Xinjiang. "On the one hand, this is an internal problem of China's," Beksultan Sarsekov, chief of the Kazakhstan security council, told a press conference. "But from the point of view of human rights, one can blame the violent suppression being carried out by the Chinese authorities," he said. He expressed concern about reports of recent unrest and bomb attacks in Xinjiang, adding: "We are closely following the situation." Kazakhstan, a former Soviet central Asian republic, has a 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) border with Xinjiang, and its people share with Uighurs a Turkic language and the Sunni Moslem faith. Some 200,000 Uighurs live in Kazakhstan. Uighur nationalist groups there claim that 57,000 Uighurs have been arrested by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang since April 1996. Uighur groups also allege that about 150 Uighurs have been executed in Xinjiang or beaten while trying to escape jail. Up to 100 people died after clashes on February 5-6 in Xinjiang between Uighurs and Chinese in the Xinjiang frontier town of Yining, according to reports by witnesses. On Monday Uighur organisations from central Asia said they planned to set up a separatist movement in exile to militate for the independence of Xinjiang. Prepared by: Abdulrakhim Aitbayev (rakhim@lochbrandy.mines.edu) WUNN newsletter index*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= The World Uyghur Network News electronic newsletter is produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center (ETIC) in cooperation with the Taklamakan Uighur Human Rights Association (USA), and is devoted to the current political, cultural and economic developments in Eastern Turkistan and to the Uyghur people related issues. Eastern Turkistan (Sherqiy Turkistan in Uyghur) is a name used by the indigenous people of the region for their motherland located in what is at present the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic China. The World Uyghur Network News brings information on situation in Eastern Turkistan from the Uyghur and other sources to the attention of the international community. *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= EASTERN TURKISTAN INFORMATION CENTER |