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Produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center No: 98 22 January 1999 In this issue: (1) VILLAGERS WHO ATTACKED POLICE STATION JAILED
FOR THREE YEARS 22 January 1999, Reuters (6) CHINA TO REGISTER CYBER-CAFE USERS 22 January 1999, BBC World Service (7) MISSILE PLAN PUTS U.S. IN QUANDARY ON CHINA 22 January 1999, By ELIZABETH BECKER (8) CHINA TO CRACK DOWN HARD ON XINJIANG SEPARATISTS ASSOCIATED PRESS, 22 Jan. 1999 Three-year jail terms have been given to two people who took part in an attack by villagers on a police station. They were convicted in Hunan province, a rice-growing region wracked by repeated protests. Earlier this month, paramilitary police there broke up a demonstration by 5,000 farmers, killing one. The state-run Farmer's Daily said trouble involving the defendants started when officers in Qidong county detained two suspected thieves for questioning on July 23. 1998] The next morning, a man identified as Zeng Chunlai gathered several dozen villagers, friends and relatives and attacked the station in a four-hour siege during which the suspected thieves escaped. Zeng, a relative of the suspected thieves, was on the run, the paper said. Zeng Qingyang and Zeng Qingwen were convicted and sentenced on December 30 by the Qidong County People's Court for being "active participants" in the attack. They were said to have beaten officers and destroyed property, leading to the escape of the thieves. But they were sentenced leniently because they regretted their crimes and paid for damages, the paper said. In recent weeks, police and government leaders have called for stepped-up efforts against crime and social unrest. Human rights groups have reported growing numbers of protests, some violent, by farmers angry over high taxes and corruption and by laid-off workers and pensioners whose benefits have not been paid. Police said yesterday an explosion on a bus in the provincial capital Changsha, which injured 37, was caused by a homemade bomb. "It is a plot," a police spokesman said. It was unclear if those suspected of plotting the bombing, the latest in a series of vehicle blasts over the past year, had been arrested. (2) 'TIME TO SPEAK OUT AGAIN' ON REPRESSION AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 22 Jan. 1999 Human rights in China are deteriorating and the international community must restart resolutions condemning Beijing at the UN commission, activists said yesterday. "The time for silence is over," said Sidney Jones, Asia director of the US-based Human Rights Watch. "Last year, the key countries that have sponsored the resolution since 1990 opted instead for dialogue with China. But China is carrying out one of the worst crackdowns against political dissent since 1989." The annual session of the commission starts on March 22 and runs until April 30. irport] Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Western nations started tabling annual resolutions at the commission critical of China's human rights record. Hard lobbying by Beijing diplomats stopped
any of the resolutions being passed. Last year, China succeeded in substituting the
resolution for a series of bilateral human rights dialogues. Canada, Australia, the
European Union and the US all hold bilateral dialogues with China. In 1998, President Jiang Zemin had a televised debate with US President Bill Clinton in Beijing, while China hosted a visit by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and signed a UN covenant on human rights. Two leading dissidents were freed, but this was followed by a crackdown on China Democracy Party activists. (3) MILLIONS OF CHINESE MOSLEMS CELEBRATE
END OF HOLY MONTH RAMADAN [CND, 01/20/99] Most of China's 17 million
Moslems celebrated the end of the holy month of Ramadan Tuesday with prayers and feasts,
both the China Daily and AFP reported. According to TIE Guoxi, imam of the Dongsi Mosque, 250,000 Moslems in Beijing had their choice of 68 mosques for attending the celebration services. In the main Moslem regions such as Xinjiang, Gansu, and Ningxia, markets and shops were brimming over with food and drink to celebrate the end of Ramadan. In the State-owned units Moslems enjoy a one-day holiday--Eid al-Fitr--the first day after Ramadan. Islam was first introduced into China by Arabian and Persian businessmen during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). Ramadan is the ninth month of the Moslem year, a time when Moslems fast and abstain from other practices during the day. (Shiji SHEN, WU Yiyi, YIN De An) (4) BOMBINGS ADVERTISE SEPARATISTS' VIOLENT AGENDA China News Digest, Global News, No.
GL99-010, 22 Jan. 1999 [CND, 01/20/99] A series of bombings and other terrorist activities rocked the Mainland last week, reported the South China Morning Post on Wednesday. Police are investigating several leads. Xinjiang separatists are possibly responsible for the violent outbreak. Laid-off and disgruntled workers could be behind bomb blasts and fires in many cities that killed two people and injured many more. Beijing has heightened security alerts against mayhem that could be spread by Xinjiang "splittists," who are suspected of sending their brand of terrorism far afield in China. Those responsible for Sunday's bus explosion in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, are being sought. According to the China Morning Post, the bomb injured 37, four seriously. A police spokesman said, "the explosion on the bus was a criminal action and not an accident." A political motive has not been eliminated, although no suspects have been detained. According to a security source, the separatists have developed new routes of smuggling explosives into China, notably through the border dividing Vietnam and Yunnan province. Militant underground labor organizations could also be behind the spate of bombings, according to authorities. Police are investigating a car park fire at Shenyang's north railway station on Monday. Eleven rail passengers were trapped underground for two hours. Police are hard at work to find those who caused an explosion on Wednesday at a bus stop in Zhuhai. Preliminary investigations indicated it was a time bomb, perhaps planted by triads from Macau. Four persons were injured in the blast. On January 6, a bomb destroyed a bus in Liaoning province. Nineteen passengers died as a result. A passenger, now in custody, is suspected of a botched robbery attempt. (5) CHINA JAILS 29 FOR ROLE IN 1997 XINJIANG RIOTS22 January 1999, Reuters BEIJING -- A Chinese court has jailed 29 people, some for their roles in the 1997 riots in the northwestern Moslem region of Xinjiang that left nine dead and more than 200 injured. One person was condemned to death but execution was suspended for one year, while another was sentenced to life in prison, a court official said on Friday. The defendants, all of whom were residents of Yining county, were convicted of a range of crimes, including subversion, larceny, assault and inciting people to take to the streets, the official said. The sentences were meted out by the Yili Area People's Intermediate Court on Jan. 8, the official said. The defendants, most of whom were Uighurs, can appeal to the People's High Court, the official said. She declined to provide further details. Xinjiang, home to Turkish-speaking Uighurs who make up about 47 percent of the region's population of 17 million people, has been rocked by rioting, bombings and assassinations in recent years. Nine people died and more than 200 were injured when anti-Chinese riots erupted on Feb. 5, 1997. Three weeks later, nine others were killed and dozens wounded when a series of home-made bombs exploded in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi. China executed 20 people between April and July 1997 for their roles in the Yining riots and Urumqi bombings. Uighur militants have agitated for an independent East Turkestan in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and three former Soviet Central Asian republics. Stability has been the watchword for Beijing as it enters a year full of politically sensitive anniversaries. The dates include the 40th anniversary of an abortive uprising in Tibet in March, the 10th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protesters and the Oct. 1 anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic. The People's Daily said President Jiang Zemin has ordered senior officials to "pay particular attention to social order and political stability" in 1999. China's Public Security Minister Jia Chunwang has ordered police to step up vigilance against terrorism and crack down on crimes involving weapons, drugs and robbery. ( (c) 1998 Reuters) (6) CHINA TO REGISTER CYBER-CAFE USERS 22 January 1999, BBC World Service Reports in the state-run media in China say the government is clamping down on the use of the internet. The so called cybercafes -- places where people can hire time on a computer -- will be required to register their users with the police. Internet cafes have become increasingly popular in China's large cities. They offer one of the few ways that people can read pages on the internet and send and receive electronic messages anonymously. Earlier this week a man from Shanghai was sent to prison for two years, accused of being a subversive for having given e-mail addresses to a pro-democracy group in the United States. (7) MISSILE PLAN PUTS U.S. IN QUANDARY ON CHINA 22 January 1999, By ELIZABETH BECKER ASHINGTON -- Having planned a major outlay for defensive missiles, the Clinton administration now faces a major diplomatic and military quandary with China. The sensitivities are so acute that the Clinton administration has twice delayed sending Congress a classified report on a proposed missile system to defend Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and the U.S. troops stationed in the region, officials said Thursday. Anxieties arose when North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 31. They are behind general U.S. plans to develop and test a limited national system of missile defense, at a proposed cost of $10.5 billion over six years. The development may also involve the renegotiation of agreements with Russia. During a tour of Japan this month, Defense Secretary William Cohen met with top Japanese officials to discuss a joint venture to develop regional missile defenses. Immediately, the Chinese accused the United States of trying to start "a revival of Japan's military ambitions." As a result, in Washington "They've gone over the draft several times," said one administration official who has seen the documents. "No one wants China to be offended." After the North Korean missile firing, Japanese public opinion shifted nearly overnight toward supporting such a system and the Japanese Parliament approved joint research with the United States after years of quietly fending off U.S. proposals. The launching of the North Korean missile with its greatly increased range also raised alarm in Congress and the Clinton administration. The 37,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea and nearly 50,000 others serving in Japan appeared far more vulnerable, officials said, to the improved North Korea missile system. Since North Korea remains dependent on China, the administration immediately asked the Chinese to persuade Pyongyang to demonstrate that it would stop firing missiles over Japan, but to no avail. China is directly at issue in the question of defending Taiwan, which is threatened only by Chinese missiles. Since the early 1990s China has more or less doubled, to several hundred, the number of missiles on the coast facing Taiwan. And any system protecting Taiwan would have to be crafted to neutralize those Chinese missiles. That creates a double blow, in the Chinese view, that makes any proposed system look like an offensive weapon aimed at Beijing and not a shield against it. "One of the biggest ironies of this debate is that it was China's client -- North Korea -- that brought this debate into full daylight and that is causing such problems for China," said Richard Armitage, a former Defense Department official. Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree. By mandating the report last year, Congress asked the administration to describe, however vaguely, what a system would look like. The missile defense plan is expensive and as yet unproved; it will be years before such a system could be ready, which is one of the arguments the administration is making to the Chinese to calm their fears. But while administration officials continue to debate how to sell the idea to China, there is little doubt that the research will go ahead. "It's not a question of whether we will do this," said Joseph Nye, former assistant secretary of defense in the first Clinton administration and now dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "It will go ahead. The question is how we do it. What is open for discussion is the fine print about it. The Chinese should not overreact." To critics who question why the United States is pushing ahead with a system that could add to the fraught relations between Washington and Beijing, congressional aides answer that the issue is North Korea. Taiwan has yet to decide whether to join with the United States in the system. Taiwan already has Patriot missiles, and the price tag for undertaking the new missile defense research is high. The Japanese Defense Agency is expected to spend up to $260 million for its five- to six-year research project. The administration plans to meet its latest deadline, after receiving two extensions, and give the classified report to Congress next week. (8) CHINA TO CRACK DOWN HARD ON XINJIANG SEPARATISTS China News Agency, Jan. 21, 1999 Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) will crack down hard on the ethnic separatists and step up its efforts to maintain social stability in Xinjiang this year, the Xinjiang Radio Station reported earlier this week. According to the radio broadcast monitored here, Commander Zhang Wenyuei of the corps said after a recent high-level "conference on political and legal affairs" that the XPCC, which is responsible for all military, police, social, political, and economic activities in the Xinjiang autonomous region, will crack down hard on ethnic separatists, illegal religious activists, and other kinds of criminals this year. The most important new duty of the XPCC is to "ensure the stability of Xinjiang and the internal stability of the corps," Zhang was quoted as saying. Analysts here said Thursday Zhang's remarks indicated that the situation in Xinjiang in the northwestern part of the country, is not peaceful. Xinjiang separatists have taken actions to improve their visibility in the world in recent years, the analysts added. (9) 17 MILLION MUSLIMS CELEBRATE RAMADAN'S END Agence France Presse, 19 Jan. 1999 BEIJING. Most of China's 17 million Muslims celebrated a chilly end to the holy month of Ramadan Tuesday, with prayers and feasting to mark the end of a month of fasting. Worshippers gathered at Beijing's oldest Niujie mosque in the west of the capital for morning prayers, as food vendors and market stall holders set up shop in freezing temperatures for the Eid al-Fitr celebrations to begin. The crowds of faithful numbered around 2,000, with worshippers spilling out into the courtyard of the traditional Chinese-style mosque before breaking their fast. Markets and shops in the main Muslim regions of Xinjiang, Gansu and the Hui nationality region of Ningxia were brimming over with food and drink, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. Muslim cadres and officials were enjoying a one-day holiday, with Hui families in Ningxia inviting Han (ethnic Chinese) families to attend banquets, it said. (10) CUSTOMS CRACKDOWN UNCOVERS KAZAKH WEAPONS SMUGGLING Agence France Presse, 19 Jan. 1999 BEIJING. A crackdown by Chinese customs in
troubled Xinjiang province has yielded an attempt to smuggle military weapons and
ammunition from Kazakhstan, Xinhua reported Monday. Korgas is close to the town of Gulja (Yining in Chinese) where riots broke out in February 1997 over the creation of an independent Islamic state in Xinjiang. Official accounts said 10 people were killed and another 132 injured when the protest against rule by Beijing descended into a riot, but a foreign-based Uighur group put the number of dead at more than 100. In November, officials in the town said terrorists were still armed from abroad and posters called on separatists to hand over their arms. Xinjiang remains under tight control and news from the remote region is notoriously slow in reaching Beijing. (11) AUSTRALIAN SHEEP AID PROJECT
CANCELLED AFTER $4.5M AND NO RESULTS SYDNEY. An Australian aid project to help China breed a better brand of sheep has essentially shut after eight years and A$7.1 million (US$4.5 million) in aid without a single animal produced, a report said Saturday. The high-tech plan to help China produce merino-sheep quality wool was established in Urumqi, capital of northwestern Xinjiang region, in 1991 to help China reduce its dependence on wool imports from countries including Australia. But since Australian funds stopped coming into the China Australia Sheep Research Center in 1996, operations there have all but ended, The Australian newspaper reported. The sophisticated biological equipment provided by Australia lies unused in the center's desolate four-story building and the breeding farm and scholarship scheme were abandoned by Chinese officials when Australian contributions dried up. The director of the center, Wang Jincheng, said the center's research facilities had been reallocated to other Chinese government departments. The center's stud farm was closed because of high costs, Wang said. And, although the 12,000-sheep herd remains on the farm, it is not subject to any more research. "We haven't bred any sheep," Wang told The Australian. "Our experiments were in improving the species. It will take China more than 30 years to develop a Chinese merino sheep." Australian geneticists say sheep can be cross-bred within a year, and within five years a project like the Chinese one should be able to produce enough cross-breeds to begin a culling process. The former administrator of the project for the Australian government's overseas aid arm, AusAID, said the Urumqi sheep station had a significant commercial focus when it was set up. Kai Detto, who now runs his own Canberra consultancy, said the project had never been evaluated properly by the Australian government since its completion because it was "still too early, development takes time." (12) MUSLIM SEPARATISTS EXECUTED IN XINJIANG Agence France Presse, 18 Jan. 1999 BEIJING. Several Muslimseparatists in the northwest province of Xinjiang are about to be executed for taking part in bloody anti-Chinese protests two years ago, Amnesty International said on Saturday. The unknown number of separatists was sentenced to death last October after a secret trial in the autonomous province's town of Gulja (Yining in Chinese), the human rights organization said. The intermediate court in the Xinjiang district of Ili, which would have passed the sentences, denied all knowledge of the reported impending executions. "Executions are announced in the newspapers after they have taken place," an official said briefly. The accused were arrested for taking part in a demonstration in Yining supporting the creation of an independent Islamic state in Xinjiang in February 1997 that descended into riots and left up to 100 people dead. Amnesty in a statement received here identified two of the accused as Abdusalam Shamseden and Abdusalam Abdurahman. Amnesty said that an appeal by Shamseden, 29, against his conviction was rejected at the beginning of January by the Supreme Court in Xinjiang. He had nothing to do with the violence, it added. "It is not known whether the others had appealed against the verdict but all the prisoners are reportedly due to be executed soon," the statement said. "They are political prisoners who were denied a fair trial, in violation of international standards and they may be arbitrarily imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of fundamental human rights," Amnesty said. The rioting of Feb. 5 and 6, 1997 by Muslim ethnic Uighurs, who form the majority in Xinjiang, was followed by several arrests of militant separatists. Official accounts said 10 people were killed and another 132 injured when the protest against rule by Beijing descended into a riot, but a foreign-based Uighur group put the number of dead at more than 100. At least 12 people were executed in 1997
for their role in the riots in Yining, a town close to the Kazakh border where half the
population is Uighur. Xinjiang has some 17 million people and Uighurs make up 48 percent
of the population, but the proportion has continued to fall in the face of waves of new
Han Chinese immigrants who now comprise 38 percent of the population. Washington Post, 12 Jan. 1999, Page A13 As U.S. and Chinese officials yesterday held their first meeting exclusively devoted to human rights since 1995, Clinton administration officials have expressed fears that the Chinese government may imprison hundreds more activists in its efforts to prevent the formation of the country's first opposition political party. In sessions yesterday and today, Harold Koh, assistant secretary of state for human rights, is expected to echo American protests of those crackdowns. At the same time, Washington is signaling that it is committed to continuing cooperation with China in other areas. In recent weeks Beijing has jailed six dissidents for attempting to organize the China Democracy Party. U.S. officials have responded to the arrests with a stream of public denunciations and diplomatic demarches. But senior U.S. government officials also have said privately that they are not surprised that Chinese activists' frontal assault on the center of Beijing's political power has produced a crackdown. For months Beijing officials tried to persuade the dissidents to back off by harassing and warning them before resorting to arrests, U.S. officials said. Clinton administration officials say the arrests could adversely affect Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's planned visit to Washington in the spring but would not cause its cancellation. "I would hope that Zhu would come," said the White House national security adviser, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger. "It's even more important when the pendulum on human rights appears to be swinging back for us to talk face to face with Zhu and other leaders. . . . They have to understand there is an international standard of acceptable human rights practice, and that they never can be fully accepted as a great country until they meet that standard." The last time representatives from the United States and China met for such a human rights gathering was four years ago. During a summit last summer, President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed to resume the sessions, and this week's gathering led by Koh and Assistant Foreign Minister Wang Guangya is the result. U.S. officials were quick to condemn the
recent arrests, which resulted in stiffer jail terms for dissidents than U.S. officials
had anticipated, with sentences up to 13 years in prisons or labor camps. Jim Sasser, U.S. ambassador in Beijing, delivered a demarche on Dec. 9 to Qian Qichen, former foreign minister and now vice premier. Sasser said that continued political repression could "negatively affect preparations for and ultimately the success of Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's planned visit." On Dec. 23 a joint demarche by U.S. charge d'affaires William McCahill and a European Union representative said the West is "deeply concerned" about the jail sentences, and that China "lacked substantive procedural safeguards" to protect citizens' rights. A demarche is a strongly worded diplomatic protest, delivered by hand to a foreign government. But in interviews over the past week, U.S. officials said they doubted the crackdown would alter the U.S.-China relationship. "There was never any question that the Chinese government would tolerate the formation of an opposition party," one administration official said. American officials admire the courage of the Chinese dissidents, but even many Chinese democrats ask "whether that was a wise course," the official added. Nearly 10 years after Chinese troops killed pro-democracy activists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Chinese officials believe that "faced with opposition, they have to move swiftly and firmly before any momentum develops," the official said. "They feel that was their mistake in April, May 1989" -- that early laxity meant they "had to respond with tanks" in Tiananmen in June of that year. U.S. officials say they recognize that Beijing is grappling with genuine challenges to stability: a growth rate assessed at substantially lower than last year's advertised 7.8 percent; increased unemployment and worker protest; and Muslim separatist agitation in the Northwest province of Xinjiang. "The leadership is just uneasy, not unstable but sclerotic and reacting with traditional communist instincts when faced with incipient political challenge," the official said. A second administration official said that those seeking to change China's politics will find other means are more successful than trying to organize a political party: reforming the judicial system and school curriculums, sending Chinese students and business figures on foreign trips, and promoting technologies such as computers and faxes. "There are red lines in China,"
he added. "You seek to move them over time. As you jump over them, you get swatted
down. . . . Most people who confront the [Chinese] system head-on know they will get hurt
and in fact seek to get hurt because that's the way they think they can promote
change." Editors: Abdulrakhim Aitbayev rakhim@lochbrandy.mines.edu *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* 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 |