MCLC: violence in Xinjiang leaves 20 dead

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: violence in Xinjiang leaves 20 dead
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (2/29/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/world/asia/violence-in-western-china-leav
es-12-dead.html

Violence in Western China Leaves 20 Dead
By EDWARD WONG 

BEIJING ‹ An outburst of violence in which about 20 people were reported
killed Tuesday night in clashes in a remote desert region of western China
has underscored tensions over Chinese rule in ethnic minority areas just
days before an important national policy meeting in Beijing.

The tensions have been growing during the past year in ethnic Uighur and
Tibetan areas, and violence involving security forces and civilians is
becoming a regular occurrence.

Questions about the governance and security of those regions are expected
to be raised next week during annual meetings in Beijing of the National
People¹s Congress and the Chinese People¹s Political Consultative
Conference, both attended by delegates from throughout China. Delegates
often discuss the most important political and economic issues in their
provinces, regions or cities, though their ultimate purpose is to approve
policy decisions already made at the highest levels of the Communist Party.

As with virtually all such events in remote parts of China, there were
competing accounts of the violence on Tuesday, which took place in the
town of Yecheng, known in Uighur as Kargilik. The town is in the southern
part of the vast region of Xinjiang and is populated mostly by Uighurs, a
Turkic-speaking group whose members generally practice Sunni Islam. A
report on a Web site run by the propaganda bureau of Xinjiang said
Wednesday that 13 people were killed and many others injured when nine
³terrorists² armed with knives stabbed people in a crowd on Happiness Road
in the town of Yecheng. The police shot dead seven attackers and captured
the other two, the report said. The attack began at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Global Times, an officially approved newspaper, reported that attackers
killed at least 10 people. The newspaper cited a statement it had obtained
from the local government. Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that
the police shot dead at least two attackers.

A man who answered the telephone at a police station in Yecheng said he
could not provide any information. A local policeman told Agence
France-Presse that a dozen attackers armed with axes attacked people in a
market in Yecheng. The policeman said most of the victims were ethnic Han,
though there were Uighur victims too, and that the police had shot five of
the attackers, who were all Uighurs.

Radio Free Asia, whose journalists talk regularly to Uighurs in the
region, reported that a group of Uighurs killed three Han, and security
officers then killed 12 Uighur youths.

³China¹s demonstrated lack of transparency when it comes to unrest in East
Turkestan necessitates deep speculation of official Chinese claims,² said
Alim Seytoff, president of the Uyghur American Association, an advocacy
group based in Washington. In his written statement, Mr. Seytoff was using
the name that many Uighurs prefer to call the Uighur-dominated parts of
Xinjiang.

The long-serving party chief of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, was replaced in
2010, following a surge in violence in the region. Some Uighurs held out
hope that the new party leader, Zhang Chunxian, the top official in Hunan
Province, would adopt a softer line and try to examine the discriminatory
policies that have led to the rise in ethnic tensions. But cycles of
crackdown and violence have continued. Last July, clashes erupted in the
towns of Hotan and Kashgar, which lie on either side of Yecheng County.

³Zhang Chunxian brought a new style, but the policies haven¹t changed,²
Nicholas Bequelin, a senior Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said
in an e-mail. ³They were laid out at the Xinjiang work conference in 2010.
These policies promised a rapid boost to the local economy ‹ which has
happened ‹ but absent from this blueprint were the issues that top the
list of the Uighur discontent: discrimination, Han in-migration and the
ever-more invasive curbs on language, culture, religious expression.²

Mr. Bequelin added that the one notable change since Mr. Zhang took office
is that there is a greater recognition that socio-economic discrimination
against Uighurs needs to be addressed. ³But not much has been done in this
respect, and the polarization between Uighurs and Chinese continues to
grow,² he said.

The biggest eruption of violence in recent years
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/world/asia/07china.html> in Xinjiang
took place in July 2009, when frustrated Uighurs took to the streets. The
Chinese government reported that at least 197 people were killed and more
than 1,700 injured, most of them ethnic Han. Uighur groups outside China
say many innocent Uighurs were killed, tortured and detained by security
forces.

Chinese officials often blame the violence on what they call ³separatist²
forces and point to a shadowy group called the East Turkestan Islamic
Movement 
<http://www.cfr.org/china/east-turkestan-islamic-movement-etim/p9179>.
Uighur advocates say no such group exists and argue that tensions arise
because of Han discrimination and policies that put Uighurs at a
disadvantage.

Edy Yin contributed research.