The massive hard core military action against Uighurs in the
North West Province of China finds a critical mention in the annual report of
Amnesty International released in March among the list of human rights abuses
in China. While the huge suppressive actions against Uighurs by the communist
government were hushed up in the Chinese media, the crackdown has started
receiving international attention. Globally China was perceived to be a
peaceful country with no reports of infightings and disturbances. It was
considered a homogenous country, strong and unified country. Subsequentially its
strong dictatorial tendencies were largely ignored due to its spectacular
economic success. But this image is beginning to fade as Amnesty International
in its study unmasked the suppressive actions of the communist leadership under
the name of religious extremism and violent terrorism against Uighurs.
Amnesty report illustrated that Uighurs, the ethnic Turkic
Muslims are facing wide spread discrimination in employment, housing, education
and curtailed religious freedom as well as political marginalisation. Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) has been even forcefully feeding the children in schools
and ensuring that they couldn’t fast during Ramadan.
The North Western Xinjiang province of China is home to
nearly 10,000,000 ethnic Muslim Uighur group, a Turkic ethnic minority. The
erstwhile East Turkestan is basically an agriculture and trade dependent
economy and thrived along the Silk Road. Xinjiang is strategically located
bordering eight countries-Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The province of East Turkestan, culturally and
ethnically closer to the Central Asian countries was occupied by China in 1949
with the help of Soviet Union and was renamed as Xinjiang (meaning new
province). The resistant Uighurs were subsequently massacred and executed to
bring down the rebellion. Though CCP
promised self-rule and independence for the non-Chinese after annexation it
reneged on its promise and claimed that Xinjiang is inalienable province of
China. CCP sponsored the movement of millions of Chinese into this new province
by creating more economic opportunities to the Huns and denying access to these
facilities for the Uighurs. East
Turkestan roughly the size of Iran has a rich reserve of natural gas, oil,
gold, uranium and coal. Uighurs claim China intensified the mining activities
in this region and transferred the mineral wealth to the main land China. The
natives who constituted nearly 90% of the population in 1949 were reduced to
45% now.
Chinese have turned Xinjiang province as the testing ground
for their nuclear weapons polluting the air, water, land. Gradually the
accumulated levels of radiation began to take toll on the resident population. Owing
to severe restrictions on the cultural and commercial activities of the Uighurs
the separatist movement started gaining momentum leading to greater discord. Having
lost independence, sovereignty, claim over their land resentment began to build
up. Even the fruits of the economic boom
in this region are not shared with Uighurs. Moreover the development in this
region is imbalanced. Chinese intellectuals too believe that alleviation of
poverty in this region can stem the rebellion partly. The unrest cropped up due
to the colonial attitude of the Chinese. The separatist movement among Uighurs
began to surge in 1990 when several central Asian countries gained independence
following the collapse of Soviet Union.
The pent up resentment thus graduated into ethnic strife. The
rebellion was crushed with iron hand resulting in the death of millions of
innocent women and children. To curb the separatist activity, prominent leaders
were imprisoned and those accused of charges of terrorism sought asylum abroad.
To escape the suppression and suspicious
detentions by the CCP thousands of Uighurs fled China for the safe havens of
Turkey through Thailand and Malaysia. China claims that after the 9/11, Uighurs
movement was emboldened and their cadres started obtaining weapons and advanced
training from the Al-Qaeda. Uighurs in the meanwhile claim that their repeated
calls for a peaceful dialogue to resolve the ongoing turmoil were turned down
by the government.
Uighurs in 2009 launched a massive attack on the Chinese wherein
200 people lost lives and over 1700 people were severely injured. Subsequently
security was beefed up in Xinjiang followed by large-scale detentions of the suspects.
But stray incidents of varying intensity of Uighur retaliation were continuing
henceforth. China now started treating Uighurs as another tribe of Taliban and
has ordered all its neighbours to whom it offered trade excesses from its fat
economic purse to extradite Uighurs in their respective provinces.
In spite of heavy crack down, the restive Uighurs are fleeing
to Turkey, the land with which they have strong cultural connect. Turkey is
populated by the ethnic and linguistic kin of Uighurs. Turkey has been offering
shelter to Uighurs since 1950. The exodus of Uighurs is now threatening
otherwise robust China-Turkey relationship. Turkey was the first country to
condemn the death of 156 Uighurs in 2009 as genocide. Uighurs intellectuals
warn that if China doesn’t refrain from high-hand repression, Xinjiang might
soon turn into another Palestine. China in a bid to completely wipe off any
rebellion is resorting to mass sentencing. But the crux of the problem and its
root causes are still not completely comprehensive due to the suppressed
freedom of press in China. As even the entry of international journalists into
Xinjiang province is denied the intensity of the rebellion and the consequent fall
out is unfathomable.
The Aksai Chin, which is claimed by India as a part of the
Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir lies in this Xinjiang Autonomous Region. When
China clamped down Uighurs in 2009 they requested Indian government to facilitate
their escape to Turkey. Xinjiang is an extremely important region for China in terms
of Indo-China border dispute.
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