Lessons from Xinjiang: Disaster and Response
Written by Julen Madariaga on August 6th, 2009I was not there and I do not know more than what is in the press. But in the light of the available information, I think it’s worth it to have another look at the events, and see what we make of it. Refer to the NYT diagram linked on the illustration, this paper is hardly suspect of pro-CPC, and the information included (from witness accounts) is about as detailed as has been published concerning the events of 5th May.
It all started with a protest in People’s Square, followed by a concentration along Liberation Road, which was met around 6.30 by the People’s Armed Police. Up to here everything is “normal” in the logic of street rioting: there were clashes and probably some victims from both sides. But Liberation Rd. is very central, many people live there and surely the NYT would have found at least a witness to mention it if hundreds of people had been killed or made prisoner at this point.
But it is afterwards, especially after 8, along the axes of Tuanjie and Dawan Roads, that the events are not normal by any standard of social disorder. Street riots, like other forms of violence, can have collateral damage, but this is not the case. The police was not there, the Han mobs couldn’t have been organized in such a short time, and the only way to explain those deaths is that it was a deliberate large scale massacre of civilian residents and passers by. This is consistent with what was written in other accounts by various newspapers.
The initial count of 123* Han casualties that has been more or less accepted by all sides as minimum is an astonishing figure for actions that happened mostly in the space of 5 hours and in such a reduced area. Looking at other riots in the region, including Xinjiang, Tibet or other Chinese areas, we see this ratio is completely out of range. This was not the heat of the fight in a political riot. It was cold-blooded persecution, the kind of actions that can only be the work of fanatics.
Who was behind the events
In its August 2 issue, the Hong Kong newsweekly Yazhou Zhoukan interviewed Heyrat Niyaz, a Uyghur journalist, blogger, and AIDS activist, the kind of person who is unlikely to be partial to the CPC. Heyrat speaks about the Islamic Liberation Party, Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami, a pan-islamic international political party which is formally peaceful, but which has been accused in the past of inciting violence in Europe. This organization has spread very quickly in Xinjiang in the last decade.
As a witness in Urumqi, Niyaz notes the strong Kashgar accents of many of the protesters and the religious slogans that were heard in the protests. This brings to mind all the times the CPC has spoken of the menace of an Islamist group called ETIM, which might actually exist or not. In any case, some radical groups do exist, as was clearly seen from attacks like this one last year, where 16 policemen were coldly knifed and bombed after being run over.
I will not accuse any group without proof, as I would be guilty myself of the same “solid block” thinking I criticized yesterday. But what we have seen up to now should make any honest observer curious, and it certainly warrants further investigation in the field of radical islamism in Xinjiang. In a region bordered by countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is not at all unthinkable that frustrated youths take example of their counterparts across the border and find an escape in a perverted version of religion.
Response
The Chinese government has handled the crisis relatively well, given the circumstances. Actually, the main objection one could make is the opposite of what most Western readers like to imagine: on Sunday 5th more force should have been used to avoid the murders.
If you think of it, you might agree that the CPC leaders are not precisely idealistic dreamers. When they let the foreign reporters into a place it is because they know they have nothing to lose, and this time they must have been pretty confident that they were not to blame. Also we have to admit that, even when in front of journalists, it is unusual in most armies in the World to exhibit so much discipline and restraint as the Chinese did in the aftermath of indiscriminate racist attacks against their own people.
A large part of the Western media were confused by this attitude, which perhaps explains why they left so early. Indeed, it is some food for thought and it can make some weaker spirits shrink, to consider that for the second time in a row (after the Sichuan disaster) China proves that, sometimes, an authoritarian regime can do things better than a democracy. It takes some solid convictions and some understanding of ones own ideals to be able to look at the World without the mould of good and evil.
In any case, there is little doubt – the Western media has given me no reason to think otherwise – that the Chinese double approach of media control and moderate police action has produced the best results during the crisis. It goes without saying that this only works as a short term formula to curb down the violence, and that much more will need to be done from now on to really solve the problems in Xinjiang. More about long term solutions in the next posts.
Rebiya Kadeer
I will not waste time here to discredit Rebiya Kadeer, because from the beginning she discredits herself. She has provided no basis at all for most of the information she gave to the media, and some of her claims are so absurdly wrong that it actually makes me think she has to be innocent: someone who’s made it in business can’t possibly be such a bad liar. The only explanation is that she is totally clueless.
Click on the picture for one example of her latest claims.
More than anything, Kadeer gives the impression that she is desperate for TV time. She knows her time of fame is running to an end, and she is forced to place ever stronger claims, raising the stakes at each go to attract the tired audiences. As blogger twofish reflected, if she really cared about the future of Xinjiang, she might have grabbed this chance to send a message of peace and try to connect with the rest of the Chinese at a time when they were brutally attacked, earning perhaps the respect of the moderates.
But how has someone like Kadeer, a successful businesswoman in her time, imprisoned and then released by the CPC, ended up as de facto representative of the Uyghur people? Kadeer was called to play a role, and she plays it just fine. It is a role that has been written by the CPC, and by the Western media, and by the audiences and by the American NED, who is funding her. The story was written long before she arrived, a well proven plot that works with the public and will make everyone happy. It is all over again the Dalai Lama saga, and thanks to the copy-paste now the scriptwriters can relax and enjoy their Summer holidays.
Except, of course, that Rebiya Kadeer is no Dalai Lama, and neither her deeds nor her standing among the Uyghur justifiy any such comparison.
The Important Question
And now down to what many consider the crucial question: is Kadeer in contact or even financing the extremist groups who arranged the killings, or is she, as I suspect, totally ignorant of the reality on the ground? I don’t think we will ever find out. It is difficult to believe that the NED, funded by the American Congress, would sponsor anyone connected with terrorism; but if by mistake they did, I am sure they will take good care to hide all the proofs.
Note that, either way, the NED doesn’t come out very well from this story. Sponsoring an opportunist who jumps at the chance to get a name for herself while she coldly observes the killings of dozens is hardly in line with the objectives of a National Endowment for Democracy.
But really, is all this so important? I don’t think so. Kadeer will not last, and whether she is guilty or not, the peanuts that the NED pays her do not really change anything. Kadeer with her accommodated expatriate Uyghurs of the WUC cannot possibly control the operations of a terrorist group on the ground. And, as an inspirational role, I doubt it very much that she – a woman, twice married, business and PC background – could ever work for young islamist radicals. She will most certainly not turn into the new bin Laden.
No, the real questions for China and for the World are others:
Who was really behind the killings of 5th July? How will the prisoners be judged? How are the interethnic policies of the CPC failing? How is this failure feeding the bases of some violent groups? What is the connection of these groups with islamist terrorism and what is the probability of Al-Qaeda joining the party? And why is China the only Security Council country that hasn’t received a large-scale attack from islamists, in spite of the years-long Uyghur conflict?
And finally, where are the people that are supposed to be answering all these questions?
*See my comment below for the basis of this number.
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Great article! Thank you.
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Rebiya Kadeer, not Rebecca. Before you begin to make allegations against her without any firm proof you should at least spell her name right.
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nice blog.
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Great post, thanks.
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@David - Thanks for the correction, and sorry all for the slip, it was not intended. Edited already.
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Great post. The NYT and the BBC should hire you as their China correspondent!
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Wu Mao Dang.
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uln Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Fang pi! If you really think I am 5maodang then please point out which part of my post made you think so, and why. Thanks.
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Although in general I do agree that the government handled the security situation well after the rioting began (I was in xinjiang at the time), it should also be kept in mind that Heyrat Niyaz claims to have notified authorities repeatedly that violence would occur. If true, the lack of reaction would have to be considered a major security and government failure.
Kadeer does deserve blame for some ridiculous and opportunistic accusations void of evidence. It very well could be that she is trying to “Dalai Lama-ize” herself and sees an opening. Her autobiography was recently translated to English, a controversial film is opening about her life and she has been the point person for journalists curious about events in Urumqi and Xinjiang. She is causing friction in China’s relations with Turkey, Japan and Australia….and all this for a woman who was relatively little known a few months ago. As a successful businesswomen the opportunity that all this publicity presents cannot be lost on her.
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Excellent post, by the way. I truly respect the amount of thought you have put into explaining the messy truth of these events.
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tom Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Would you care to comment on why the Uyghrs would want to kill and harm the Hans who have done so much for them?
There seems to be very little love loss between the Hans and Uyghurs, or for that matter between the Hans and the Tibetans. Why do you think so?
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komoroka Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 12:49 am
I think that most Uyghurs would not admit that the Han have done so much for them as a culture. I think you could make that argument in economic terms for many urban ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. But those that have not benefited from economic growth in Xinjiang, namely those in the south of the Tarim basin (Uyghurs in Kashgar, Hotan, etc.) are more culturally conservative (and numerous). And in that cultural sphere they feel embattled. Their children cannot go to mosque, they cannot go on the hajj until they are 65 if ever, and now the government is mandating that Chinese displace their language for education, even in Altishar (south xinjiang). I think these groups look around xinjiang and see the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Mongolians with their own states and are apoplectic. They have governments guaranteeing the perpetuation of these cultures outside china while the stateless Uyghurs have no recourse except to a government that would prefer them assimilated. In short Uyghurs are happy that the rising tide of China’s economy is also lifting their boats, but they are fearful that their culture is drowning in the process. And as Han are identified with the government (not always a fair assumption) they inevitably take some flak.
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Yes Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Good question.
Looking at the results of the riots both by the Uighurs and Tibetans last year yields one common factor: the han victims have mostly been store owners.
This leads me to believe that economic inequality and jealousy maybe the foundation for the recent unrests. Those in the West sympathetic to the Uighurs/Tibetan like to throw around catch phrases like religious/human rights suppression, but if these people are true to their religions and care about human rights they would not be killing innocent hans just because of their race.
I also do not rule out organized terrorism. The Uighurs who were captured in Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and recently released in Gitmo made it clear that they were there to get trained to fight against the han Chinese.
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@Tom - You raised a very good point. I didn’t speak about that simply because I am writing it in a new post and I hope I will be able to publish it by tonight/tomorrow.
@others - thanks
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“Also we have to admit that, even when in front of journalists, it is unusual in most armies in the World to exhibit so much discipline and restraint as the Chinese did in the aftermath of indiscriminate racist attacks against their own people.”
Great post. This sentence made me tick however. It is revealing of the situation where Uyghur are second class citizen. Why would the army be composed solely of Han ? In fact, I don’t know the current situation and the statistics. Any insight ? If there are Uyghur in the army, are they kept off situations like that ?
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I had brief contact with the UWC and Kadeer a couple of years ago when she was not on the radar. My impression was not very good. Like you, I found she did not seem to have much idea what was happening in Xinjiang. I also found that most people in Xinjiang had not heard of her or had no positive opinion of her - she is not a leader in the way the DL is to the Tibetans. I believe the CPC knows which groups were really behind the violence, but it is not politically convenient to point the finger at China’s allies in the Middle East.
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komoroka Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I would take issue with the statement that most people do not know who Rebiya Kadeer is. I found relatively widespread knowledge of her in Urumqi. Actually the bazaar she founded in southern Urumqi still has her name written in Uyghur at the top (Rebiya Kadir soda saray), even after she began to be singled out by the government. (I always found this incredibly odd and evidence of some government cluelessness). But I think you are right about her aloofness to events on the ground in Xinjiang and blame lying elsewhere. She is not organized enough to plan something like this. This gives her far too much credit. I recall reading that a lot of the Uyghur diaspora groups were plagued by infighting, disorganization and fragmentation(at least a few years ago).
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Where do I begin?
For starters, Xinhua itself said that of the 156, 11 were Hui, 10 were Uighur and 1 was Man [although the ethnicities and figures change daily.]
This means, by your analysis, that organized “Islamist groups,” who until now have mysteriously only killed Han people [according to CPC headlines about such things], suddenly planned to kill a bunch of Uighurs and other Muslims.
And mysteriously all these trained murderers came from Kashgar [even though you can clearly hear Urumqi dialect in the videos.]
I say Wu Mao Dang because you follow a well-known tactic of taking the CPC official story framework, point by point, dressing it up with what are supposed to be “personal experience” or observations.
These points are:
1) use sensational imagery [massacre of Han]
2) make the killers non-locals ["Kashgar accents"]
3) blame outside forces for planning [Rebiya K.]
4) quote a sympathetic minority [Heyrat N.]
5) criticise western media
6) praise every one of the govt’s responses, summing neatly
7) but worst of all, mention NED
Mentioning NED alone puts you squarely in Wu Mao Dang light. Never mention NED, because the only group of people yelling constantly about the mysterious NED, since 3.14, are Wu Mao Dang.
Uighurs are not super-religious Muslims, much less radicalized. It was a mistake in this case for the CPC to adopt a tactic of copying Bush [I can almost hear Hu and Bush saying together, "...groups connected to al-Quaeda..."]
It would have been more believable, though still not the truest picture, to blame social and economic pressures, which are the true cause of most mass incidents. It was the mishandling of such issues in the first place [failure to adequately deal with the Guangdong killings] which lead to this Urumqi mass incident.
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Yes Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 2:58 am
“7) but worst of all, mention NED”
Sheesh.
Mentioning NED makes you a paid Chinese propagandist? Why? Because it’s only okay to take money from foreign government in an attempt to influence domestic politics if that foreign government is the US?
IMO ad hominem attacks like calling someone wu mao dang makes you look like a certified idiot.
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Rhodo Zeb Reply:
August 8th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
This seems largely correct to me, although I won’t join in the accusation itself. We all have our own perspectives and I will not take the time to make one about the writer now. But the analysis of the post does in fact follow the script. Foreign influences and dollars. RK mad for the cash and, most of all, exposure. It’s got to be about the ego.
Not the son rotting in jail or anything else, you see.
Remember, it is never internal problems. No mass incident has ever been caused by purely domestic issues.
There are always foreign agitators.
Its also true that RK was made by the CPC. That is what they do out there. You can see it in that sick letter.
My only complaint is using Xinhua as any sort of source, SL. They have no commitment to truth and therefore can’t be trusted. You simply can’t use Xinhua to refute factual claims when there is any politics involved, and sometimes even otherwise. Sorry.
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P.S. originally in Xinhua reports, the Muslims dead were “Uighur,” now magically half of them are Hui [because it's more believable that Uighur would "mistake them for Han."]
Also, hospital workers report many of the dead had gunshot wounds; this is inconsistent with the idea of them dying at the hands of “knives and stabbing.”
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uln Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Hi, you are a bit unfair with this critic because the Xinhua release of this information came out AFTER I had published the post, so I couldn’t count on that.
Still, i really don’t see how this changes anything, really. 11 Hui died, perhaps because they were mistaken for Hans, or perhaps because the Han mobs next day attacked anything that looked muslim. Or simply because there is a big population of Hui in Urumqi and they got caught in the fights! It doesn’t change the basis of my post.
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Rhodo Zeb Reply:
August 8th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Or maybe because there are a lot of people with pretty low education and pretty meager opportunities and a lot of poverty, frustration, and inequality.
Hell, it could easily be half-half. Let’s just call it even, shall we?
If the radical Islamists matter, then basic justice will be important. Well, I guess it always is.
But sometimes it seems like China thinks there is no difference in the effects of using a real incident to drum up popular support or a fake, manufactured one. And I think this is completely incorrect.
When injustice exists, it will tend to grow if not directly opposed. As this progresses, there is increasingly no need for propaganda.
Conversely, if people are treated with basic respect and opportunities are provided for people’s livelihood, you will have little fear of the vast majority of the local population. Not all of course, but most.
Right now we just don’t know how bad things are. I do not for a second believe that the number of arrested in the wake of the incident is as low as being reported.
Will they just imprison a bunch of people on flimsy charges in order ‘to send a signal’? Will they go farther?
Or will the (I am sure) rudimentary legal structures there be respected and utilized?
Justice is never perfect, but now that all eyes are on XJ I sincerely hope the gov’t will be careful in how they proceed…because it matters. A lot.
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@Michael
Interesting idea. It sounds like there is an involuntary collusion of interests between the CPC and the Western media, which has enormously benefited R. Kadeer.
The Chinese side doesn’t want to speak about islamist terrorist groups because it is easier for the party to pick an outside culprit. Also, as you hint, they may have some kind of deal with Afganistan/Pakistan groups to keep Al Qaeda out of China. How do we explain otherwise that China, in conflict with its muslim population, and openly friendly to Israel, has (almost) never been attacked??
As for the Western media, we already saw in yesterday’s post some of the reasons why they don’t look into it. If you see the link fron the Guardian above, they sound all too eager to dismiss the possibility of islamist terrorism.
To be fair with the Western journalists, research into the real nature of the Xinjiang islamic movements is very difficult due to government restrictions, and it is potentially dangerous. But I don’t see that they are trying very hard anyway.
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@SauLaan - Believe me I don’t get 5 mao for this. I’ll answer one by one:
156 dead: True, only 123 of these were Han, according to Xinhua’s first count. Although the figures are not clear and in later reports they have increased. I used this number because I wanted to link to a Western paper, not to Xinhua. I edit now to 123 to be on the safe side.
We have a problem with the numbers anyway, because the count comes from official sources, and because the counts are done earliest on Monday, so they include violence by revenging Han mobs. Obviously, some Uyghurs died as well in shot by the police, as it is reported that the police used guns at some point (not surprising giving the circumstances). The 10?-30? Uyghurs dead must be part shot by the police, part attacked by the Han mobs the day after.
>>> “organized “Islamist groups,” who until now have mysteriously only killed Han people [according to CPC headlines about such things], suddenly planned to kill a bunch of Uighurs and other Muslims.”
- NO, I didn’t say that. Islamist groups logically would kill Han. The Uyghurs probably died as explained above.
>>>And mysteriously all these trained murderers came from Kashgar [even though you can clearly hear Urumqi dialect in the videos.]
- NO, I didnt said that. The source said “some”, not all. Besides, the proportion of rioters from Kashgar is not relevant to the argument. Even if they all were from Urumqi, which I doubt, the violent ones could still belong to islamist groups. I will add here that, of course, not ALL the participants in the riots took part in the murders, but just a minority. It is only that minority that I *suspect* to be linked to radical islamism, but I clearly state that I have no proof.
Now your Wumaodang points:
>>>1) use sensational imagery [massacre of Han]
- It was a massacre by any standard.
>>>2) make the killers non-locals ["Kashgar accents"]
- I said some of them, not all. It is from the source mentioned. Anyway, I DONT SEE HOW THIS IS RELEVANT.
>>>3) blame outside forces for planning [Rebiya K.]
- You must be joking, I say exaclty the opposite.
>>>4) quote a sympathetic minority [Heyrat N.]
- Well, who else can I quote, it’s not like there is tons of independent sources. And there are reasons to think the guy is not precisely in love with the CPC, it is as close as independent as I could find!
>>>5) criticise western media.
- No, seriously. Is Western media holy or what?
>>>6) praise every one of the govt’s responses, summing neatly.
- I will give you this point. In my post the government’s response comes out as too perfect. The problem is reading the Western press I couldnt find any serious evidence otherwise. I’m sure not all the police action has been 100% clean (it never is), but if they have done something wrong, they have hidden it very well. I edit “remarkably well” to “relatively well” in the post, I think you have a point there, and some previous commentator as well.
>>>7) but worst of all, mention NED. Mentioning NED alone puts you squarely in Wu Mao Dang light. Never mention NED, because the only group of people yelling constantly about the mysterious NED, since 3.14, are Wu Mao Dang.
- Give me a break. I speak about the NED if I want to, and there IS NOTHING MYSTERIOUS about it, it is public information for God’s sake!!!
>>>Uighurs are not super-religious Muslims, much less radicalized, etc.
Yes, most Uyghurs are not super-religious muslims. This does not exclude that a few of them are, and a few is all you need to feed terrorist groups. I am not accusing anyone in my post, I am just saying that there are reasons to look into the islamic possibility, and I wonder why nobody is dong it.
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Regarding what Michael said, the stance of the Chinese government towards Xinjiang violence is puzzling. It has long looked for every possible excuse to claim there is islamic terrorism, what they called ETIM. Now that there are large killings which would justify thinking of this, instead they focus on R. Kadeer, and not a single Xinhua release mentions the term islamic.
What is up? Is it really that there never was a serious fundamentalist menace and now they don’t need to play that card anymore, as they have Kadeer? Or are there other reasons not to mention this, perhaps because they want to keep the muslim international opinon on their side?
I am not sure at all that my hints of islamist fundamentalism authorship are correct. But if it is not the case today, the elements are certainly there for it to happen soon. Given the circumstances of Xinjiang, it is actually very surprising that there is no more fundamentalist activity.
The Uyghurs are not particularly religious muslims, granted, but this doesn’t mean anything. Even in very relaxed countries like Morocco there has been massive terrorist attacks, and many AL Qaeda members came from there.
So like I say, I have no proof at all of this hint to fundamentalism, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more of it in the future.
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There are mass incidents all over China, thousands per year.
Will we blame the Guangdong riots on “outside forces,” or the Weng’an riot, or the Dazhu riot or the Jilin or the Shishou or Gangkou or Huizhou, or…
We have absolutely zero independent confirmation of how many people died, and what ethnic group they belonged to. If Han really were murdered in great number, surely it’s because of the video of the Guangdong factory workers beating Uighur workers to death while the police watched. The protesters in Urumqi were shouding “justice in Guangdong” [and not in Kashgar dialect.] This is the real source of the riot’s anger, though it wasn’t a riot at first, just a march. Therefore it’s unreasonable to assume that all those people marching [women, kids, students with water bottles and cellphones], chanting “justice in Guangdong, suddenly transformed into a well-armed pack of “outside” terrorists.
It just went bad like every other protest march in China this year, only since the police presence is higher in Xinjiang, and the pressure is much higher for every possible reason, violence erupted-and we have no proof yet that most of the violence wasn’t committed by the best-armed force, which was the PAP.
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By the way I very much appreciate your politeness - I don’t mean to sound so impolite myself. I do have strong feelings on this issue but I appreciate your writing.
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I love it when someone here said “…we have no proof yet that most of the violence wasn’t committed by the best-armed force, which was the PAP.” By the way, I assume the person meant “PLA” (People’s Liberation Army), rather than the PAP (of Singapore?).
However, the illogicality of his/her statement is so stupendous that it cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Simply because there is no proof that the Chinese army did not commit any wrongdoings in this incident does not support the (albeit implicit) accusation that they might have.
You may as well say the following things:
We do not have proof that pink unicorns do not exist.
We do not have proof that there is not a tea pot flying in the orbit of the earth.
We do not have proof that the United States government did not orchestrate 911.
…
Oh, why do some people just ooze stupidity?
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mtm Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Maybe because SauLaan is part of the WuMaoDang, by discrediting Westerners and making them look like morons.
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tom Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I’m sorry to belabor the point but I would like to know why the Uyghurs hate the Hans so much?
The viciousness of the attacks against the Hans in the Xinjiang riots and the same viciousness in attacks against Hans in the Tibet riots seem to indicate a deep-seated hatred for Hans. Will the Mongols be the next group to attack the Hans?
After all the nice things the Chinese have done for these people, why are the Chinese hated?
If economic development does not make the Uyghurs and Tibetans grateful, what will?
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what Reply:
August 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
To yinbinn:
PAP = People’s Armed Police
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@ SauLaan
- I have no doubt that the majority of the protesters that first concentrated were angry but honest Uyghurs reacting to the Guangdong riots (and also to other grivances), and I am sure they didn’t participate in the systematic killings. When I say fanatics I am refering only to the small part of the protesters who did it.
- The fact that the victims were from shops is not necessarily significant: shopkeeepers are the most vulnerable because shops in China usually openlate, and many of them sleep inside the shop or in a back room. If you are on the street looking to kill someone they are the most accessible victims.
- Regarding the victim figures: Xinhua is clearly and admittedly an instrument of the State, and as such it cannot be an impartial source. I don’t take their figures for granted, but in the general lines, when we see what Western journalists and witnesses on the field had to say, there is nothing that contradicts their version of large-scale killings of Han on Sunday night.
Nobody has seriously managed to counter the official numbers, even though many Western journalists had all the motivation to try it. Sadly, Kadeer only contributes to the confusion by throwing in senseless numbers. She is seriously harming the credibility of the Uyghurs and, through sheer incompetence, she is actually making things easier for Chinese authorities.
One more thing, it is not even sure that officials and Xinhua had initially a motivation to exaggerate the number of Han victims. This would have only pushed for more Han radical reaction, which is not consistent with the messages the official media were sending out. Also this was making lose extra face to Hu in the Italian summit, and the maximum CPC responsible in Xinjiang is precisely Hu’s protege.
Perhaps we will never know for sure the exact number of victims, but I think it is safe to say there was deliberate violence against the Han of an unprecedented scale, not consistent with violent rioting, but with active persecution. Whoever organized and executed this has lost all credibility and all legitimacy, whatever their initial claims might have been.
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On very unlucky days you may be killed in a robbery gone wrong, for example. It might not be logical therefore to infer that the robber necessarily hates you.
These are mindless acts of cold-blooded people who are marginalized in society and who feel that their problems come from others rather than themselves. People from the lowest stratum of society are prone to anti-social behaviour. — This is not to be contested.
When you add race into the picture (race is inherently divisive), it is all the more motivation for the desperados to commit the inhuman acts such as the mindless killing witnessed in Lhasa and Xinjiang.
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