A PROLONGED clash on
Sunday evening between hundreds
of civilians brandishing
bricks,rocks and knives against
armed police in China’s remote
northwest region of Xinjiang,
left 140 dead and over 800 injured.
This was the worst ethnic riot
in China since Tibetan protests
against Chinese rule spread on
the streets of Lhasa last March.
The official death toll of 140 also
makes it the deadliest demonstration
to have erupted anywhere
in China since years.
Hundreds werearrested after
the bloodbath on the streets of
Urumqi,the capital of Xinjiang,
where rioters also torched 261
vehicles and ransacked prop
erty.Officials blamed exiled ethnic
Uighur separatists for instigating
the riot through Internet.
After Tibet, oil-rich Xinjiang
which also borders parts of
India, Pakistan and Afghanistan,is
China’s most politically
sensitive expanse of territory.
The region witnessed a series of
separatist attacks before the
Beijing Olympics last year.
Xinjiang is the homeland of
about eight million ethnic
Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking
Muslim minority, a section of
whom complain that the government
stifles their cultural
traditions. Xinjiang simmers
with an uneasy calm between
the Uighurs and a dominating
influx of Han Chinese.
The Sunday rampage initiallybegan
as a gathering of locals
in the city-centre of Urumqi to
demand an inquiry into an ethnic
clash ata toy factory in south
China in June, which had left
two Uighurs dead.
Media reports werenot clear
how the Sunday demonstration
turned into a riot. Initial government
reports on Sunday had
estimated the death toll atthree.
It was revised to 140 only by
Monday afternoon.
The regional government said
the riot was instigated byexiled
separatists of the World Uighur
Congress led byan Uighur businesswoman
Rebiya Kadeer in
the US. “It was a crime of violence
that was premeditated and
organised,” Nur Bekri, chairman
of the Xinjiang regional
government, said in a televised
speech on Monday.
“It began as a peaceful assembly. There were thousands of
people shouting to stop ethnic
discrimination, demanding an
explanation,” Dilxat Raxit, a
spokesman for the World Uighur
Congress, told Reuters from
exile in Sweden.“They are tired
of suffering in silence.”
Last year in the run-up to the
Beijing Olympics,Xinjiang saw
a marked increase in attacks on
police and government sites.
The ragein Urumqi has flared
ata time when Beijing wants to
project an image of domestic
stability ahead of October 1,
when grand celebrations will
mark the 60th anniversary of
the founding of the People’s
Republic of China.
resh.patil@gmail.com
A PROLONGED clash on
Sunday evening between hundreds
of civilians brandishing
bricks,rocks and knives against
armed police in China’s remote
northwest region of Xinjiang,
left 140 dead and over 800 injured.
This was the worst ethnic riot
in China since Tibetan protests
against Chinese rule spread on
the streets of Lhasa last March.
The official death toll of 140 also
makes it the deadliest demonstration
to have erupted anywhere
in China since years.
Hundreds werearrested after
the bloodbath on the streets of
Urumqi,the capital of Xinjiang,
where rioters also torched 261
vehicles and ransacked prop
erty.Officials blamed exiled ethnic
Uighur separatists for instigating
the riot through Internet.
After Tibet, oil-rich Xinjiang
which also borders parts of
India, Pakistan and Afghanistan,is
China’s most politically
sensitive expanse of territory.
The region witnessed a series of
separatist attacks before the
Beijing Olympics last year.
Xinjiang is the homeland of
about eight million ethnic
Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking
Muslim minority, a section of
whom complain that the government
stifles their cultural
traditions. Xinjiang simmers
with an uneasy calm between
the Uighurs and a dominating
influx of Han Chinese.
The Sunday rampage initiallybegan
as a gathering of locals
in the city-centre of Urumqi to
demand an inquiry into an ethnic
clash ata toy factory in south
China in June, which had left
two Uighurs dead.
Media reports werenot clear
how the Sunday demonstration
turned into a riot. Initial government
reports on Sunday had
estimated the death toll atthree.
It was revised to 140 only by
Monday afternoon.
The regional government said
the riot was instigated byexiled
separatists of the World Uighur
Congress led byan Uighur businesswoman
Rebiya Kadeer in
the US. “It was a crime of violence
that was premeditated and
organised,” Nur Bekri, chairman
of the Xinjiang regional
government, said in a televised
speech on Monday.
“It began as a peaceful assem-
bly. There were thousands of
people shouting to stop ethnic
discrimination, demanding an
explanation,” Dilxat Raxit, a
spokesman for the World Uighur
Congress, told Reuters from
exile in Sweden.“They are tired
of suffering in silence.”
Last year in the run-up to the
Beijing Olympics,Xinjiang saw
a marked increase in attacks on
police and government sites.
The ragein Urumqi has flared
ata time when Beijing wants to
project an image of domestic
stability ahead of October 1,
when grand celebrations will
mark the 60th anniversary of
the founding of the People’s
Republic of China.
resh.patil@gmail.com