Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 28 – The people of
Hong Kong, together with the peoples of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Republic
and Tibet, are fighting for their independence, Rabiya Kadir, a leader of the
Uyghur national movement says, and if one succeeds so too will the others and
thus “it is not excluded that in a short time China will suffer the fate of the
USSR.”
That possibility helps explain both
the nervousness of Beijing about what is happening in all three and its use of
violence especially in Xinjiang where its agents can present what is going on
as being about “Islamist violence” rather than a national liberation struggle,
she told Kazakhstan’s “ADAM bol” magazine (fergananews.com/articles/8287).
In recent weeks, Kadir says, the
situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiant has become truly “unbearable.” Members of that nationality are prohibited
from speaking their own language or practicing their own religion. The Chinese
military is omnipresent just as the Russian military is in southeastern
Ukraine.
Disappearances organized by the authorities
are becoming more common. Uyghurs are denied legal aid, and the situation has
become so dire that “mothers are afraid to allow their children to play in the
streets. The Uyghurs are suffering to an unprecedented degree, and the Chinese
authorities are ignoring all appeals to stop.
Most of the violence in Xinjiang
consists of provocations organized by the authorities, she continues, but some
of it is genuine and reflects the despair to which the Uyghurs and others have
been driven. “We do not consider this terrorism. Like the Ukrainians, we are
attempting to defend our independence and free ourselves from the colonial oppression
of China.”
The “real extremists,” she argues,
are the Chinese officials, not Uyghur activists who have tried again and again
to advance their cause by peaceful means.
China seeks to link the Uyghur
struggle with Al-Qaeda in order to try to present what it is doing to the West
as being part of a common struggle against Islamist terrorism, but Beijing’s
arguments are without foundation, although they have allowed China to engage in
unprecedented violations of human rights.
Kabia notes that “unthinkable things”
have happened with Muslims in Xinjiang. The Chinese have transformed mosques
into places for swine, they have forced imams to burn the Koran on the streets,
and they have prohibited young people from attending services, all things
copied from the Soviet past.
If Beijing does not change course
and it will do so only if the West puts pressure on China – otherwise, she
says, “China will view the absence of international attention as ‘a green light’
and increase its crackdown on the Uyghurs, Tibetans and residents of Hong Kong”
– then the future is bleak indeed, first for these peoples and then for China
itself.
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