China’s Ethnic Cleansing of Uyghurs –
From Oppression To Genocide
Dr. Mozammel Haque
“Uyghurs are helpless and on the edge of disappearing from
this world. Humanity is crying out every minute in the hearts of Uyghurs. The
world must save the Uyghurs before it is too late. Money cannot buy love of
humanity! Uyghurs need your support!” said Aziz Isa Elkun, Secretary of
Uyghur PEN Centre while presenting a paper at the Conference on China’s Brute
Crackdown on Uyghur Muslims, organised by the Cordoba Foundation, London, on 15
February 2019 at the London Muslim Centre, London.
Aziz Isa Elkun
While presenting his paper at the conference, Dr. Aziz
Isa Elkun, Secretary of Uyghur PEN Centre gave a historical background of the
Uyghur s struggle for independence and the recent persecution of Uyghurs by the
China’s authorities. “Today’s “Uyghur problem” in China is not a new one but an
old unsolved one. The current situation is one of the worst crimes that a
country has openly committed against a specific ethnicity since the Second
World War,” said Aziz Isa Elkun.
Who are Uyghurs and where they
live?
First of all, Mr. Aziz Isa traces
the background of Uyghurs and who are they and where they live. He said, “The
Uyghurs are an indigenous Turkic people who live in East Turkistan and Central
Asia. Uyghurs are the earliest city dwellers among the Turkic peoples, and they
developed its rich cultural heritage. Today, over 20 million Uyghurs live in
East Turkistan along with other small number of Turkic people, like Kazakh, Kyrgyz
and Uzbeks. The region is today officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region of China, its vast geographical territory includes 1 million
800 km land, and it borders with 13 countries. Its strategic location lies at
the heart of ancient Silk Road which has connected the East with West during
the last millennium before the sea routes emerged.”
China’s
Occupation of Eastern Turkistan
Mr. Aziz Isa Elkun went back to
the past – the history of the Chinese occupation of Eastern Turkestan. He has
given a detailed picture of how China occupied this region. He said, “Since
China occupied East Turkistan with the direct support of Soviet Union in 1949,
the Uyghurs have experienced from various forms of oppression under the regime
in the past 70 years, up to the current cultural and ethnic genocide.”
“The 1997 Ghulja Massacre was one of the
most serious of China's atrocities. 22 years ago on 5th February in the City of
Ghulja, East Turkistan, thousands of Uyghur youth protested against the Chinese
government's arbitrary arrest of Uyghurs who participated in Meshrep - Uyghur
Cultural activities. On that day, the Chinese army opened fire on peaceful
demonstrators. Every year we remember those who were killed or imprisoned after
participating in the peaceful demonstration in Ghulja," he
mentioned.
Mr. Aziz Isa also mentioned, “Over
the 70 years of colonization in East Turkistan and Uyghurs, China, the regime
has periodically used all measures of forced assimilation, making the
inhabitants more Han Chinese, so if these non-Chinese were assimilated into Han
Chinese, then China could permanently occupy these lands without fear of
conflict with other races. So China applied inhumane policies with full state
power.”
Mr. Aziz Isa has given a long
history, in brief, how China's occupation and oppression of Uyghurs in their
homeland in East Turkistan took place. He mentioned the long history, in brief,
as follows:
·
“* The last surviving Uyghur independent state of Saidiye Uyghur Kingdom
(Yarkand Khanate) collapsed in 17th Century after an Islamic
factional war within the Kingdom.
· * “At the high peak
of “Great Game” of Central Asia between British, Russia and Chinese, East
Turkistan was become a political and geographical competing point between three
empires. It’s buffer state status was rejected by Petersburg in 1870s.
· * “With the support
of Russian and British empires, there was 10 years war between East Turkistan
(Kashgaria) and Manchu China. In 1884, East Turkistan was fully occupied by
Manchu Qing (China) and renamed as “Xinjiang - means “New Dominion” in Chinese
language.
· * “The Manchu Qing Empire was overthrown by the
Chinese Nationalist revolution in 1911. In 1949, the Peoples Republic of China
(Communist China – present regime) was established and inherited its rule over
the colonized countries of East Turkistan, Tibet, Southern Mongolia.”
From “East Turkistan” to “Xinjiang”
Mr. Aziz Isa described the numerous incidents of
resistance and rebellion against the Chinese occupation that took place and never
stopped in the last 100 years. He mentioned, as follows:
·
“* "Uyghur
established short lived Islamic Republic of East Turkistan in Kashgar 1933.
·
* “Established
Republic of East Turkistan (Second republic) with support of Russia in Ghulja
1945 but 5 years later, Stalin decided to support Mao Zedong, then the Uyghur aspirations
of having independent state become a dream again. Uyghurs once more sold out by
foreign powers to China. In August 1949, all the Uyghur leaders were killed in
a staged plane crash (secretly killed in Moscow by KGB) when they were
travelling to Beijing for negotiation the future status of East Turkistan with
Mao Zedong. Then Soviet Union directly sent their tanks and war planes to
assist the occupation of East Turkistan by Chinese Red Army.
· * “East Turkistan (Uyghuristan) once again becomes a colony of
China in 1949 and in 1955, China announced the establishment of “Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region” but this Uyghur autonomous status was never
implemented and only written on the paper.”
Uyghurs aspiration for independence
and the crackdown
The aspirations of Uyghurs for independence continued after
the disintegration of Soviet Union and emergence of independent Muslim Central
Asian Republics. Mr. Aziz Isa then mentioned the Uyghurs aspirations for
independence at the last decade of the 20th century. He said, “After
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Uyghurs witnessed their ethnic
kin people like Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz people achieve independence. Therefore
aspirations for independence grew and systematic resistance against the Chinese
rule developed among the Uyghurs.”
Followings are some of the incidents took place during the
last decade of the 20th century and how the Chinese authority’s
crackdown on the Uyghurs mentioned Mr. Aziz Isa as follows:
· * “There were numerous of
protests and peaceful demonstrations in many cities in East Turkistan,
including “Ghulja Massacre” in 1997, but all ended with merciless crackdown by
the Chinese army.
· * “Chinese “strike
hard” campaign continued against the whole Uyghur people, but Uyghurs never
stopped demanding their legitimate cultural, religious and civil rights within
China.
· * “China actively was seeking legitimate reasons
to oppress Uyghurs rights demand. After “September 11” terror incident on US, China
begun hijacking western world’s “war on terror” and used “Islamophobia” as an
opportunity to oppress Uyghurs.”
Xinjiang under Chen Quanguo
“Concentration Camps”
Chen Quangua was appointed to
Xinjiang in 2016. He build one police station in every 100 meters and then
started building large scale “Concentration Camps” officially named
“Re-education “ camps. Mr. Aziz Isa has given a picture of the actions taken by
Chen Quangua when he was given the absolute power to rule Xinjiang. He
mentioned, as follows:
· * “The political situation of the Uyghurs became
even worse when Xi Jinping began to rule China. After former Communist Party
Secretary of Tibet, Chen Quanguo, was appointed to Xinjiang in 2016, he was
given ultimate power to suppress the Uyghurs’ resistance and force assimilation
by whatever methods they could find.
· * “Chen Quanguo began to build one police station
in every 100 meters just as he did in Lhasa, Tibet before 2016.
· * “In order to achieve ultimate quick results of
forced assimilating the Uyghurs, Chen Quanguo borrowed Nazis Hitler’s method,
and beginning in 2017, he started building large scale “Concentration Camps”
officially named “Re-education” camps. Now it is estimated that between one to
three million innocent Uyghurs, including writers, academics, teachers and
farmers, are kept in these camps.
· * “From Google map, you can see more than 300
largest “Concentration Camps”. ABC News
agency reported on 31 Oct 2018: “Despite
the massive scale of the camps examined in this project, it’s likely they make
up just a fraction of the detention network in Xinjiang. Estimates of camp
numbers range anywhere between 181 to upwards of 1,200.” Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-01/satellite-images-expose-chinas-network-of-re-education-camps/10432924
· * “Adrian Zenz has studied the Chinese
“Re-education” camp building projects through analyzing satellite images, and
his research reveals that the scale of building camps is large and
permanent. Source:
https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-re-education-campaign-in-xinjiang/
· * “Xi Jinping’s fascistic policy in East Turkistan
started in 2016 in the guise of an “anti-terror campaign” which aimed to
eradicate Uyghur ethnic, cultural and religious identity and existence, banning
Uyghur language schools and closing down mosques.”
Mr. Aziz Isa also mentioned about the latest situation of
Uyghur in 2018. He said, “The continuing political oppression and
gross human rights abuse of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan / Xinjiang is
unprecedented. It reached its peak after New Year in 2018. Now many Western
media reports on a daily basis that over a million Uyghurs were being sent to
Chinese ‘Concentration Camps’. Shamelessly, even at UN sessions, Chinese
government officials denied their crimes against the humanity.”
No to China’s ethnic Cleansing
of Uyghurs
Mr. Aziz Isa appealed to
the international community to call upon China and say – “No to China’s Ethnic
Cleansing of Uyghurs. He mentioned how the Uyghur Muslims has lost their rights
to live. He said, “Now the Chinese government has taken away Uyghur’s rights to
live. Now Chinese government has begun to walk in the direction of fascism in
East Turkistan (Xinjiang). They have established hundreds of prisons, some of
the largest in the world, that contain up to ten thousand people. In these
prisons they have arbitrarily detained over a million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and
other Turkic people. They call these prisons “Vocational training” but we call
them the “Concentration Camps” of the 21st Century. They are secretly
committing cultural genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs. They have
banned all foreign reporters from visiting the region. We ask the world to say
No to China’s ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs before it’s too late.”
Uyghurs Need Your Support
Mr. Aziz Isa Elkun lamented, “Unfortunately, there is a
lack of action by international governments to stop the Chinese government’s
crimes, and its xenophobic attitude towards the Uyghurs. Uyghurs are peace
loving people, they have made an enormous contribution to the civilization of
the world but now Uyghurs are helpless and on the edge of disappearing from
this world. Humanity is crying out every minute in the hearts of Uyghurs. The
world must save the Uyghurs before it is too late. Money cannot buy love of
humanity! Uyghurs need your support!”
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