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China Fighting Its Own War Against Terror in Xinjiang
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
(12:32 UTC)
By Jim Randle
Voice of America

The few Uighurs who speak freely complain their land is being overwhelmed by Han immigrants from the rest of China. The Han are the vast majority in most of China. In Xinjiang, they have grown from a small minority to nearly half of the population in the past 50 years, with more arriving daily.

URUMQI, China -- Source
Chinese officials have said the capture of a key terrorist leader and hundreds of his supporters has blunted a Muslim separatist threat to its oil-rich Xinjiang region. Critics accuse China of exaggerating the danger to excuse a broad crackdown on the Muslim Uighur population in the region.

Several dozen Chinese police clad in blue combat uniforms demonstrate their warrior skills by breaking boards with fists and feet. Chinese officials said these officers in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, are on the front line of the global war on terrorism.

They show visitors gruesome pictures of 1997 bombings and assassinations they blame on Muslim Uighur separatists. Beijing insists that smaller terror attacks continue in Xinjiang.

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is a sparsely populated area of rocky deserts, sand dunes, and grasslands, ringed and crossed by snow-capped mountains. It covers an area bigger than Germany, France, and Spain combined.

It is traditionally home to Muslim Uighurs. They differ ethnically, linguistically and philosophically from the Han Chinese who rule China under the Communist Party.

The Uighurs wrested independence from China for two brief periods during the last century. Beijing has since deployed tens of thousands of troops and police to crush any renewed break-away drive.
(More: VOA News Source)
2002 © Voice of America.

Dan