DATE=9/15/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-YINING RIOTS
NUMBER=5-47006
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=YINING, XINJIANG PROVINCE
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: China is recovering from a deadly explosion
this month in the capital of its far western province,
Xinjiang - where about the half the population is
Uighur Muslim and there are deep ethnic divisions.
While the government says the blast was an accident,
and has ruled out terrorism, Xinjiang is a place where
the tension and potential for violence is palpable.
Beijing Correspondent Leta Hong Fincher recently
visited one trouble spot in Xinjiang, and brings us a
report from the city of Yining, the scene of ethnic
riots just three years ago.
TEXT:
/// TEENAGER ACT IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///
This Muslim Kazak teenager, a high school student in
Yining, tells his story slowly at first, and only on
condition of anonymity. He was 14 years old in 1997,
when Xinjiang's border city near Kazakhstan exploded
into riots between its Muslim Uighurs and Chinese
militia.
/// TEENAGER ACT TWO IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///
He says they were in class the day it all began.
Their teacher told them that the Uighurs had started
rioting, so it was too dangerous to go outside. He
says for three days, the students were kept in school,
waiting for the unrest to subside.
/// TEENAGER ACT THREE IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///
We were so scared, we didn't dare sleep at night, he
says.
No one knows exactly what happened in Yining three
years ago, but the city remains an open wound.
Xinjiang officials warned reporters on a rare half-day
visit to this troubled city not to venture out alone.
/// BEGIN OPT ///
/// CITY SOUNDS EST, THEN FADE ///
Near the city's central square, young Uighur men
exchange cash over a card game. A Uighur boy who
looks no more than 15 years old quickly sweeps a
pile of pornographic video-CDs off a table in the
street when he sees a Westerner approach.
/// END OPT ///
None of the Uighurs in town will talk about the riot -
possibly the greatest threat to Chinese Communist rule
over its ethnic Muslims in the last decade.
/// ALBASBAI ACT IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///
The governor of the local prefecture, Albasbai Raham,
says the trouble started on February 5th, 1997, with a
small group of Muslim separatists bent on spreading
chaos. He says they wanted to break up the unity of
the nation, and began anti-Chinese riots that lasted
for two days. He says security forces quickly re-
established control, and fewer than 10 people
were killed.
But human rights groups tell a different story.
Arlette Laduguie is an Asia researcher for Amnesty
International in London. She says the trouble in
Xinjiang can be traced back about 10 years to the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the establishment of
independent Central Asian republics on the border with
Xinjiang. She says Chinese authorities feared that
its ethnic Uighurs would be inspired to create their
own independent state, and therefore started a
campaign to suppress Uighur culture and religion.
/// LADUGUIE ACT ///
What started on that date in February 1997 was
not a riot, but a demonstration by a group of
several hundred mainly young Uighurs, who
marched through the streets chanting slogans and
asking for freedom of
religion. It's only later on that the
demonstration degenerated into rioting and the
circumstances in which this happened, the
responsibility of the security forces for
example is not clear, still now.
/// END ACT///
/// KAZAK TEENAGER FOUR IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///
The high school student from Yining says his teacher,
who is Han Chinese, told the class that what she
called counter-revolutionary Uighurs were captured by
police, horded into an open place nearby, and frozen
to death.
Because the city has been sealed off from outsiders
for so long, it is impossible to verify what happened
to the demonstrators. But Ms. Laduguie of Amnesty
says between 300 and 500 protesters were arrested
within hours of starting their march, which she says
was initially peaceful. Based on interviews with many
Uighur sources, she says police indeed appear to have
tried to freeze the demonstrators arrested that day.
/// LADUGUIE ACT TWO ///
All accounts say that at some point, they were
hosed with very cold water by soldiers or
policemen, for reasons that are not explained.
One has to bear in mind that this was in
February in the middle of the winter, when it
was freezing cold in that region certainly.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Laduguie says it's not clear if anyone died from
hypothermia or frostbite, but some of the detainees
had to have their frozen feet, fingers or hands
amputated. She says by February 6th, a large number of
anti-riot troops had been mobilized in the city, and
clashes between Uighurs and security forces lasted for
more than a week.
During the two weeks after the violence subsided, as
many as five-thousand people were arrested, including
relatives and friends of anyone who supported the
initial demonstrators. Ms. Laduguie says Uighur
sources estimate 70 or 80 people died during the
unrest.
/// BEGIN OPT ///
/// LADUGUIE ACT THREE ///
There were reports of people dying after being
taken in police custody as a result of severe
torture and because armed police and the army
were patrolling streets constantly, no one knew
exactly who was in custody, in jail, and who was
just perhaps hiding somewhere or disappeared.
And during that period of time, apparently the bodies
of some people badly beaten up were found in the
street.
/// END ACT /// END OPT ///
Mr. Albasbai, the local governor, dismisses these
unofficial reports.
/// ALBASBAI TWO - LAUGHS, ACT IN CHINESE, FADE ///
What you just said is nothing but hearsay, says the
governor. He says police never took people away and
froze them. He says the government handled what he
calls the February 5th incident according to Chinese
law, and if the same thing happened today, he would
handle it in exactly the same way.
/// UIGHUR MUSIC FROM YINING STREETS, THEN FADE ///
Since the 1997 riots, the Chinese government crackdown
on Uighurs appears to have continued. Amnesty
International says China executed 190 people in the
region between January 1997 and April 1999 alone- -
the vast majority of whom were Uighurs charged with
terrorist or anti-government crimes.
But although some militant Uighurs have agitated for
the creation of an independent state, most of them
just want to practice their religion without
interference from the government.
/// KAZAK TEENAGER FIVE ACT IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///
The Muslim Kazak student in Yining says that ever
since the riots, students have been forbidden from
going to mosques. His teacher says praying will
interfere with their studies.(signed)
NEB/HK/LHF/JO
15-Sep-2000 02:51 AM EDT (15-Sep-2000 0651 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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