Warning of more deaths from Chinese ethnic riots

BEIJING’S TOP Communist Party cadre in the restive province of Xinjiang has warned that the death toll from ethnic violence in the region could rise from a current tally of 156 people as reports emerged of fresh violence in the city of Kashgar in the far west.

Wang Lequan, Communist Party chief in the northwestern province, called Sunday’s riots “a profound lesson learned in blood”, and said authorities “must take the most resolute and strongest measures to deal with the enemies’ latest attempt at sabotage”.

The violence came after long-standing ethnic tensions between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese in the regional capital Urumqi, a city of 2.3 million 3,270km west of Beijing, flared into China’s deadliest unrest since the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations.

Demonstrators attacked and killed Han Chinese residents, confronted riot police, burned police cars and smashed Chinese-owned shops, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The riot followed a protest against the government’s handling of a clash last month between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in southern China, where two Uighurs died.

In Kashgar there were reports of 300 protesters outside the Id Kah Mosque yesterday, before they were surrounded by police.

The violence was described by government officials as a plot against China’s power in the region.

Many Uighurs are unhappy with the growing economic and political power of Han Chinese, the dominant ethnic group in China, and want independence for Xinjiang, a region rich in minerals and oil that borders eight central Asian nations.

They say millions of Han Chinese who have settled here in recent years are gradually squeezing the Turkic people out, and reject what they see as cultural imperialism from Beijing, much as Tibetan activists feel about what is happening there.

The weekend’s violence in Xinjiang echoes that seen in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas last year, when Han Chinese and Chinese-owned businesses were also targeted.

Police rounded up hundreds who participated in the violence, including more than 10 ringleaders, Xinhua said, and set up checkpoints to catch any fleeing rioters. Internet access has been cut off there, as have mobile phone services.

A number of sites relating to Xinjiang issues were unavailable nationwide, while the social messaging service Twitter has also been blocked.

Beijing says separatist Uighurs in Xinjiang are violent Islamist fundamentalists trying to cut the province off from Chinese rule, while rights groups and Uighur activists say Beijing exaggerates the threat to justify harsh controls.

The largest province in China, Xinjiang accounts for 16 per cent of its land area and for hundreds of years the province has been a difficult territory to rule – since the days of the “Great Game” played for influence in the region between Britain and Russia.

A large influx of migrants means Urumqi is now dominated by Han Chinese. Almost half of Xinjiang’s 20 million people are Uighurs, and there are regular, sporadic violent incidents in the region.

A Chinese government official told Xinhua the unrest was “masterminded by the World Uyghur Congress,” an overseas Uighur separatist group led by Rebiya Kadeer. Ms Kadeer is a Muslim businesswoman turned activist for Uighur rights who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

She denied any links to the violence. “It is a common practice of the Chinese government to accuse me for any unrest in East Turkestan and his holiness the Dalai Lama for any unrest in Tibet. The Chinese authorities should acknowledge that the peaceful protest was sparked by the unlawful mob beating and killing of Uyghur workers at a Guangdong toy factory more than a week ago,” she said in a statement.

Asked about the riots, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urged governments to respect their people’s right to protest, and said differences of opinion should be resolved peacefully.

Amnesty International called on the authorities to launch an independent investigation. “The Chinese authorities must fully account for all those who died and have been detained,” Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Asia-Pacific, said in a statement.