Page 121 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

110 Michael Dillon
On 5 February at 10:30am Beijing time, hundreds of young Uyghurs came out
onto the streets holding banners in Arabic script with two slogans. One read, ‘It has
begun’, the other, ‘Fight the unbelievers with all our might using the Qur’an as a
weapon’. They gathered as the Tashilaipukai market on Victory Road and made
their way along Red Flag road, Stalin Street and Liberation Road ‘in an illegal
demonstration’. By the time they reached the Great Western Bridge (Xidaqiao)
their numbers had risen to over three hundred and as they walked they chanted,
‘Don’t pay taxes’ and ‘We want nothing from the government’ (Xu 1999: 178).
This is a fair reflection of the attitude of many Uyghurs who prefer to run their own
businesses, avoid working for the state, and have as little as possible to do with
what they regard as an alien and oppressive government. It was not until ten in the
evening, Beijing time, that the police tactics of dividing the demonstrators and
arresting the ringleaders brought the protests to an end (Xu 1999:178–179).
The political leadership in Xinjiang tried strenuously to play down reports that
casualties in Yining were more serious than had officially been admitted. In par-
ticular Wang Lequan, the CCP Secretary in Xinjiang, who was furious and agitated
according to the Sing Tao Daily, denied that 400 people including as many as 300
Uyghurs had died in the riots. The Xinjiang Daily on 11 March called for contin-
uing class struggle against the separatists and once again blamed ‘hostile foreign
forces’ for taking advantage of the changes that had followed the collapse of the
Soviet Union and trying to ‘split’ China (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
1997). These concerns were echoed by Tomur Dawamat, a former Xinjiang
regional chairman and later Vice Chairman of the central organisation the Standing
Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliamentary body.
Since the Yining/Ghuilja riots of 1997, such serious and overt confrontation
between large groups of Uyghurs and the Chinese state has died down, primarily
because of the repression associated with the Strike Hard campaign, which has been
extended. It is unlikely, however, that confrontation on this scale is over for all
time. The underlying causes of conflict have not been addressed and the benefits
of economic development are only likely to alleviate the problem to a limited
degree and may in some ways exacerbate it as the social exclusion of those
Uyghurs who are not assimilated into Chinese society becomes more acute.
Conflict for the time being is left to small groups of activists, operating
illegally and underground, some of them armed. The degree of support that they
enjoy from the majority of the Uyghur population is extremely difficult to assess
given the severity of possible reprisals from the state. There is evidence that some
Uyghurs have been prepared to inform on others to the Chinese authorities. But
there is also evidence that there is powerful resentment in certain families and
specific regions at the execution and imprisonment of activists and this is likely
to provide the impetus for new recruits to paramilitary and other separatist
groups.
Large-scale conflict is likely to recur from time to time in different places and
may be sparked off by local, probably unpredictable, grievances. The Xinjiang
authorities with the support of troops from the Lanzhou Military Region will
deploy such forces as are necessary to suppress the conflict; there will be further