UIGHURS: Still no news reaches us from Rebiya's country

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Still no news reaches us from Rebiya's country

Yes, lots and lot of news from Tibet now - yet much of the truth is still repressed. We hear nothing from East Turkisthan (now known as Xingjiang Uighur Autonomous Region or XUAR). The last posted BBC news article from this country was in 2005. The Uighurs are repressed in the same way as the Tibetans. Rebiya Kadeer is losing all hope of seeing her family again.

I have not lost sight of the reason for this blog. It is to help Rebiya and her people. Rebiya says: 'We were promised wonderful things when we were given autonomous status. We would be in charge of the natural resources, they wouldn’t increase the Chinese population, jobs would be first for locals, then for the incoming Chinese. They said they only came to help us, to develop our own country and culture. The Chinese government used autonomy as a noose to hook the Uighurs and hang them. We have nothing. We’re facing an existential threat, that the Chinese government’s policies will eliminate us as a people. The Chinese government gave us the so-called autonomous status but never respected it, and transferred millions of their own people. Now you can see more Chinese than Uighurs in our own homeland. What China is doing is a frontal attack on our ethnic identity, culture and language. It’s ultra-nationalism . We don’t look Chinese, we don’t speak Chinese, everything is different, and that makes it hard for the Chinese government to justify its repression and occupation.'

Her country is being used as a nuclear testing zone. A dumping ground for nuclear waste. I have heard first hand that there are significant and awful birth defects. The good doctor who risked his life to tell us this will never see his family again.

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I met Rebiya Kadeer in October 2007

Her brave diminutive form spoke in a language of passion and grief and hope.

Like many others I was moved by her plea to help her country, (East Turkistan, now known as the Xinjing Autonomous Region) to survive the cultural and cruel vice of insidious Chinese occupation. She has quite literally sacrificed her children to come to us, to plead with us, and our option cannot be to do nothing.

I have been to China. As a tourist I have faced fixed bayonets in Tianamen Square for simply wanting to enter at the wrong time of day. I have no difficulty imagining the inscrutable rule of this ambitious race as they slowly but surely spread their unyielding muscle across the less aggressive nations within their reach.

The Olympic games will be upon us soon, and the democratic world is turning a blind eye to the grotesque abuse of human rights in China. The Olympic games were supposed to encourage China to become more aware, instead they are encouraging us to put on the blindfolds and become less aware.

The media circus will not want to highlight the issues. They will be far more interested in getting their investment returns. The athletes – with some reason – will not want to be involved in politics. My voice is small, but if you read this, you are joining me on the stage.

Potted history of the Uighurs

During the mid-1700s and mid-1800s, China and the Soviet Union conquered a large region north of China which included the peoples of Central Asia - Kazakh, Uzbk, Turkmen, and Uighurs. The Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region was created by China on October 1, 1955.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, all of these people regained their freedom except for the Uighurs. In order to prevent an uprising for independence among the original people of the region, the Chinese infiltrated the country with millions of settlers and have taken measures to obliterate the language, religion, and traditions of the Uighurs. The Uighurs are repressed as much as possible and kept at minimum subsistence levels.

Xinjiang is an area rich in natural resources. This is the main reason that China seeks to hold on to it with such tight reins. Xinjiang contains one-third of China's total oil reserve. The country is rich in gold and coal as well as steel, yet the region remains poor because the rightful owners are being exploited and degraded.

Despite these abundant resources, the "wealth gap" has significantly widened between the minorities and ethnic Chinese of the region. Most of them are farmers, only averaging an annual income of £45. Nearly 80 percent of Uighurs live below the poverty level. Less than a quarter even have running water.

Each year, the Party Committee asks each citizen of Xinjiang to work anywhere from 45 days to six months without pay. Many benefits, such as job incentives are only available to the Chinese, not the Uighurs .Without being able to speak Chinese, these people are at a major disadvantage - they cannot get jobs. Many are left unemployed.