China's Other Genocide: the 'Mother of the Uyghurs' Speaks Out

By Richard Gale and Gary Null, AlterNet. Posted June 24, 2009.

The Chinese authorities are also using nationalism to infuriate the Chinese to create this kind of hatred between the Chinese immigrants and the local Uyghurs, stating that these Uyghurs are the troublemakers. They create instability. They create problems for China, and they should be eliminated as a people.

So when you visit Chinese Web sites, you'd be shocked to learn what they write about Uyghurs. It's so easy for them to say just kill them. Wipe them all out. Genocide those people because they are troublemakers. These people are trying to break apart this great country called China.

WPFW: How large in landmass and miles compared to the United States is the Uyghur territory, and how many people live there or have lived there?

RK: The size of East Turkestan in the metric system is 1.6 million square kilometers.

WPFW: That's roughly the size of Alaska.That's very large. How many people?

RK: The Chinese statistics have put the number of Uyghurs around 9.3 million. And the total population is around 20 million-ish.

WPFW: I would also speculate that the Chinese have used nuclear bomb testing as a means to further eradicate the Uyghurs. If you look into Lop Noor in Xinjiang, it was the site for China's first nuclear bomb test, and there have been many since -- about 45 -- and the 1976 nuclear test was 320 times more powerful than the bomb on Hiroshima. The locals were not told to evacuate. The Han Chinese were protected, but the non-Han Chinese who settled there have been routinely affected. A Japanese scientist now estimates that about 200,000 Uyghurs have died from cancer and leukemia in the area due to radiation exposure. And another source states that the number of malformed fetuses are in the tens of thousands. Do you believe that the nuclear testing in this region is being intentionally designed to further challenge or extinguish the Uyghur people?

RK: We believe so because the Chinese government could have used places further away that would have had less affect on the local Uyghurs. Instead, the Chinese authorities consciously chose that place to do nuclear tests 45 times in three decades, and near three major Uyghur towns: Aqsu, Hotan and Kuqa.

WPFW: Just a final thought here. During your exile in the United States, the Chinese secret service made an attempt on your life in Virginia, and I believe the release of your autobiography has infuriated the current Chinese regime. They are still holding three of your sons in prison, and one of your daughters remains under house arrest as a kind of collateral to keep you silent.

The book is called Dragon Fighter: One Woman's Epic Struggle for Peace with China. A truly remarkable story. We thank you for all of your courageous work, and we look forward to carrying on this conversation because I'm really disappointed in the American media virtually having zero coverage of this major genocide in the world. And yet we are aware, rather impotently so, about what to do with Tibet. But we refuse to use the power that the United States government and the president have at their disposal.

We are a broken and bankrupt nation. So we have to go hat in hand to the Chinese. And the rulers in China have been wise in their manipulation by giving us their money, and then they can continue doing anything to the environment, to people and to whole cultures.

Rebiya Kadeer, thank you very much, ma'am.

RK: Thank you.

See more stories tagged with: america, 9/11, china, terrorism, barack obama, u.s., uyghurs, xianjang, rebiya kadeer

Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest-running radio show on alternative health and an award-winning director of progressive documentary films. Richard Gale is the executive producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a scholar in Chinese languages, religion and culture.

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