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

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

In fact, during the crackdown the number of arrested and executed Uyghurs was actually more than the ones who took to the streets for the protest. When the Chinese soldiers opened fire, they killed not only the protestors, but also women and children who were just watching the protest. Many of them were later taken into a huge stadium and were stripped almost naked. Then they used a water hose and covered them from head to toe with water.

Now this was on Feb. 5 in Turkestan. It was almost the coldest day of that entire winter. Many of the Uyghur police who were present couldn't take this and were also taken away by military police. Later, the Chinese World Journal reported on this massacre. It said some 8,000 Uyghurs disappeared after it. But we're not sure where those 8,000 Uyghurs disappeared to.

WPFW: Well, similar to Tibet, one Chinese strategy for exterminating non-Han Chinese, such as the Uyghur and other traditional groups, is by large numbers of Han Chinese immigrating into their homelands so that the Chinese become the majority population. The most recent figures we were able to find show that the Han Chinese now outnumber the Uyghurs overall. So explain to us how this strategy is a slow means to wipeout Uyghurs and other groups, and then, what are some of the ways the Chinese are trying to eradicate them? For example, arbitrary detention, depriving employment, housing and health care, the forbidding of religious observation, the removal of the Uyghur language from the educational system, and forcing Uyghur orphans to take on Chinese names and identity. Take it from there.

RK: I am very pleased that you know so much about the situation of the Uyghur people, and the strategies the Chinese government are using to eradicate the Uyghurs. Today of course the Chinese government is doing anything in its power to destroy us as a people, by attacking our culture, by also attacking our unique ethnic identity.

For example, today the Chinese authorities are aggressively demolishing the city of Kashgar. Kashgar is the cradle of Uyghur civilization that has been in existence for thousands of years. The Uyghurs established kingdoms there in the past called Kashgarkhan, also Uyghur kings and queens and their courts were established in Kashgar, and just as late as the early 20th century the British government had a consulate there.

But now the Chinese government is destroying everything -- all the buildings built by the Uyghurs several hundred years ago. By demolishing them, the Chinese authorities are erasing Uyghur culture and our history at this very moment. And in order to aggressively pursue this kind of cultural assimilation of the Uyghur people, not only in Kashgar, for the past several decades they are destroying everything that represents the Uyghurs in the city of Turpan. It had been a center of Uyghur Buddhism in the fifth to late sixth centuries.

In other Uyghur towns and cities, they're building these Chinese pagodas and they are saying these pagodas existed several thousand years ago. They claim these are actual Chinese pagoda sites in order to justify that our region was part of China. By outnumbering us, they are basically saying it's their land. That it has always been their land, and we came from somewhere else.

So the Chinese government is completely changing the demography of the region, and also the landscape by remaking history, by building things that never existed, and by destroying the ones that actually did exist. They are arresting, imprisoning and executing those Uyghurs who demand to preserve their unique ethnic identity under all kinds of charges by conveniently labeling them as separatists, radicals and even terrorists in a lot of cases.

The Chinese government's intent is to wipeout the Uyghur culture before the international community knows the existence of such people and our predicament. By transferring millions of Chinese into our homeland, by becoming the majority, the authorities take away our houses and properties and freely distribute them to the incoming Chinese immigrants. The Chinese authorities also provide all the jobs, all the housing, everything to the Chinese immigrants. By giving them opportunities and making them happy to live in our homeland, they are stripping the Uyghur people naked.

The Uyghurs who want to stay in their homeland want to peacefully coexist with the incoming Chinese people, but the government does not give that kind of opportunity to them. When the Uyghurs demand their legitimate rights, they're immediately arrested. And so, if Uyghurs want to leave our homeland to other parts, or other countries, the Chinese authorities do not allow them to leave because they cannot get their passports.

Actually, all of their passports have been universally confiscated by the authorities. In addition to that, the Chinese government just initiated another policy that forcefully removes young, unmarried Uyghur women from 14 to 25 years old to eastern parts of China to work virtually as slaves and cheap labor in Chinese factories.

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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