Posted on 07/07/2009 10:52:55 AM PDT by traumer
URUMQI, China — Mobs of Han Chinese wielding meat cleavers and clubs and groups of Muslim Uighur men beat people in the streets of the capital of China's Xinjiang region Tuesday. The government imposed a curfew as it tried to stem communal violence after a riot that killed at least 156 people.
Members of the Muslim Uighur ethnic group attacked people near the Urumqi's railway station, and women in headscarves protested the arrests of husbands and sons in another part of the city. Meanwhile, for much of the afternoon, a mob of 1,000 mostly young Han Chinese holding clubs and chanting "Defend the Country" tore through streets trying to get to a Uighur neighborhood until they were repulsed by police firing tear gas.
Panic and anger bubbled up amid the suspicion in Urumqi. In some neighborhoods, Han Chinese — China's majority ethnic group — armed themselves with pieces of lumber and shovels to defend themselves. People bought up bottled water out of fear, as one resident said, that "the Uighurs might poison the water."
The outbursts happened despite swarms of paramilitary and riot police enforcing a dragnet that state media said led to the arrest more than 1,400 participants in Sunday's riot, the worst ethnic violence in the often tense region in decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
perfect balance in the world.
Heartless? If my chest were a cannon i would shoot my heart at them (paraphrasing Melville).
The calendar in my head is stuck on 9/12/01.
Heads up, Bermuda!
Its’ comming .........don’t worry. The Glorious Leader will put down all uprisings with an IRON HAND.
Yeah, but will he teach totalitarian patriotism to the Socialist Motherland, build a gigantic army in order to conquer--I mean, liberate the rest of the world, and tell kids to cut their hair, take the jewelry out of their noses, and dress neat?
That person was Hmong and they are not native to China.
"URUMQI, China - After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proven that Caucasians roamed China’s Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived."
"The research, which the Chinese government has appeared to have delayed making public out of concerns of fueling Uighur Muslim separatism in its western-most Xinjiang region, is based on a cache of ancient dried-out corpses that have been found around the Tarim Basin in recent decades."
“It is unfortunate that the issue has been so politicized because it has created a lot of difficulties,” Victor Mair, a specialist in the ancient corpses and co-author of “Mummies of the Tarim Basin”, told AFP
[snip]
Most of hmong people are native to and live in China, while the rest are native to Vietnam and Lao.
WSJ:
Uprising in Urumqi
Beijing cracks down on a Muslim minority.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124698224912106465.html
Authoritarian states are typically less stable than they appear, and China is no exception. This week’s ethnic riots in western Xinjiang province are the deadliest on record since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Until the Chinese government is truly accountable to its citizens — both the majority Han and other ethnic minorities — these kinds of deadly uprisings will continue.
Sunday’s riots started when around 3,000 ethnic Uighurs, including many high-school and college students, gathered to protest ethnically motivated killings in a factory in China’s southern Guangdong province. The riots turned violent but, thanks to China’s information firewall, no one knows exactly why. State-run media report that Uighurs had attacked Han Chinese and count at least 156 people killed and more than 1,000 injured.
Government outlets blamed Uighur “separatists” and labeled U.S.-based Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress, the “mastermind” of the violence. Ms. Kadeer denies this in an article on a nearby page. Yesterday, thousands of Han Chinese, armed with homemade weapons, swarmed the streets of Urumqi, calling for revenge. Police stopped them with tear gas, but not before they had destroyed some Uighur shops. Other protests and violent outbreaks ripped across the city.
China’s draconian policies in Xinjiang stem in part from fears that the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group who speak a Turkic language, want to secede from China. The province is rich in oil and gas reserves and shares a sensitive border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Russia (which has tried to foment uprisings in Xinjiang in the past). There are about 10 million Uighurs in Xinjiang.
But these fears are no excuse for China’s punitive and often violent suppression of the Uighurs. Beijing has poured money into a quasimilitary conglomerate, the “Bingtuan,” which runs businesses and large farms in the region. Bingtuan jobs often go to Han Chinese immigrants who receive economic incentives to move west. Meanwhile, a 2006 government policy encourages migration in the opposite direction — i.e., getting young Uighur men and women to work in coastal factories. The program is designed to get young Uighurs to “integrate” (read: marry) into Han society.
(snip)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.