By Patrick E. Tyler - New York Times

Sunday, November 10, 1996 - page 3

XIJI, China Guardedly at first, the young Muslim farmer recounted a stroy many tell here, of how a local Communist Party official skinned his victims alive as part of a campaign of terror to overthrow the leadership of a long and rebellious line of Sufi Muslims who inhabit these hills in northwestern China.

[...]

The story of Ma Ruchen and the fighting that raged in 1992-93 among Muslims here in southern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has never fully been told, and may never be. What is clear, from the sparse official account and interviews of local residents, is that there was a violent struggle over the leadership of a lare Sufi Muslim order with hundreds of thousands of followers.

[...]

The account of Muslim fighting here is like many reports that reach outsiders from China's remote regions. About 20 million Muslims live here and at times they clash with China's security forces over grievances large and small, including issues of autonomy and self-rule.

China garrisons hundreds of thousands of troops in these regions to enforce the unity and stability that Beijing demands, but also to muffle the sounds of dissent. A small war might begin, as it did here, but the screams of its victims are silenced by time, distance, and the system.

Today in China, foreign journalists remain all but barred from these regions, including Tibet, China's most restive frontier. And when a rare journalistic visit is arranged, it is carefully scripted to minimize contact with ordinary Muslims from the Hui or Uighur minorities or with Tibetans, exept those primed to discuss politically safe subjects, like how the bottled water business is doing well in the Himalayas.

[...]