Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS October 17, 1997

09/04/97, The Guardian, London, by John McCarthy

They dispute the name of the land they seek to liberate, and their Chinese oppressors condemn them as "splittists". Trapped between farce and tragedy, exiled Uighur nationalist groups have lacked credibility.

But early this year, as Uighurs in China stepped up their popular guerrilla campaign against Beijing's rule in East Turkestan, the United National Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan and the Uighurstan Liberation Front shelved their differences and united. From their base in neighbouring Kazakhstan, they could help forge a coherent independence movement.

Inhabiting the mainly desert territory of Xinjiang - China's 660,000-square-mile "new dominion", 1,000 miles from the sea and periodically closed to foreigners - Uighurs have a degree of nominal autonomy from Beijing.

Though they are Muslims, fundamentalist Islam plays little part in their rhetoric of nationalism and social reform. They proudly liken their struggle to that of the Chechens and Afghans, small nations which threw off the yoke of big oppressors. They draw inspiration from their recently independent Turkic cousins, the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Uzbeks of former Soviet central Asia.

Many are turning to guns, grenades and home-made bombs for political ends. What Uighurs want is freedom from China and an end to daily racial discrimination. They see the Chinese as colonists, settling ethnic Han peasants on their land and reserving the best jobs for migrants from eastern China.

Government incentives give skilled Han migrants salaries 50 per cent above those they earn at home. Meanwhile, more than one in four Uighurs is unemployed.

With Xinjiang emerging as the strategic key to its urgent search for energy, markets and influence in and beyond central Asia, Beijing can little afford Uighur unrest.

Impelled to open the region's long, tense frontier with Kazakhstan, China has found Xinjiang unstable as nationalist and pan-Turkic ideas, money and, some say, weapons percolate in.

In February the smouldering Uighur rebellion burst into flame when three young separatists were executed in Xinjiang's capital, Urumchi. Several hundred demonstrators took to the streets of Gulja, near the Kazakh border, demanding that Chinese colonists quit the region.

When the police turned water-cannon on them in freezing temperatures, the demonstration exploded into a two-day running battle.

Official figures put the death toll at 10. Independent reports say nearly 200 Uighurs and Chinese were killed in the country's worst ethnic violence in 10 years.

A smuggled-out film of the fighting shows bodies lying in pools of blood, one apparently bayonetted. Burning vehicles litter the streets.

Simultaneous uprisings in half a dozen large oasis towns and about 80 smaller settlements overstretched the 1 million Chinese troops in the volatile west of the region.

In the more remote towns, a heavy security presence still remains; elsewhere, China's slick propaganda machine ensured that evidence of conflict was quickly swept away. Even so, spent Kalashnikov rounds lie on Kashgar's streets.

The February revolt sparked increasing violence. Later that month Uighur separatists planted bombs on three Urumchi buses, killing two people. Between March and May Uighurs claimed responsibility for a series of fatal bombings in Beijing. The revolutionary front says separatists have set fire to an oil refinery near Karamay and attacked several oil convoys.

Reports have also surfaced of a clandestine Uighur radio station uncovered by Chinese police and attacks on military depots and strategic rail and road links to the rest of China. A machine-gun and grenade attack which left 16 policemen dead in the tense south-western city of Khotan was also reported.

China has reacted with a series of "anti-splittist" crackdowns, arresting tens of thousands of Uighurs and executing hundreds.

Nine more were shot in late July. At least seven tons of explosives, 600 illegal firearms and 31,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as truckloads of separatist literature, have been seized.

Some Han settlers have begun to question whether the government's incentives are worth the risk of Uighur attacks. And for the first time since China's Communists absorbed the East Turkestan Republic under the Mao-Stalin deal of the 1950s, China's authoritarian grip on Xinjiang is slipping.

The chairman of Xinjiang's regional government, Abdulahat Abdurishit, reportedly said last year that "all methods are acceptable" to fight separatism - "penetration, propaganda, killing".

Bulldozers now level ancient bazaars, the focus for popular unrest and the commercial heart of historic Silk Road cities. Wide streets of anonymous white-tiled tower blocks are exposed to armoured vehicles, and ambush-points and alleys ruled by demonstrators are eradicated.

Despite the 6.5 million Han settlers who have colonised Xinjiang since 1950, China's veto in the Security Council prevents the United Nations from recognising China's rule there as colonial.

Meanwhile, countries are afraid of offending Asia's emerging superpower, allowing Beijing to persecute Uighurs and other minorities in its vast empire.

Tibetans have long drawn world attention, but have not taken up arms.Most Uighurs are not prepared to suffer Tibet's fate.