Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS 18 September 1997

South China Morning Post, 9/18/97

JASPER BECKER in Beijing

Xinjiang leaders said yesterday they had found all the culprits behind a wave of terrorist attacks and murders that began in April last year but declined to say how many had been sentenced to death.

Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan admitted there had been no arrests in connection with a bomb that went off in Beijing's Xidan district during this year's National People's Congress. He insisted there was no evidence linking the explosion to Xinjiang elements. People from Xinjiang did not have a monopoly over such things, Mr Wang said at a joint press conference with Abdulat Abdurixit, the regional government chairman.

Mr Wang blamed the unrest on Pan-Islamists who belonged to no particular ethnic group and who had targeted patriotic religious figures and murdered them in batches.

Sometimes they killed three or four people together, he said, insisting that all those responsible had been caught.

Separatists assassinated seven pro-government religious leaders in one day in April last year, Mr Wang said. "How can we be lenient towards these ferocious thugs?" he said, adding that social stability had now returned to Xinjiang.

Ethnic Uygur exiles - Muslims of Turkish origin - have claimed Chinese security forces carried out mass executions and other reprisals against them.

Although the party secretary said Xinjiang separatists were responsible for the bus bombs that rocked the regional capital, Urumqi, on February 25, killing nine and injuring 58, he reserved most his anger for what he called religious reactionaries.

He said they wanted to establish an Islamic kingdom, and accused them of trying to eliminate all those who did not share their beliefs, with the support of reactionary forces abroad.

They cruelly killed those Islamic leaders who loved their country and who served the people, he said. The terrorists were social rejects who hated work and were disciples of hedonism.

Among those funding the rebels was the husband of Robiya Kodir, the richest and most successful entrepreneur in Xinjiang, and a member of the provincial NPC. He now lives in the US.

Mr Wang said that although she had not been allowed to leave the country, she was still at liberty to carry on her business and political activities.

Ms Kodir was believed to have been in the border town of Yining in February when fierce rioting broke out leaving at least nine dead and 198 wounded.