Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS October 27, 1997

10/25/97, Reuters, by Jane Macartney

KASHGAR, China, Oct 26 (Reuters) - In China's westernmost city of Kashgar hundreds of mourners filed into the Aidkah mosque to bid farewell to Abdul Miti, remembered for his part in an anti-Chinese rebellion of the 1940s.

Miti, 65, had died in the night and was buried within 24 hours in accordance with Moslem law.

He was guaranteed a solemn send-off in China's second largest mosque by his position as a government official and as a veteran of the 1946 ``Three Districts Revolution'' against the ruling Nationalists that was co-opted by the communists, who were then in opposition.

Recent uprisings in the western Xinjiang region against rule from Beijing have been met with less warmth by China's communist rulers. Ringleaders and participants have been swiftly executed or jailed.

``The situation is now very stable,'' said Liu Yushen, head of the Foreign Affairs office of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

``Relations between the Han and the minorities are very harmonious, there are no major problems in living and working in peace,'' he said.

OUTWARD DISPLAYS OF PEACE AND HARMONY

Ethnic Han Chinese account for about 38 percent of the 16 million people in Xinjiang. The rest are Turkic-speaking Uighurs and other mainly Moslem minorities.

Not all are happy with Chinese rule, officials say.

``But these are a very tiny minority,'' said one official in the town of Khotan.

Khotan was rocked by bloody riots two years ago when some 800 people protested against the removal of a charismatic mullah whose speeches were drawing huge crowds.

The town of Kashgar has also seen anti-Chinese unrest in the past but for the moment seems relaxed.

The great Sunday bazaar in Kashgar sees thousands of Uighurs gather to market their produce and to sell and buy livestock.

One Uighur cloth merchant sitting cross-legged among his colourful wares looked amazed when asked whether he disliked his Han Chinese rulers.

A young Uighur hammering molten gold into earrings over an ancient anvil shrugged and smiled at a similar question.

``My business is good, I am happy,'' said another artisan selling musical instruments in the old city.

Any police or military presence is extremely discreet in Kashgar and Khotan or in any of the smaller trading towns along the southern Silk Road that runs between Xinjiang's Taklamakan desert and the Kunlun mountains.

There is little sign that Beijing is using the army as a force to intimidate its unruly Moslem minorities.

CRACKDOWN ON VIOLENT DISSIDENTS

The only overt indications of trouble are tattered propaganda banners strung across roads in small market towns.

``Fight against violent crime and oppose splittism to protect the motherland,'' reads one banner written in both Chinese characters and Uighur Arabic above the main road in the trading town of Yarkand.

Xinjiang's Han Chinese Communist Party leaders have called on the region's people to erect a ``great wall of steel'' to fight separatists and to crack down on those who use religion to foment unrest.

Last February, anti-Chinese riots in the town of Yining on the border with Kazakhstan left nine dead and 198 injured.

In May, eight people were executed for the planting of home-made bombs on buses in the regional capital Urumqi. The explosions were timed to coincide with the funeral of the late leader Deng Xiaoping.

Officials say the problem is not one of ethnic tension but of political misunderstanding among the uneducated who are easily manipulated by Uighur activists operating from abroad.

``They have a political aim to subvert China and they use religious slogans and the ethnic issue to attain their goals,'' said Liu.

FOREIGN INTERFERENCE SUSPECTED

China frequently blames foreign forces for stirring up unrest within its borders -- although Beijing stops short of identifying any single country.

Officials in Xinjiang cited neighbouring Pakistan as well as Saudi Arabia, where the fundamentalist Wahabi school would be a likely group eager to support what they might see as fellow Sunni Moslems beleaguered by secular Chinese rule.

``The Moslems in China are seen as the last Moslems under communism and

they are increasingly receiving world Moslem attention,'' said Dru

Gladney, senior research fellow at the East-West Centre and professor

at the Asian Studies Program at the University of Hawaii.

Gladney, an expert on China's Moslem minorities, said there was little likelihood the Uighur militants could mount a real threat to secede from China although they may be able to influence Beijing's international image and destabilise local areas.

RELIGION NOT TO BLAME SAY LEADERS

Religious leaders in Xinjiang bristle at the suggestion that Islam could be involved in the anti-China movement.

``Those who believe in Islam would never take actions that would split the country, killing people and stealing,'' said Imam Tsadik Kara Haji, 60, head of the Aidkah mosque and deputy director of the state-sponsored Kashgar Islamic Association.

``Those involved in splittist activities do not understand Islam,'' he said, citing the attempted assassination in May 1996 of his colleague Aronghanaji, top leader of Xinjiang's Moslems, as the 73-year-old imam strolled to prayers in Aidkah mosque.

Aronghanaji's assailant had been executed, the imam said, pointing a finger at his forehead to mimic the firing squad.

Asked if he feared a similar attack by extremists who may regard him as a collaborator, the white-turbanned imam shrugged. ``We believe in destiny. Who knows? But we are not afraid.''

But he may have reason to fear.

SOME WOULD LIKE TO SEE AN INDEPENDENT STATE

Behind the air of calm, behind the overt bonhomie between Uighurs and the Han Chinese who cannot even speak their language, there flows a frostier undercurrent.

``I can speak Chinese but I don't like to, no one here does,'' said an elderly Uighur as he sat cross-legged sipping tea in Kashgar. ``The Han don't like us and we know it. And we don't like them.''

Some Uighurs complain that the Chinese broadcast their morning and evening news bulletin through raucous loudspeakers to coincide with the Moslem call to prayer.

Others describe a feeling of oppression.

One wealthy merchant who has clearly benefited from China's policy of reform illustrated his discontent by placing an ashtray in the centre of the table and marking a circle around it with his finger.

``This is the Uighurs, surrounded by the police,'' said the businessman. ``The Han Chinese should get out of Xinjiang.''

He even dared to mention the unmentionable -- the desire among Uighur militants to set up an independent ``East Turkestan'' in Xinjiang.

``But if you call Xinjiang Turkestan, then the Chinese will arrest you,'' he said.

Uighurs voice anger that jobs and opportunities are going to the Han Chinese pouring into the region from interior China. The fact that few Han Chinese, even those born in Xinjiang, bother to learn to speak Uighur is another irritant.

``To resolve the ethnic problem we must do two things,'' said one local Han Chinese official. ``We must boost economic development and we must have mutual respect.''

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