--- Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thursday, August 11, 2005 3:20 PM
>
> JAMESTOWN ANALYST ARRESTED IN UZBEKISTAN
> Igor Rotar, Contributor to 'Eurasia Daily Monitor',
> Detained in Tashkent
Rotar's stuff is quite good, e.g.:
The growing problem of Uighur separatism Igor Rotar 5/13/2004
'Chinese Chechnya' is how - only half-jokingly - Central Asians refer to the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China (historically known as Eastern Turkistan). Such a comparison is not without reason. Like Chechnya, the area's population is mixed: In the XUAR, approximately half the population is Turkic-Muslim Uighurs; the other half is ethnic Chinese. A conflict with a lengthy and violent past, Manchurian-Chinese forces finally broke the resistance of the Uighur army in 1759, capturing territories which are referred to as Xinjiang, (literally 'new frontier' in Chinese). Since its incorporation into China proper as the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, Uighurs have organized more than 400 uprisings. Uighurs-Chinese relations have been especially tense since the beginning of 1950, when Beijing began a massive resettlement of ethnic Chinese into XUAR. In 1949, there were only 200,000 Chinese, or about 10 percent of the population in Xinjiang; at present there about 8 million, or roughly 50 percent of the population. Starting in the early 1990s, a powerful underground separatist movement began operating in XUAR, periodically organizing terrorist acts and uprisings: Bus explosions in 1990 in Kashgar and in 1992 in Urumqi; a 1990 uprising in the village of Barin, on the outskirts of Kashgar, after the authorities closed access to a mosque; an uprising in 1995 in the town of Khotan, 530 kilometers east of Kashgar, after the authorities deposed the local imam. In recent years, more serious unrest has occurred. In February 1997 in the town of Inin, real fighting raged for several days between Uighur youth and police, killing 55 Chinese and 25 Uighurs.
A Unique Identity
Upon arriving in XUAR, the appearance of the streets, bazaars and people's clothing gives one the feeling of being in Central Asia. The Uighur language is so closely related to Uzbek that local people understand the latter very well. Unlike Central Asia, however, where relations with the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation remain friendly, the overwhelming majority of Uighurs view the Chinese as occupiers. An implicit apartheid in the region, with Chinese and Uighurs shopping in separate stores and dining in separate restaurants, bears this out. One reason for the division comes from Islamic prescriptions about the favorable treatment of Jews and Christians - so-called 'People of the Book' - as opposed to those of other creeds. The following sentiment is often expressed in Uighuristan: "According to Islam, Confucianism and Buddhism are equal to idolatry, and that is why we cannot treat the Chinese with respect."
http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2046.html
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs