Tuesday, June 27, 2006
EDITORIAL: Uighur terrorism in Pakistan http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\06\27\story_27-6-2006_pg3_1
The Chinese embassy in Islamabad has reportedly complained that members of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are planning to kidnap senior Chinese diplomats and consular officers in the country. A letter has gone to the Foreign Office saying that some members of the ETIM had arrived in Pakistan and are planning to kidnap senior diplomats of the Chinese embassy. More significantly, it was pointed out that terrorist organisations located in Pakistan, including Al Qaeda, were providing support to ETIM activists for the projected kidnappings. It is also learnt that our intelligence agencies have submitted reports to the Ministry of Interior accepting that a group of terrorists has arrived in Rawalpindi and Islamabad but has been unable to select an appropriate target for kidnapping because of enhanced security. The would-be kidnappers, say these reports, had first travelled to Jalalabad in Afghanistan to finalise their plans.
Needless to say, ETIM is on the UN list as an ancillary of Al Qaeda, and has killed 162 people in the decade ending 2001. As China's closest regional ally, Pakistan should worry that despite strict measures taken in the recent past, the terrorist threat from Sinkiang has refused to die down and that the affiliation of the Uighur terrorists with our own groups has grown strong enough for the latest threat to the Chinese embassy.
One reason the Chinese have favoured Pakistan's linkage with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) whose summit President Pervez Musharraf attended recently is that it contains a proviso binding member states to fight against Islamic fundamentalism. President Musharraf has gradually been briefed about the affiliations emerging between the Sinkiang terrorist outfits and our own religious parties who may be reaching out to them because of ETIM's Islamic credentials. After receiving complaints earlier, the president had ordered the removal of two Uighur camps called Kashgarabad and Hotanabad near the capital. The centres had been there for many years following the liberal Chinese policy of allowing the Uighurs to perform Hajj via the Pakistan route. The terrorists had penetrated these camps. Islamabad's policy toughened further after the president announced on TV that Uighurs had been found among the terrorists killed in Waziristan.
During a visit to China in 2001, President Musharraf met with the imam of the grand mosque in Xian and urged all Chinese Muslims to be patriotic, shun violence, and work for the good of China . During the same visit, he told Hu Jintao, then vice president, that Pakistan would wholeheartedly support China's battle against the East Turkistan terrorist forces. During another visit in 2003, he reportedly told the current Chinese president that Pakistan would never allow anyone, including the terrorist forces of East Turkistan, to use Pakistani territory to carry out anti-China activities. Thereafter, Pakistan reportedly eliminated at least 19 ETIM members during a military operation, triggering an American-Uighur organisational protest to our ambassador in Washington. Uighur terrorists, trained in Pakistani camps, had been found attacking as far inland in Sinkiang as Urumchi.
There is no doubt that Pakistan will make all efforts to remove the threat being posed to the Chinese embassy in Islamabad. It is unfortunate that our own terrorists in the Tribal Areas and Balochistan have killed Chinese citizens coming to Pakistan to assist us in our development projects. If the Uighur terrorists are a part of the Talibanisation sweep, and it seems they are in the NWFP and FATA, then the issue is more complicated than it seems. This means that the MMA will be found inclined to speak in favour of the ETIM because of its Islamic credentials and not care too much about Islamabad's concerns relating to the threat to the Chinese diplomats. As far as China is concerned there is almost a national consensus on the issue of the Uighur terrorists. Therefore if Islamabad takes tough action it will be more acceptable than action so far taken against the other terrorists in the Tribal Areas. *
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