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| منظمة العفو الدولية/ جغرافية ايغورستان / تاريخ ايغورستان / العودة للصفحة الرئيسية العربية / شهادة حق / تأييد من أندونيسيا / شعراء الإيغور / أكتب الينا برأيك / مواقع إيغورية / |
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THE TRIAL OF NATIONS
February 3, 1999
by Edgar Emmett
"Real peace is not just the absence
of conflict, it's the presence of justice."
Actor Harrison Ford, in a speech as US President James Marshall in the film 'Air
Force One.'
At ten o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, December 15, 1998, three men were escorted under armed guard into a courtroom of the Chu Oblast in Bishkek, the capital of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. The courtroom was filled with Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group with an estimated population of 10 million distributed throughout Central Asia and northwest China.
The three prisoners, also Uyghurs, were accused of organizing fundamentalist Muslim militant cells, recruiting young men for military training in Pakistan, calling for Uyghurs to rise up against Chinese rule, carrying illegal weapons, forging documents, resisting arrest, translating the Koran to promote "jihad" (holy war), and fomenting ethnic separatism between Uyghurs and Kyrgyz.
As the three defendants stood behind a cage inside the courtroom, one of them lifted his hand in greeting. The crowd clapped in a demonstration of solidarity with the prisoners and lifted signs demanding that they be freed "because they are fighting for the freedom of our people." An electric tension filled the air as the crowd in the courtroom and the defendants in the cage waited for the judge to arrive and deliver the sentence.
Little attention had been given to the trial in the local and international press. The "Central Asia Post," an English-language weekly published in Bishkek, did not mention the Uyghur ethnic identity of the accused. The mix of politics and religion in the complex problem of Uyghur nationalism was overlooked in local newspaper reports. No one seemed to consider the deeper implications of the trial.
At issue were religious freedom in a democracy, minority rights in a pluralistic society, human rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, transnational ethnic sovereignty across arbitrary borders, and the "Great Game" politics of Central Asia. The key points of law were the conduct of nations in the treatment of individuals, and the options open to a people whose grievances are ignored. This was in truth a trial of three individuals by which nations could be measured in a higher court of justice.
The defendants had been arrested in a village outside Bishkek in April, 1998, as part of a crackdown on a purported brand of fundamentalist Islam labeled "Wahhabism." The campaign to stamp out "Wahhabism" in the region had actually begun in December 1997 in a remote region of Uzbekistan. The severed head of a local traffic police officer was found on public display outside his house. A couple involved in community leadership were also found beheaded, and three police officers had been shot to death, all in the Ferghana valley.
The fertile Ferghana valley, shared by Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, has long been considered a troublesome Islamic stronghold, even under Soviet rule. During the Russian Civil War this region was the haunt of the "basmachi," Muslim freedom fighters resisting Russian Bolshevism. It was in the Pamir mountains above the Ferghana Valley that the dashing Turkish general, Enver Pasha, had died in 1922, fighting for the vision of a pan-Turkic empire stretching from Chinese Turkestan to the Balkans.
More recently, the area suffered ethnic strife between Uzbeks and Meshkhetian Turks, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks and Tajiks. Riots in 1990 left several thousand Uzbek and Kyrgyz dead in the environs of Osh, an ancient crossroads along the old Silk Road that stood when Alexander the Great marched through on the way to India. Today, the Ferghana Valley and the "Osh Corridor" provide a major highway for opium and heroin drug traffic leaving Afghan and Pakistani poppy plantations for western markets.
In response to the public display of the police officer's head, the Uzbek Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted mass arrests in the Ferghana Valley. Mosques were closed and several prominent spiritual leaders disappeared. The raids netted a wide variety of people, from simple farmers to businessmen, some who were obviously the target of jealous neighbors or unsettled grudges. According to a Human Rights Watch report the efforts of the police sweep earned the authorities a slate of accusations of human rights violations, including falsified charges, and police brutality.
Uzbekistan government officials countered these accusations with claims that unregistered and unofficial Islamic institutions act as fronts for Islamic terrorists trained in Afghan and Pakistani guerrilla camps. According to Interfax News Agency (February 16, 1998), Uzbek Foreign Minister Komilov had asked Pakistani authorities to close down camps where 400 Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz were reportedly training for warfare based "on ideas of jihad, an Islamic holy war, and the Wahhabi extremist views."
Although "Wahhabism" is technically the official religion of Saudi Arabia's ruling family, the term has been used in Central Asia to denote any independent, militant, seditious, and anti-government religious group dedicated to the overthrow of secular states and the establishment of an Islamic theocracy. Whether in fact this shadowy entity exists at all is beside the point. According to human rights watchers, the fight against "Wahhabism" can be used by insecure governments to round up dissidents, solidify control over restive regions, and mask official corruption and inefficiency. The Muslim fundamentalist bogey-man is the "favorite enemy" of countries as disparate as the People's Republic of China and the United States of America.
By the beginning of 1998, the undeclared war against "Wahhabism" in Central Asia had moved out of the Uzbek region of the Ferghana Valley into the neighboring republics of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In the Kyrgyz city of Osh, the offices for the banned Islamic Renaissance Party were closed by authorities. The "Central Asian Post" (October 5, 1998), reported that Kyrgyz law-enforcement agents had "deported some Tajik Wahhabites and a dozen Pakistan citizens who illegally penetrated into Kyrgyzstan's regions to spread fundamentalist ideas, and have uncovered an illegal organization whose printed and video materials called for a holy war". In Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, several Pakistani Muslim teachers were deported for alleged associations with "Wahhabism." In Bishkek, the three Uyghurs were brought to trial for similar involvement in militant Muslim activities.
Following months of imprisonment in a Kyrgyz jail, the trial of the "Wahhabi Three" began on November, 24, 1998. During the trial, prosecuting lawyers presented the following information about the defendants:
Kular Dilaver -- born in 1955 in Istanbul, a Turkish citizen, served as an imam in a Moscow mosque for 20 years; charged with organizing a "Wahhabi" cell group in Kyrgyzstan, pressuring Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan to support an armed struggle against Chinese Communists, recruiting young Uyghurs for military training in Pakistan "guerrilla" camps, and propagating the view that the Uyghur community is discriminated against in Kyrgyzstan. Also accused of translating the Koran and distorting its meaning to promote holy war (jihad), and carrying video cassettes about the Islamic religion.
Jalal Mahmud Kasardji -- born in 1953 in China; accused of carrying forged Kyrgyz documents, including a passport and driver's license which he used to buy a car; keeping, buying, and selling illegal weapons, resisting arrest, and organizing a military commando. He had lived in Kyrgyzstan with an illegal passport since 1996. Evidence was presented that he was carrying Uzbek, Kazak, Tajik, and Saudi Arabian currencies, as well as a substantial amount of US dollars. Seven counts were brought against him.
Kurban Yasin -- born in 1972 in China; accused of carrying forged documents, and complicity with Jalal Mahmud Kasardji, who was found with a copy of Yasin's passport.
On the first day of the trial an overflow crowd of more than 300 packed the courtroom. Older women in bright colored head scarves and bearded "aqsakals" (community leaders) wearing "doppas" (skullcaps) lined the front row seats. Many young Uyghurs came from Turkey and Kazakhstan to show their solidarity for the "Wahhabi Three."
Muslim leaders from one of the Bishkek mosques also attended. At one point in the trial they were asked to testify about the religious content of the video cassettes and the translated Koran in Dilaver's possession. They deemed the religious material to be inoffensive and orthodox.
Several human rights organizations posted observers throughout the trial. Letters were sent to Kyrgyz embassies and government leaders from around the world requesting the freedom of the three Uyghurs, or at the least the guarantee of a fair trial. Despite the open court, members of the press grumbled that they were denied official permission to take pictures or interview the defendants (standard procedure in most courts where artists are employed to render drawings of a trial and defendants only give post-trial interviews if released.) The independent television news information service, Internews, managed to secure interviews with the judge, prosecutor, and defending lawyer, which were intercut with scenes of the empty courtroom. Their report aired on independent TV in Kyrgyzstan but received little official or audience response.
After three weeks of hearings,
Judge Gulmira Jamankulova handed down the sentence for the three Uyghurs shortly
after noon on December 15.
Kular Dilaver was declared innocent of the two charges against him.
Kurban Yasin received a sentence of eight months for the three charges against
him and was released for having already served his time.
Jalal Mahmud Kasardji received 14 years to be served in a high-security prison
for the crimes of bearing an illegal weapon and resisting arrest.
At his sentencing the courtroom erupted in loud "boos" and several Uyghurs again held up the signs calling for his freedom "because he fights for the freedom of our people." The judge reminded the courtroom that the place for public demonstration was outside and the booing stopped. After the sentences were delivered the prisoners embraced and saluted the courtroom before leaving under a reinforced armed guard. Other police came to empty out the courtroom while several older Uyghur women wailed in grief for the prisoners.
Outside the court building Uyghurs milled about waiting to receive the freed prisoners. The Uyghur community showed strong solidarity by distributing Cokes and samsas, meat pastries made in the "Tour Baza," the Uyghur market erroneously referred to as the "Chinese market" on the outskirts of Bishkek. Shopkeepers from the bazaar had provided lunches on several days of the trial.
After half an hour of waiting, a leader of the Kyrgyz opposition party, wearing a traditional Kyrgyz kalpak hat, announced that the government was reneging on the sentence, and would not release the prisoners. A group of 200 Uyghurs later assembled outside the KGB building calling for the freedom of the detained, and a protest was organized outside the government "White House." Eventually, the Uyghur community received the news that the two prisoners were set free in Kyrgyzstan and had not been deported to either China or Turkey, as was feared.
Although the trial fizzled out
in a whimper, in balance the courts of Kyrgyzstan acquitted themselves with due
process of law. The long pre-trial wait in jail and the harsh sentence for one
of the defendants was offset by the release of the other two. The trial was
conducted fairly and calmly. There were no official pronouncements declaring
open season on fundamentalists; nothing like those of Uzbekistan's President,
Islam Karimov, who declared, "Such people must be shot in the head. If
necessary, I'll shoot them myself." when referring to Islamic
fundamentalists. (Speech to Parliament, broadcast over Uzbekistan radio. May 1,
1998, Toshkent. Quoted in a Human Rights Watch report on the Republic of
Uzbekistan, May, 1998, Volume 10, No 4 (D).
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports98/uzbekistan/#_1_9).
Kyrgyz justice and police action have a better record than that observed by human rights watchers in Uzbekistan. In contrast with the Human Rights Watch report on human rights violations in Uzbekistan's war against the Wahhabi, Kyrgyzstan displayed a stronger show of restraint in dealing with the prisoners. Unlike the practice of the Uzbek police, the detained were allowed to keep their beards.
Uzbek police are often suspected of planting guns or narcotics on the detained and then beating them into signed confessions.
The defendants in Kyrgyzstan never reported such behavior to visiting friends. Although Kasardji claimed that he was not resisting arrest, he did not deny having an illegal gun in his possession. It is possible that his scuffle with the police was the result of a misunderstanding and a 14 year sentence does seem unnecessarily long for possession of an unregistered weapon. However, given the fair conduct of the Kyrgyz courts there is hope for an appeal to commute his sentence. There was speculation in the Uyghur community that the harsh sentence was given to appease the Chinese, but when the heat had died down the Kyrgyz courts would let their man go free.
In the balance, gross human rights violations did not seem to have occurred in the case of the "Wahhabi Three" of Kyrgyzstan. The complaint of unsanitary conditions in the Kyrgyz jail resulting in the deteriorating health of the prisoners may be a point for human rights agencies to raise with the Kyrgyz government, but given the poverty of the country, cleaning up a filthy cell would not be a high priority for the state budget.
Although the trial focused on the prisoners' associations with Wahhabism, the court avoided the issue of Uyghur separatism. Some mention was made of the Chinese citizenship of two of the defendants, but nothing about the reasons that would drive a Uyghur to carry a weapon and a false passport. The judge addressed the prisoners as criminals rather than religious zealots or nationalist separatists, a much safer course than dealing with the political and social issues of the case.
The trial in Kyrgyzstan also compared favorably against another trial in China conducted a month later. According to Uyghur activists, on January 16, 1999, a secret trial was conducted in Korgas, near the city of Gulja (Yining), in the Ili Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Twelve Uyghurs were tried for subversion and two Uyghurs, teachers of mathematics and chemistry, were sentenced to death for reportedly making bombs. It was feared that they had been tortured into signed confessions. A Reuters news report from Beijing, dated January 22, 1999, also reported that on January 8, 1999, another 29 Uyghurs had been tried for subversion. These trials follow on a wake of executions stemming from a February 5, 1997 demonstration in which nine died and more than 200 injured. In 1997 at least 20 Uyghurs were executed and in 1998 another 14 died at the hands of the state for alleged involvement in subversion, terrorism, and separatism. The Chinese Communist Party has conducted a systematic extermination of all dissidents throughout its territory since April 1996 when it began a "Strike Hard" campaign.
The three Uyghurs on trial may not have been poster children for a Uyghur independence movement, but they enjoyed strong support from the local Uyghur community. When asked about the evidence regarding possession of illegal weapons (a Russian Makarov revolver with silencer), young Uyghurs waiting outside the courtroom commented that they would support anyone who fought against the Chinese Communist oppression of their people, no matter what the means used to achieve freedom.
The level of despair among Uyghurs, their grievances ignored by the People's Republic of China and international organizations, has led many to radical political positions. All Uyghurs, secretly or publicly, support the cause of freedom from Chinese rule. Even moderate Uyghurs are confiding that they see no alternative but an explosion of violence in their homeland. An ethnic uprising among Uyghurs in China would undoubtedly spill over into the neighboring republics of Central Asia.
The trial caught Kyrgyzstan in a vise between the forces of East and West, between democratic values and statist practice, and between conflict and appeasement. Emerging from years of Soviet rule, Kyrgyzstan's recent acceptance into the World Trade Organization measured a reward of sorts for the government's commitment to free trade, for its democratic principles and practice, and for maintaining good marks on human rights. Although foreign investors rarely evaluate human rights records, preferring to look at the balance of payments register, they do require political stability and a profitable market before committing funds.
Unfortunately, little credit was given to the Kyrgyz authorities for maintaining peaceful order during the trial without unnecessary displays of police power. Little thought was given to understanding the great pressures on the Kyrgyz government during this judicial process. In truth, little is known about Central Asia at all. What little news appeared in the press did not recognize the powerful currents of history swirling behind the three chairs of the judge and her two counselors.
Kyrgyzstan is a poor, mountainous country landlocked into the center of Asia. Surrounded by more powerful neighbors, Kyrgyzstan tries to maintain a position of neutrality modeled on Switzerland and Sweden.
Since the awakening "glasnost" and the restructuring "perestroika" in 1991, the new Kyrgyz Republic has struggled to develop a national identity out of the ruins of the Soviet Empire. In the effort to develop stable political, social, and economic structures, the government of President Askar Akayev faces internal and external pressures that defy easy solutions. These tensions came to light during the trial of the three ethnic Uyghurs.
To the east of Kyrgyzstan, on the other side of the Celestial Mountains, lies the dormant volcano of Communist China, a rumbling giant with an aggressive disposition plagued with mounting ethnic disquiet among Tibetans, Mongolians and Uyghurs. To the south, a civil war rages along regional and religious divisions in the Pamir ranges of Tajikistan. Further south, the sounds of war in northern Afghanistan echo louder whenever refugees stream into neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The ethnic conflict between Pushtun Talibs and a loose coalition of Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras, along with other ethnic groups fighting in northern Afghanistan, remind the Central Asian states of their own volatile ethnic mix.
The fear among the leaders of the Central Asian republics is that ethnic violence, enflamed by Islamic religious fundamentalism, will spill over into their fragile societies. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have made a pact to fight the tide of fundamentalism threatening from the south. The fear ammong the new republics is that Wahhabi missionaries want to overthrow the secular governments of Central Asia and establish theocracies under religious law. They perceive Wahhabi strategy as enflaming ethnic divisions in order to destabilize a country before introducing armed conflict.
Kyrgyzstan is a vulnerable target for Muslim fundamentalism. Since "perestroika," the country has been structured as a welfare state, supported by World Bank loans, USAID and TACIS projects, UNDP programs, Open Society/Soros Foundation grants, Japanese and Korean investments and a host of foreign based NGOs fostering everything from human rights and AIDS awareness to community development and humanitarian aid. While many of these organizations have contributed to the welfare of individual communities, they are building twig dams against a global economic drain. The collapse of world markets, the crisis in the Russian economy, and the internal migration from rural to urban areas has dampened economic growth and created higher levels of unemployment.
Ironically, the struggles of the official economy are balanced by a booming underground market in narcotics, arms, corruption, and all manner of vices. Fancy four-wheel drives ply the pot-holed streets of Bishkek, while cellular telephones are the communication instrument of choice for the "new Russian" and the "nouveau riche Kyrgyz." Corrupt officials and narco-traffickers vie with "joint-stock" opportunists to exploit the country's natural resources, as well as its strategic placement along east/west and north/south trade-route axes. At the end of last year, a trainload of weapons hiding under labels of "humanitarian aid" was discovered in southern Kyrgyzstan enroute to Afghanistan. It was returned to the point of origin -- Iran. While there are many positive developments and legal, successful projects, all is not well in the Kyrgyz Republic.
A 1997 UNDP sponsored report
cited prostitution, crime, corruption, drugs, and disease as prime evidence that
"social cohesion" had not been achieved in Kyrgyzstan. The report
stated that,
Today, in the Kyrgyz society of the post-Soviet transitional period, economic difficulties have led to a decline in the standard of living. To a certain degree, moral degradation and dissoluteness have become dominant and patriotism has declined. In the eyes of the majority of the population, the idea of a democratic society -- the construction of which has only just begun -- has not been realized."
("National Human Development Report of the Kyrgyz Republic, 1997.")
Although xenophobia has not yet set in, it is a only a matter of time before a population suffering poverty could turn against the wealthy foreigners and corrupt politicians trying to convert an idle labor force into capitalist tools of production. In a wave of nostalgia for the "fleshpots of communism," a politically emancipated people could choose economic slavery in return for bread on the table and a fur coat in the closet, once considered Soviet staples. Alternatively, the opportunists could choose the moral bondage of crime, while the poor and helpless would be left with the solace of faith, the blind faith of either a secular or a spiritual determinism.
The signs of decay and isolationism are already there in neighboring Kazakhstan. Articles complaining that migrant laborers are taking the jobs of locals have already appeared in Kazakh newspapers.
Confidence in the democratic process reached new levels of cynicism following Kazakh presidential elections on January 10, 1999.
Kyrgyzstan is not far, geographically or culturally, from Kazakhstan. The trends in the larger neighbor to the north may well flow down to the poorer, little brother next door.
Turning away from the siren call of the decadent West, young, unemployed men with little to look forward to are prime recruits for the guerrilla camps of Pakistan and Afghanistan. A recent article in the newspaper "Vecherny Bishkek" ("Jihad: Victims and Hostages," May 1,1998), reported on two Uyghur mothers in Kyrgyzstan who were looking for their missing sons, last seen entering a mosque. The article implied that the young men had been lured into a fundamentalist "Wahhabi" cell group.
There is no doubt that Muslim fundamentalists exist and that "they" have a plan. Given the recent histories of Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, and Lebanon, Muslim fundamentalists will not be slow to seize the day and exploit the "lack of social cohesion" at the heart of Kyrgyzstan's society. Religious zealots love to preach a message of hate against the immorality of western culture. Calling the faithful to live in strict submission to a religious law interpreted by a cabal of mullahs, they attract a population tired of ineffective government and class division.
Strict Islamic legalists will find fertile soil in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, where the governments have cozied up to Western interests in exchange for monetary handouts, and where the societies have been seduced by raw consumerism broadcast from billboards and airwaves. When the consumer culture proves to be an illusion because of economic impotence, there will be a backlash. As long as there is economic growth and prosperity, it would seem that the flight to Mecca will continue to see a steady decline in numbers.
In Kyrgyzstan last year, the number of pilgrims to Islam's most holy city was only 1,500, down from 4,500 the year before. Whether the "hajj" has suffered decline because of poverty or prosperity should be the subject of analysis for the travel industry catering to this clientele.
Westerners point to the atrocities committed by Muslim extremists as bad for business. The bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have put the American expatriate community on edge, especially in countries with large Muslim populations. Nuns slaughtered in Algeria, tourists gunned down in Egypt and Yemen, and businessmen assassinated in Pakistan do not promote foreign investments.
However, the bombing of Baghdad during Ramadan did not improve the deteriorating relations between westerners and Muslims.
The tangle of political intrigue between Islamic and Western states is illustrated by the conflict between the US government and Osama bin Laden, the Saudi bad boy and Che Guevara of Muslim fundamentalism, blamed for the bombings of US embassies in Africa and the target of retaliatory raids in Sudan and Afghanistan. As a scion of the Saudi royal family, Osama bin Laden finances his revolution with revenues from the oil that feeds the addictions of the industrial world. Saudi Arabia is also one of America's staunchest allies, serving as a military fortress in the Gulf War against the neighboring Muslim republic of Iraq. That the Wahhabi cult has the Saudi ruling family's royal seal of approval seems to have been overlooked by the enemies of Wahhabism.
Choosing between Wahhabi or the West, the Uyghurs are faced with a rock and a hard place. Inevitably they will support those groups that are perceived to be helping their cause of freedom from Chinese repression. The fact that an estimated 25,000 Uyghurs live in Saudi Arabia, many of them wealthy enough to support the East Turkestan National Freedom Center in Washington DC, means that an influential number of Uyghurs will be predisposed to receiving help from the Wahhabi movement. And the Wahhabi movement, in its missionary zeal to bring the law of Allah to the world will eagerly come to the aid of the oppressed Uyghurs.
The trial of the "Wahhabi Three" left deep, unresolved issues of religious freedom and ethnic sovereignty, virulent strains of potential national strife. Ethnic minority rights and religious freedoms usually coexist in democratic societies. In Central Asia they threaten to tear apart the fabric of society. This is due as much to unresolved ethnic tensions aggravated by decades of Stalinist "divide and rule" doctrine and centuries of tribal, internecine warfare. At the moment the common struggle to survive the transition from communism to an as yet undetermined state provides the basis for a fragile, temporary social cohesion in the region. However, the lack of public discourse or media forums for the discussion of new ideas threatens to undermine the process of successful transition.
The question of the limits of religious freedom and the extent of state tolerance were not addressed in any public forums in Kyrgyzstan. Christian missionaries in the former Soviet Union, seeking to establish a presence in the spiritual vacuum left by communist atheism, did not ask whether they might be next, once the struggle for power terminated between "official" government sanctioned Islam and the so-called "independent" Muslim fundamentalists.
Recent legislation in Russia, banning religious organizations younger than 15 years, was prompted by the "official" Russian Orthodox church in a bid to stop the success of "independent" missionaries and cults. Legislators in Kazakhstan are now looking at the same Russian legislation as a possible model for their nation, this time motivated by a power bid from an "official" Islam fearful of Christian expansion in Central Asia. The historical presence of Nestorian Christianity in Central Asia as early as the fifth century and as late as the sixteenth century, does not seem to count towards allowing Protestant churches in the region. China's track record as an equal opportunity oppressor of churches, temples, mosques, and democracy dissidents, does not offer the region a viable model for religious freedom.
Restrictions on religious freedom usually result from the desire for a state government to maintain social order on authoritarian terms. Religious organizations often threaten state control, especially when the state demands total allegiance, as in a communist state or a dictatorship. When religious beliefs are affiliated with nationalist identities, any type of proselytization is viewed as threatening the social cohesion of the state. Converts create social disruption, therefore new religions must be banned. So runs the justification for limiting religious freedom in nation-states. The threat can come from Islamic fundamentalists who espouse a theocracy, Jehovah Witnesses who refuse to serve in the military, or unregistered churches who defy state control. It is interesting that the Jehovah Witnesses chose to have their 1993 Central Asian regional conference in Bishkek, rather than in Almaty where authorities had denied them permission to assemble.
Islam does not have a strong record for allowing religious diversity among those who submit to Allah. While Kyrgyzstan, modeled on Turkey, maintains a secular government committed to the separation of church and state, it remains a bulwark against the tide of "shar'ia law" as practiced in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim nations. In extreme interpretations of the law, men can be punished for not wearing a beard, women must wear complete body veils, and cannot attend public schools. Ironically, these interpretations as practiced by the Taliban movement in Afghanistan have also been condemned by the mullahs of Iran as being too excessive in their application.
The current global economic crisis has also brought renewed hardship to the region. The need to pay back loans to hard-pressed creditors in Korea and Japan has obliged the Central Asian states to look for more handouts elsewhere. Russia's reduction in trade with the Central Asian states has also forced these countries to look for cheap goods from other sources. The People's Republic of China has not been idle to exploit the economic vacuum left in the wake of Russia's troubles and waning influence in the region. China is rapidly becoming Central Asia's chief trading partner, echoing the days of the Old Silk Road. Investments in car manufacturing, mining equipment, construction materials, and textile plants, among others, have brought Chinese entrepreneurial management, industry, and efficiency to a region desperately in need of new sources of employment.
Enjoying a new prosperity, the Chinese Communist Party stands to gain much from a strong economic presence in the region. Having invested $4 billion in Kazakh oil fields, China plans to trump the Mexican standoff between Turkey, Russia, and Iran, on the question of how to get the Caspian Sea oil to the market. By building a 3,000 kilometre pipeline from the Caspian Sea across the Kazakh steppes and the Gobi desert, the engine of Chinese prosperity plans to be well supplied. American utilitarianism admires Chinese enterprise and China's ambitious project could find partners in western oil companies.
Recently in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, the American oil company Exxon joined forces with the Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation and the Chinese National Petroleum Company to present a preliminary feasibility study to the Turkmenistan government for construction of a 6,000 kilometer trans-national gas pipeline. The pipeline is proposed to run from eastern Turkmenistan to eastern China and connect with an underwater networks connecting to Korea and Japan.
The reality of a communist government practicing capitalist economics introduces moral questions for potential foreign investors with ethical scruples. China has been accused of using World Bank loans to build up paramilitary communes called "bin-toans" in northwest China. These have been used to develop water and land resources at the expense of Uyghur traditional landholders. There has also been an investigation into the use of prison labor for manufactured goods sold in the US, as well as body parts from executed prisoners sold in the underworld medical market.
The possibility of China paying off Kazakhstan's foreign debt in exchange for influence and control of the economy is not far fetched. Kazakhstan has already ceded part of its borderlands with China in exchange for credit. The fact that Kazakhstan's borders with China are filled with Uyghur settlements does not help the ethnic tensions in the region. An estimated 300,000 Uyghurs live in Kazakhstan, mostly along a corridor that stretches from Almaty to the border with China.
Across the border in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, there are another 8 to 10 million Uyghurs, depending on whose census figures you accept. China's proposed trans-Asian pipeline must cross Uyghur lands before reaching the networks thhat feed the refineries, mill and factories along China's densely populated coastlands. One scenario conjures up a huddle of Uyghur terrorists blowing up the pipeline along the lines of Lawrence of Arabia. Another, more frightening picture envisions a holocaust of ethnic cleansing as China clears the land for the march of progress, relegating Uyghurs to desert reservations where tourists can gawk at the former merchants of the Old Silk Road.
Kyrgyzstan's proximity to China is also exacerbated by the "Uyghur problem". The official census for Kyrgyzstan registers 40,500 Uyghurs (.9% of the total population of 4,5 million). According to local Uyghur leaders there may be as many as 300,000 Uyghurs centered along the Chui Valley, the Issyk-Kul region and the Osh and Jalal-Abad oblasts. Many Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan adopt an Uzbek identity in order to avoid the stigma of the "Uyghur problem." As a source of potential ethnic conflict, the "Uyghur problem" rivals the Irish, Basque, Palestinian, Kurd, and Chechen problems. China's ham-fisted, iron rule and refusal to address any grievances of its Uyghur subjects provide a pressure cooker for anger and bitterness.
There is fear in the eyes of Uyghurs when they speak of China. It is a cold, bitter fear that breeds desperate measures and an insidious paranoia that sees Chinese devils behind every bush. During the trial of the "Wahhabi Three" the Uyghur community of Kyrgyzstan believed that the Communist Chinese government had pressured Kyrgyzstan to arrest the three Uyghurs as "splittists," the Chinese term for "ethnic nationalists." They also feared that the Chinese consul in Bishkek had attempted to suborn the Kyrgyz court and illegally and covertly extradite the three Uyghurs to China. There was little doubt that the accused would then be sentenced by a Chinese kangaroo court and shot. To say that China's human rights record is not good is to make the understatement of the year.
The ineffectiveness of the international community to enforce penalties on human rights violators has made China bolder in oppressing her people. Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uyghur separatists, Democracy dissidents, and Protestant house church leaders now share billing as China's public enemy number one. As a recent signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Peoples Republic of China was hailed as a leopard who had changed his spots.
Sadly, recent crackdowns have only reinforced the fear that China's sheep coat is slipping off the wolf's back. The dragon continues to roar defiance and blow smoke in everybody's eyes. Of course, when China's commitment to human rights is challenged, the Communist Party leaders claim this is an internal matter and no one else's business.
While Chinese leaders put on a genial face for the Western press, the dynastic tendencies of China's history continue to maintain the world's last great colonial regime. In the Middle Kingdom where the son of heaven ruled behind the walls of the Forbidden Palace, territorial ambitions continue to drive the Communist Party successors to Mao's new dynasty.
Real or not, the perception that China has imperial designs on the new Central Asian republics is founded on centuries of regional hostilities. Chinese territorial claims to Central Asia date back to the Han Dynasty, at the dawn of recorded history. At the height of the Tang Dynasty China once controlled this region, at least as far as the city of Talas in Kyrgyzstan where an Arab army once defeated the Tang forces in the eighth century. Uyghurs like to point to Caucasian mummies found in the Taklamakan desert to lay claim for being the original inhabitants of the region. The history of Chinese and Uyghur ethnic relations is a long and bloody one first recorded in Chinese annals in the seventh century.
Fear and mistrust are woven into the tapestry of Central Asia. Ever since the Huns rode out of the steppes to harass the Chinese, Persian and Roman empires the region has been a cauldron of ethnic strife. From earliest times, nomads and settlers have fought countless wars along the length and breadth of Central Asia, often taking turns to pillage a town or fortify a city. The clash of cultures seem to mirror the collision of continental plates that form the immense mountains in the region. The ebb and flow of civilizations reflect the shifting sands of the great Central Asian deserts that bury cities, and preserve ruins and mummies.
During the eighteenth century, the Manchu Ching Dynasty defeated the remnants of Chinggis Khan's Mongol Empire and took over the western lands beyond the Great Wall. The Chinese called the region Xinjiang, meaning the "New Dominion." At that time, Uyghurs and Uzbeks were called Turkistanis, but when the Russians and the Chinese began to wrestle for control of this region at the tattered edges of their empires, ethnic identities began to coalesce around new poles of power.
In the 1930s, Soviet advisors to Sheng Shicai, the Chinese warlord in Xinjiang's provincial capital of Urumchi, suggested the name of Uyghur for the troublesome subjects rebelling against the Chinese tax collectors and soldiers. The name originated from the ancient Uyghur Empire that had once straddled the caravan routes of the Old Silk Road between the Chinese and Persian empires. The name of the Uyghurs had disappeared under the sands of the Taklamakan desert in the fifteenth century, only to emerge again like a buried river bubbling up to feed a new oasis.
After the Communist takeover of China in 1949, the Uyghurs suffered purges of intellectuals, destruction of mosques, expropriation of lands, exploitation of resources, toxic pollution and radioactive contamination of the environment, restriction of reproductive rights (only two children per couple are allowed for national minorities, an advantage not shared by Han Chinese who are only allowed one child per couple), and the daily humiliation of being second-class citizens in their own land. There is no love lost between the 8 million Uyghurs and the 7 million Han Chinese (official figures) living under Communist rule in the Uyghur homelands that nationalists call "Eastern Turkistan" or "Uyghuristan".
The Chinese point to the rising skyline of Urumqi as proof that the gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers measure progress for all the inhabitants of the state. The Uyghurs point to the smog soup and the traffic snarls clogging the city and the lack of services in their "ghettos" as proof that progress only benefits the ruling elite of the Han Chinese. The mass immigration of Han Chinese from China Proper has contributed to a steady erosion of Uyghur influence in the capital city, which is now at least 80% Han Chinese.
China's territorial expansion can also be measured in recent diplomatic initiatives in the "western lands" of the Central Asian republics. Most recently in 1996, at the Shanghai Accords, China, using financial incentives, pressured Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan to sign commitments to repress any Uyghur separatist movements in their countries. The new republics did not want any problems with their powerful neighbor, so they readily signed.
In the summer of 1996 the Uyghur association of Kyrgyzstan called Ittipak, meaning "unity" and the Uyghur-language newspaper of the same name were closed for three months as a sign that Kyrgyzstan was abiding by the letter of the accord. The fact that Ittipak resumed with a new, more radical leadership, and the newspaper, adopting a new name "The Voice of Truth" continued to espouse a "Free Uyghuristan," showed that the Uyghurs of Kyrgyzstan were not willing to accept the repressive spirit of China's intent.
In November 1992, the Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan had attempted to form a political party to develop the ethnic claims of Uyghur sovereignty and to promote the establishment of a state of Uyghuristan that would include portions of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and most of the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where the majority of Uyghurs live. The dream of Uyghuristan lives in the hearts of many Uyghurs. The reality of such an entity ever existing, however, is remote, given the current politics in the region.
Historically, Uyghurs once shared a common homeland with the Kyrgyz, both in the Yenisei Valley of Siberia and in the Chu and Ferghana Valleys of what is today Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz were the cause of a Uyghur refugee movement in the ninth century, when the Kyrgyz forced the Uyghurs to flee their ancestral homeland in Siberia and settle in the desert oases of Central Asia. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Uyghur farmers called Taranchi settled in the fertile valleys of the Semireyche (Seven Rivers) region of Kazakhstan and the Chu Valley of Kyrgyzstan. In the 1960s, a new wave of Uyghur refugees settled in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan fleeing the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution.
Yusuf Khass Hajib of Balasaghun was a sixteenth century man of letters claimed by both Uyghurs and Kyrgyz as a national figure. Balasaghun was an ancient city not far from present day Bishkek. The Uyghurs and the Kyrgyz also share a similar Turkic language with some slight variations based on the fact that the Uyghurs are a sedentary people traditionally living in oases settlements, while the Kyrgyz (like the Kazakhs) were once a nomadic people of steppes and mountains.
Although Uyghurs represent a small minority among Kyrgyzstan's 4.5 million inhabitants, they are a significant thread in the tapestry formed by an estimated 80 distinct ethnic groups living together in this small state. In an attempt to promote "social cohesion," recent television public service announcements promoted the concept of a "common home" for Kyrgyzstan's ethnic diversity. Although ethnic tensions between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan flared up in deadly rioting in 1990, in general the ethnic groups enjoy good relations. At present, however, there are no Uyghur politicians representing their communities in the Kyrgyz parliament.
In Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Uyghur "mahallas" or neighborhoods have their own internal authorities, Uyghur-language newspapers, cultural events, and political organizations. These institutions perpetuate the rich traditions acquired over centuries of civilization and adaptation to invaders. A Uyghur businessman's fund supports the education and cultural development of young Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan.
In fact, the commitment to education, hard work, and high moral and cultural values makes the Uyghur communiity in Kyrgyzstan a valuable addition to the mosaic of ethnic groups in this small country.
It would be a tragedy to see the Uyghurs of Kyrgyzstan marginalized by extremists or the ignorance of Kyrgyz government officials. They should resist the forces that have led the Kurds to become a fifth column in Turkey and Iraq. The mobilization of the Uyghur business community, renowned for their business acumen since Silk Road days, could easily replace the losses suffered in Kyrgyzstan from emigrating German and Russian communities. Uyghur investment in the Kyrgyz economy could also develop domestic industries and services and provide much needed employment within Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz government has recognized the value of its ethnic diversity, giving representatives of distinct ethnic groups offices in the "Friendship House" located in the heart of the capital, next to Lenin's statue and history museum, and the government "White House." The Uyghurs need to seek the help of the Kyrgyz government and assure officials that there is more value in supporting the claims of the Uyghur community than the pressures of the Communist Chinese government. The international community, especially those who have invested heavily in the development of Kyrgyzstan through the transition from a socialist state to a welfare state to a democratically governed, market-driven economy, should help to resist Chinese pressures to stifle Uyghur self-determination.
Kyrgyzstan's leadership should also seize the opportunity to exert moral courage and act as arbitrator for the grievances of the Uyghurs against Chinese oppression. It is to the benefit of the CIS countries to work for a true, just peace between the Uyghur community and the Communist Chinese government. If ethnic tensions in China should erupt into open conflict, the present trickle of Uyghur refugees fleeing into Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan will become a torrent adding to the existing flow from Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The additional burden on the already strained social and economic systems of the CIS republics should be cause enough for their governments and the many international organizations working with refugee and migration issues to begin to address the Uyghur problem from a preventative platform.
One immediate problem is Kyrgyzstan's complex bureaucracy for dealing with refugees. According to David Matas of the Canadian Helsinki Watch Group who analyzed refugee protection in a December, 1998 report, Kyrgyzstan leads the region in refugee protection but falls far short of dealing efficiently with refugees from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Xinjiang/Eastern Turkestan. The 3-day rule for registration of a refugee is too short, the refugee determination system is too long. The report also points out that:
For Chinese refugee claimants, rejection on the basis that the claimants could have sought refuge elsewhere is unlikely since the Kyrgyz Republic borders China on the east. Chinese Uighurs have come to the Kyrgyz Republic without transiting other countries. However, rejection on the basis that the claimants did not claim within three days of their arrival has happened. Furthermore, rejection for Chinese Uighurs is far more serious than rejection for Afghanis. The Kyrgyz Republic does not remove rejected Afghanis to Afghanistan. It does, however, remove and has removed Uighurs to China." ("Refugee Protection in New States: The Kyrgyz Republic," by David Matas. December 1998. The International Helsinki Human Rights Federation/The Canadian Helsinki Watch Group, p.20-21).
Recommendations made by Mr. Matas need to be implemented in order to streamline the claims process, provide interpreters for refugees, allow representatives to advise refugees during interviews, eliminate the three-day rule and the safe-country rule, resettle refugees within the Kyrgyz Republic or other resettlement countries, abolish the internal movement control regime, administer prompt justice in police harassment cases, and clean up the detention centers.
Compliance with these recommendations will reduce the economic and political burdens on the Kyrgyz government and provide basic human rights to Uyghurs fleeing political repression in China.
Another part of the problem is recognition in the international community that the "Uyghur problem" can significantly and adversely affect the balance of power in Central Asia. Geopolitical strategists rarely concede the magnitude of the problem. Last summer, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) introduced the Silk Road Strategy Act in an effort to strengthen US policy in Central Asia. The bill encouraged the transition to free markets and promoted greater US trade and investment in the region, especially with respect to the development of the Caspian Sea oil resources. The bill came under sharp criticism from the Armenian-American community, a powerful lobby group, who pointed out that the Act neglected to address the long-standing territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Global strategists tend to view the claims and quarrels of ethnic groups as flies in the ointment of their universal salve. Viewed from a satellite height, the natives of the land below seem primitive, resisting the forces of globalization. The passions that drive men to die for their ethnic identity or to rape the women of their enemies are rarely resolved in the formulas for world peace.
Conflict resolution is usually an afterthought, an attempt to move the logjam, rather than a conscious measure to address the reality behind ethnic conflicts. The need for a paradigm shift that embraces ethnic sovereignty must be built into the foundation of any geopolitical strategy.
It is difficult to determine what is US foreign policy regarding the Uyghurs. On the one hand there is support in the White House for the Tibetan cause for independence, or at least greater autonomy. On the other hand there is no mention of the Uyghur problem, which echoes Tibetan and Mongolian grievances. A few congressional leaders have acknowledged the Uyghur problem and the US Congress has introduced Uyghurs as one of the languages broadcast by RFA. Journalists in Italy, France, and the UK have also addressed Uyghur grievances, with British independent television recently issuing a documentary on the effects on the local population of Chinese nuclear weapons testing in the Lop Nor area where Uyghurs live. The mayor of Munich has also expressed support for the Uyghur cause during demonstrations led by Uyghur exiles in Germany.
Uyghurs are fond of pointing to the public relations advances achieved by Tibetans, suggesting that if only they had a holy man with the charisma of the Dalai Lama, or a celebrity with the glamour of a Richard Gere, they could gain recognition for their cause. The Uyghurs certainly need a leader to galvanize the scattered organizations of their diaspora. However, in the absence of a charismatic leader, they have done remarkably well in joining forces across the globe, mainly through the Internet. In recent years, Uyghur associations from around the world have held several "kurultais" or councils, to assess their situation and plan a successful strategy for the freedom of their people.
Unwilling to espouse open conflict or subversive violence, Uyghurs in exile are marshaling the collective wisdom of their scholars and scientists working abroad. Democratic values are ingrained into Uyghur culture and with wise patience and "sharp hope" the justice of their cause will win a hearing in international tribunals.
Uyghur communities in diaspora are unusually cohesive and well organized and also contribute much needed international press coverage for the Uyghur cause. Many Uyghurs in the small but politically active community in Germany once worked for Radio Liberty, an arm of Radio Free Europe, beaming into the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War. Uyghurs in the USA now work for Radio Free Asia, a government sponsored radio service that began broadcasting in Mandarin Chinese in 1996, and now features programs in Uyghur, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Burmese, Lao, and Khmer, among other languages.
The Uyghur-language service of Radio Free Asia is dedicated to promoting "the rights of freedom of opinion and expression including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any medium regardless of frontiers," a worthy goal for oppressed peoples living behind the Bamboo Curtain in the Information Age.
When Harry Wu raised the alarm on human rights violations in China by disclosing that World Bank funds were being used to build paramilitary camps in Xinjiang, Uyghur leaders provided eye witnesses to testify at congressional hearings. Partly as a result of the testimonies of Uyghur exiles, Congress authorized the Radio Free Asia Uyghur-language broadcast that was inaugurated on Monday, December 14, 1998. Providentially, this was on the day before the sentencing of the "Wahhabi Three."
The trial in Bishkek was less a trial of three individuals, than a trial of nations and nation-states. The nation-state of Kyrgyzstan was on trial to maintain justice. The Uyghur nation was on trial to determine the point of no return for the emancipation of her people.
Islamic extremists from Arab and Iranian spheres were on trial for their role in destabilizing secular societies. China was on trial for continuing to practice duplicity in the affairs of her neighbors and oppressing the basic human rights of her own people. The nations of the world were on trial to define the line between economic development and universal human rights.
Nation-states struggle with ethnic strife and the potential of "balkanization" within their borders. At the same time global forces are moving nation-states to associate in the kind of pan-regional organizations defined by the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The issue of ethnic sovereignty should be addressed by these pan-regional organizations where ethnic groups spill over across the territorial borders of nation-states. The alternative is a world wracked by ethnic division and strife.
Ethnic strife is the irritant in the machinery of global progress. The architects of the new world order need to recognize that ethnic identity is not soluble in the solvent of economic progress. Ethnic sovereignty needs a better solution than wishing it away, cleansing it in genocide, or assimilating it into a colonial dependency. Ethnic sovereignty, when given its due dignity and freedom, can become the nuclear fusion of society, the new energy source for a new world order where even the smallest ethnic units -- the family, the kin, the clan, the tribe, the nation -- all have a place in society, a shop in the market, and a voice in the government.
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عودة الى الصفحة الرئيسية/أخبار الجهاد / ENGLISH / الخريطةMAP/
