I've long had a sense that terrorist threats may be a bigger problem for China, for both tourists, locals, athletes and government officials then the smog that's getting front page, top-of-the-fold newspaper attention.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) report below confirms my suspisions
[One of the buses hit by an explosion in Kunming-Walter Derzko]
The Chinese government for months has been warning about the risk terrorism poses to the Olympic Games, but when an Islamist group -Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) claimed responsibility for recent blasts and threatened to target the games this past weekend, officials played it down. The Turkistan Islamic Party, which some anaysts say is another name for the better-known East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is an al-Qaeda-affiliated group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Other experts say the Turkistan Islamic Party is separate from but linked to ETIM. Last week, Beijing Olympics organizing committee security chief Ma Zhenchuan said ETIM was targeting Olympic venues, and that the threat was "not imaginary."
(AFP) reports: Terror Group Hints at Biological Attack at Olympics:
"A Chinese separatist group recently threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics and also warned of using biological weapons, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday.
A Virginia-based terrorism analysis group has suggested that the threats from the Turkestan Islamic Party should not be entirely dismissed.
"We believe that, based on the TIP's demonstrated ability to conduct bombings and the apparent opportunity TIP believes the Olympic Games presents in terms of targeting and striking a blow to China, that the threat is credible and should be taken seriously," said Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter.
The separatist group has released a video taking responsibility for recent bus bombings in China, although Chinese officials have suggested the group was wrongly seeking credit for the attacks, AFP reported.
In one video released last week, the group warned of new types of attacks against the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin Aug.8.
"Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics." We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed," said TIP leader Commander Seyfullah in the video.
A further video threat warned of using biological weapons, but Venzke said the group did not have a "demonstrated capability" for such an attack (Paul Handley, Agence France-Presse/Google News, July 27).
In another report we get more background on this Turkestan group and their grievances:
The Uighurs (Uyghurs) are Turkic-speaking Muslims who briefly ran an independent republic called East Turkistan in 1933 and again in 1944. In 1949 the area fell under communist Chinese rule.
Beijing calls the region, which is bigger than Alaska, Xinjiang ("new frontier"). It comprises one-sixth of modern China's territory, and is its richest region in strategic minerals. Several hundred thousand Uighurs also live in neighboring Central Asian republics, with the largest community in Kazakhstan.
Critics of Chinese policies say the government encourages the resettling of Han Chinese in Xinjiang - as it does in Tibet (`Tibet Roulette' )- turning what were ethnic majorities into minorities whose cultural, religious and political freedoms are restricted. Han accounted for less than 10 percent of the Xinjiang population in 1950 but now make up more than 40 percent. (just like the resettlement strategy followed by Russia in Ukraine during Stalin's time),
Last week the Uyghur American Association (UAA), a Washington-based advocacy group, accused Beijing of using anti-terror efforts as justification for "an extremely harsh campaign of repression on all forms of Uyghur dissent in East Turkistan."
"The organization said in a statement five Uighurs had been shot dead on July 9 in Urumchi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region, and that two Uighurs had been executed in another city, Kashgar, “after their sentences were read in front of an audience of 10,000 Uyghurs forced to attend a mass rally.” It said authorities provided no evidence to support claims of involvement in terrorism activities."
(Official Chinese media reports on the incidents said the five people shot dead were among a group who confessed to having received jihad training. Xinhua said the two Uighurs who were executed had been sentenced to death for separatist activities, training at a terrorist camp, and illegally manufacturing explosives.)
UAA president Rebiya Kadeer voiced support for a peaceful Olympics and opposition to “all forms of violence and terrorism.”
Bahukutumbi Raman, director of an India-based policy institute, said anger over “the perceived silence of the international community because the victims were Muslims (as opposed to human rights abuses in Tibet) might increase the dangers of an act of jihadi terrorism before or during the Olympics either by the Uighurs or by their co-religionists” in neighboring regions like Central Asia and Pakistan."
The US State Department says only a small minority of Uighurs support the TIP or ETIM. Its annual reports on global human rights accuses China of using counterterrorism as a pretext for repression in Xinjiang.
© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"© ™
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I feelwary about Chinese claims of terrorism plots supposedly lead by the Uighur people, from the country’s Xinjiang region.
Since the 1980s, China has subjected the ethnic minority Uighur people to methodical, systematic human rights violations – like imprisonment, incommunicado detention, violence and killings.
More recently, it has used the “war on terror" to suppress the Uighurs, calling them terrorists, separatists and religious extremists.
http://www.uncensor.com.au
Posted by: kimbatch | July 30, 2008 at 01:10 AM