Death toll in Xinjiang riot rises to 140

pla101prc

Senior Member
the funny (and pathetic) thing about media is that they reduce something that is extremely complex into a statement of representation. like reducing Tiananmen square to just that one tankman photo taken completely out of context, or terrorism into just some fanatic full of hatred, or bush into an idiot....why do they do this? because we the public are too dumb and lazy to actually learn the truth. the public attention span is about 5 seconds, with that 5 seconds the only thing you can do to get the message across is generalization. 99% of the viewers will prolly fall a sleep if you try to explain to them what REALLY happened.
 

bladerunner

Banned Idiot
actually i am still stuck there for another month and a half...its not a recruit course so we do get a weekend leave pretty much every weekend lol

:eek:ff Your'e in the Canadian armed services right? If so don't you have to go on active duty in Afghanistan?
 

bladerunner

Banned Idiot
pla101prc...yer back! I thought you were sequestered on some military base. Training Chinese immigrants into the CF no doubt!;)

Check this video near the end. I should have stated punched or slapped. And he kicked this person. This is the video I saw yesterday.

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What sort of police did that guy in blue shirt with short sleeves belong to.
Strange how he backed away when given a shove.
In our country the perpetrator would have been shoved in the paddywagon so quickly, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground.
 

cmb=1968

Junior Member
What sort of police did that guy in blue shirt with short sleeves belong to.
Strange how he backed away when given a shove.
In our country the perpetrator would have been shoved in the paddywagon so quickly, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground.

My guess would be the local police I would expect a cop from out side of the province to be more jumpy. I don't know how the police are set up in China.

I will admit that Charles Gibson's story in which he said that one third of the dead were Uyghurs. Even to me that is confusing and makes it sound like a lot more of them died than Han.
 
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mobydog

Junior Member
A interesting take from a western source.. not that most of you don't know or suspect already, but still.

Link removed...

No politics or other rantings of bloggers. Just the facts.


bd popeye super moderator
 
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yehe

Junior Member
What sort of police did that guy in blue shirt with short sleeves belong to.
Strange how he backed away when given a shove.
In our country the perpetrator would have been shoved in the paddywagon so quickly, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground.

Thats a street patrol police, they usually are unarmed in china, thier job is catch thieves and small crimnals, patrol the street and keep order, but the lack of respect and fear for police and law enforcement are astonishing from some of the Uighurs, one guy basicly attacked that police officer, obviously they werent afriad or worried at all that a police is there. Oppressive police? Doesnt look like it, more like the opposite.;)
 

pla101prc

Senior Member
:eek:ff Your'e in the Canadian armed services right? If so don't you have to go on active duty in Afghanistan?

lol prolly soon...but the recent deaths of NATO soldiers in afghanistan just blew me away, you are getting figures like 8 british soldiers (which should be among the best in the world) in 24 hours, 15 of them in 10 days, i counted 3-4 Canadian soldiers died in the past week, quite a few Americans and other NATO members died in the past weeks as well...i think 4 more died yesterday. maybe we should start a afghanistan thread lol
 

SampanViking

The Capitalist
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Sensationalism is whats in that reporters head.
I found the ABC report:
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[qimg]http://blogs.abcnews.com/.a/6a00d8341c4df253ef011571e5edba970b-pi[/qimg]
Above by /ABCNews

Now the Times have been alot more objective this time.

this woman was facing absolutely no danger, even without all the cameras. Here's in her own words--

"She said that the fact that she was a woman probably determined the response by the People’s Armed Police, who appear to be under strict orders to exercise the utmost restraint. “I think they felt sympathy for me.”

A senior Uighur officer approached her and tried to calm her, giving her his telephone number.

“He told me to trust them, to trust the Communist Party and everything would be all right.” She left and tried to call him later but there was no answer.

She hopes that the riot will not lead to deeper divisions in her city.

“The Han don’t hate the Uighurs and the Uighurs don’t hate the Han,” she said. “I have sympathy for the Han people who were killed. We need to have ethnic unity.” "
/Times Online

I would also point out that she is standing on a road crossing and looks to all the world to be simply crossing the road and stopping and having a look. A minor point you may think, but there is a huge difference in loitering on a crossing where pedestrians have the right of way and standing in the middle of the open road.

I also found the article that from Global Research that Moby posted and it provided some interesting information about the scale of support that the US gives these Uighur Organisations. I think with such a high death toll, it will be difficult for Washington to justify supporting organisations that will be heavily branded as terrorist or terrorist supporting. 180 dead is a figure that no major power could tolerate on account of external interference and I cannot see China being an exception to this. Given the strength of feeling I am reading on the Chinese boards, I think they will have little option but to do something.

It does also appear that a lot of extra PLA are being moved towards the Western border area with Pakistan and Afghanistan and these include Heavy Units as well as Light. If anyone can find concrete reports of PLA deployments please post them.
 

Finn McCool

Captain
Registered Member
My take on this whole situation is this: The Uighurs seem to have instigated these riots and killed a lot of people merely for being Han. Those responsible should be punished lawfully. However it also seems that Han Chinese returned the favor in vigilante violence with a nasty racist character (i.e. going after any Uighur regardless of if they killed people or even participated in riots). Han Chinese that did this should also be punished lawfully. Chinese security forces seem to be doing a pretty good job of being neutral in this situation. If they really want to restore lasting order to the streets they will have to go after Hans that committed violence just as much as they go after Uighurs. However I doubt that will happen.

As for the causes of this violence, it seems to me that the main thing that motivated the Uighurs was a sense of being surrounded and pushed aside, drowned in a sea of Han, in their own "homeland". Mix that with a bit of radical Islam and the fact that there is really no way for them to effectively voice their concerns through politics, and you have a recipe for violence. Uighurs should learn Mandarin if they feel disadvantaged; life is unfair sometimes and the Uighurs should understand that. People all over the world have to learn new languages to get employment. But they should also be able to speak their own language and practice their own customs within their own community. Ensuring that right would go a long way towards ending the violence and Uighur separatism. So would making a real effort to educate Uighur children in Mandarin (maybe that's being done already, I don't know, regardless its probably thought of/would be though of as "brainwashing" by Uighur separatists and dumb Westerners).

It seems to me that the Uighurs are trying to build a sandcastle to protect them from the oncoming wave of China's economic rise. All sandcastles fall eventually, and the Uighur's sandcastle isn't even very large or well built. As it crumbles they will become more and more violent and China will inevitably win. Then the Chinese will be stuck with the problem of a bitter minority underclass that underperforms economically, in education, in society, has higher crime rates, etc. etc. Lose-lose for everybody. The Chinese government has the opportunity to manage the Uighurs transition to minority status in the modern era. By allowing them to keep and promote their language and culture while integrating them into the Chinese economy by ensuring Uighur education, especially in Mandarin, and responding firmly but fairly to any violence, Uighur or Han, they can tie the Uighurs to China more firmly than repression ever could.
 

RedMercury

Junior Member
Posted on CMF, no idea about credibility.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]Phone conversation with my Uighur college classmate after the riot[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]Translated by DJ on Saturday, July 11th, 2009[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]Original version in Chinese:
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[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]Note: this post is a translation of an article titled “phone conversation I had with my Uighur college classmate after the riot. There have been allegations in recent days that most of the deadly violences were carried out by outsiders of Urumqi (i.e., not residents of the city). This article contains some details of such allegations.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]
This dude is a Muslim, but strongly assimilated in the Han culture. Twenty years ago, we were classmates in a university located in the central China. He was very good at soccer, which is the sport I actively participated in. I asked for playing tips from him a number of times. He didn’t have much money. I frequently invited him for (cheap) soda drinks on me, and had a fairly good relationship with him back then. … After graduation, he got a job in the Xinjiang Civil Affairs Bureau before leaving to start a business about 10 years ago.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]We have not had contacts for years. Because I might travel to Xinjiang for business soon, I called him to say hi and ask how things are over there. I didn’t expect the phone call to go through but it did. And a conversation that I expected to last a few minutes went for an hour…[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]He is still as outspoken and talkative as I remembered. As soon as the phone got connected, he began telling me all the news of other classmates: who made a fortunate lately, who got promoted, etc.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]He was present in Urumqi on July 5th, but has since left. What he told me about the riot on 5th didn’t differ much from things I have learned online and in the media reports. So I will stick with the “official lines” and won’t repeat his descriptions.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]He particularly emphasized one issue: that many Uighurs are now very afraid and helpless. They worry about retributions from Han and even government. He kept telling me that the bloody violences had very little to do with regular Uighurs, particularly those living in Urumqi. Those Uighurs with families and jobs also loved and appreciated civil peace. Even among those with resentments towards Han people, fighting and in particular deadly violence were just completely unthinkable. “It was too much. Those people were animals, so brutal.” (Those were his original words, spoken with a strong hint of Hubei dialect. When he started learning Chinese, the teacher must have been someone from Hubei. He still cannot correct such tones twenty years later.)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]The way he put it: (he didn’t say if it was his own observation and analysis or heard from others) there were two groups of participants in the July 5th protest and riot. One consisted of Urumqi’s Uighur students and punks hanging around on the streets, influenced by messages circulated online and through SMS. They were agitated to protest in the People’s square. These people didn’t do much. They were there make some noise and release frustrations. … The other group consisted a small fraction of native Urumqi hoodlums and mainly day labors from outside, particularly those from Southern Xinjiang. Those were the core elements behind the killings and destructions. They appeared to be a lot more organized than protesters in the first group. They mixed in with other protesters at first to provoke the police. When the police mobilized to control and disperse the crowd of protesters, they slipped out, leaving others there to keep the police busy. “Where did they go and to do what? What else would they do? Those animals divided into teams to root, burn and kill!”[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]He didn’t give me time to think through and went onto the next point: this riot deeply harmed both Han and Uighur people. On the surface, the Han population suffered the most, being on the receiving end of the violences. But the Uighurs also lost a lot, implicitly. Regular Uighurs are now deeply afraid, especially when they are faced with looks of cold hatred from Han people on the streets and in the workplace. Uighurs are concerned that government would come down hard on them, and are worried about potential indiscriminate revenge attacks from Han. Most regular Uighur residents had absolutely nothing to do with the violence or even the protest. According to him, many Uighurs received phone calls and short messages urging them to go to the protest in the streets before [July 5th], but most people ignored them. Nobody could have foreseen how awful things turned out to be.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]He stressed the point that the most important task now is to dig out the direct perpetrators of violences and their organizers behind the scene. It is essential to place the blame on the real culprits and separate regular Uighur population from the suspicion. Those culprits must suffer the consequences for their actions instead of spreading dragging regular Uighurs down with them. Whichever the race, there would be some bad apples. But most regular Uighurs are peaceful and decent people. They also hate such evil elements. … After this riot, a small group of people brought incredible casualties to the Han people as well as harms to the Uighurs as a whole. They did their evil acts and now all Uighurs are dragged into the dispute. What kind of logic is this? … He said that he never felt discomfort taking as stroll on the streets, but now all he felt was awkwardness. If not for business, he would have stayed put in the home, keeping together with his wife and kids. And things could turn to the worse from now on. When and if Han people begin to look at Uighurs with hatred, the livelihood of all Uighurs would suffer. “Han is after all the majority race in this country and dominates in technology and economy. Without working with Han people, a lot of us would have to go back farming in the country side.” … “It used to be that we would enjoy shopping and eating in the city as a family. Now we cannot. All of a sudden, there are places to be avoided and we worry being on the receiving end of troubles and humiliations. How could we not be depressed and angry?”[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]In the end, he emphasized again the need to find out what truly happened and who were the culprits. Then those need to be publicized so that ethnic tension would not be heated up further. It is essential to find out the truth and let everyone know so that hatred between Uighur and Han would be reduced. “Don’t expect we Uighurs wouldn’t hate those culprits.” … “They killed and looted and now we have to suffer the consequences. How could we not feel angry towards them?”[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helv]He heard that some of our classmates were faring well in the government or private enterprises. “Perhaps some of them could have channels to talk to the central government to reflect these concerns.”[/FONT]
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