All the the reports agree that 7 were killed and 14 were injured in the attack. The incident took place outside on the streets, with the BBC, quoting, Hou, saying it occurred at an intersection while the New York Times states that the attack actually occurred on a bridge. Hou has emphasized that the victims were all local residents and belonged to several ethnicities, and, quote, innocent civilians. The Guardian, talking to an unnamed local police official, said that victims included a group of Uyghur residents who were working with local security forces in patrolling the streets and “reporting crimes.”

More valuable information can be gleaned from this Mandarin coverage from ifeng (h/t @henrykszad at Twitter). Interestingly, this article states that one person who was aiding police (Mandarin: 1名协警员) was about to lead fifteen border patrol officers (Mandarin: 带15名联防队员) in a patrol at the T-intersection of Kalatale and Wuka roads. While they were lined up on the side of the road the attacker drove his tricycle by the group and threw (抛出) an explosive at them, instantly killing 5, with 2 dying later at the hospital, 14 injured, and several vehicles at the scene, some police vehicles, some civilian vehicles damaged or destroyed. This information supplements, clarifies, and even challenges some of the information that has been divulged in the Western reports. With the information from the ifeng report when can almost pinpoint exactly where the incident occurred: not precisely in Aksu city proper, but in a suburb, Yiganqi, at the intersection mentioned above which is 50 meters West of the river dividing Aksu from Yiganqi (this explains why the earlier NYT report mentioned a bridge – if not exactly on the bridge, then the incident occurred very close to it). This is about as accurate as we can get for now:

A few things of note, the intersection that I’ve marked is on Wuka Road, but the smaller road off it is not labeled, but I’m fairly confident it is Kalatale Road as it’s a T intersection and it’s almost exactly 50 meters west of the bridge over the river. It’s very clear from the satellite imagery that this intersection leads into a Uyghur area of Aksu (the short, squat buildings and unorganized layout almost certainly makes it a Uyghur neighborhood as opposed to a Chinese neighborhood with apartment buildings arranged in roads – see Kashgar satellite imagery for another contrast), and so it does seem that the attack occurred as a patrol was about to enter or inspect a Uyghur area.

All the reports agree that the perpetrator was caught at the scene of the attack.

What will happen in the wake of this attack

If previous attacks of this nature are anything to go by, I predict that there will be a trial very soon, perhaps within the next one or two months. At the trial, the suspect will most likely “admit” connections to organized “East Turkestan” terrorist networks and may perhaps even be linked to the two alleged ETIM terrorist masterminds that were caught and implicated two months ago. Again, if the government goes by its usual playbook, after the guilty verdict and the death penalty go up and are approved by the Supreme Court the suspect will be quietly executed without much media fanfare about a year after the verdict. This Aksu incident – which will probably be immortalized in Chinese records as the “8-19 incident” （八·十九事件 or maybe 八·十九爆炸事件 or something like that) – will triumphantly be added to the litany of “terrorist attacks” that local authorities have and will refer to to make a case to both domestic and global audiences that China is a victim of international terrorism.

What should we make of it

Well. Was it terrorism?

Before we answer that, it’s important to observe the uncanny similarities between this attack and the attack that occurred in Kashgar in August of 2008. Both were attacks carried out against border patrol units that were out on the streets, patrolling. Both involved young, local males (yes, this hasn’t been established from the Aksu case, but I’m almost certain that’s what it will be) using improvised explosive devices which were tossed, used, or thrown as the attackers approached the patrol in some sort of vehicle. In spite of these explosives, both were emphatically not suicide bombings. And in both cases, the perpetrators were caught alive after killing and injuring several of their intended victims.

The methods of these two attacks, their apparent spontaneity, and their choice of target to me indicate that rather than being carefully supplied, supported, and planned strikes against targets of imminent political value, both of these attacks were on-the-spot decisions carried out by disgruntled individuals against context-specific targets using the most readily available and obvious devices. Without intending to downplay the tragic loss of life in this attack, the explosives employed by the perpetrator clearly did not require the level of pre-planning required for the Oklahoma City bombing or the level of coordination and organization required for the 9/11 hijackings. Given the importance of the farming and mining industries in the area around Aksu and Uyghurs’ participation in those industries, procuring chemically volatile materials that could harm a group of people on the street is just as feasible for a disgruntled malcontent as it is for a terrorist with transnational financial support.

But more revealing in this case are the targets of this attack, where, according to the Chinese report, one individual was leading a group of public security officers into an inspection of an obviously Uyghur neighborhood. Anything ranging from a hatred of someone perceived as a race traitor (if the informant, put mildly in Chinese as “an individual assisting the police,” was Uyghur, which seems to be the case) to something specific – perhaps the informant was specifically about to turn in or inform on the attacker for any sort of crime – could have been motivation for the attacker to grab the nearest volatile devices and attack the patrol before it could arrive. In which case, we see incidents all over the world, very frequently in the United States, where “snitches” are murdered for their collaboration with the authorities, or armed holdouts with “You’ll never catch me coppers” attitudes engage in gunfights or hostage-taking situations with the authorities. Is this terrorism? No. And so I contend that, lacking accurate and trustworthy information, which is almost always the case with incidents in Xinjiang, we cannot unilaterally consider this incident a terrorist attack. However, I anticipate that this is exactly how this incident will be portrayed given the usefulness of such an incident to the government’s ongoing efforts to depict the area as a terrorism-plagued region. That being said, we will look closely at what information gets revealed – and what information doesn’t – in the coming weeks and months.

This would be the second newsworthy case of a Uyghur immigrant from China accused of terrorism on foreign soil. The two suspects in the first case, where they were accused of planning on bombing a statue in front of the Chinese “Dragon Mart” shopping center in Dubai, were just sentenced recently to 10 years in jail followed by deportation.

For years, China has insisted that organized Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic extremism, which at various times has been labeled the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement,” the “East Turkestan Islamic Party,” and the “Turkestan Islamic Party,” is a clear a present danger to both the PRC and nations abroad. Invariably government documents and media reports has attempted to link nearly every incident of violence in Xinjiang, whether premeditated or spontaneous, to the machinations of TIP. Accordingly, given the haphazard and jury-rigged nature of most terror attempts in Xinjiang, alongside the government’s ham-fisted attempts to force mass demonstrations and riots into the “terror” narrative, many scholars and analysts have dismissed or at least questioned China’s claims, particularly in light of the benefits the Party would gain from an Islamic bogeyman and its capacity to manipulate, exaggerate, and fabricate information to serve this end.

These two incidents outside of China may mark a turning point in the discussion. Much is left to be said and discovered: does the presence of one, two, or three disaffected Uyghurs involved in Islamic extremism truly constitute proof for the existence of an organized Uyghur threat? After all, even the United States has its own renegade sons. Will Mikael Davud even be found guilty? Even though, in my opinion, the existence of three alienated Uyghurs with violent plots doesn’t get anywhere near “verifying” an organized “ETIM” threat, the Norway plots in particular are a PR coup for the PRC nonetheless since the intended target country and the identity of the suspect make good press. All it takes is a good news story to instantly put Uyghurs into the Islamic terrorist rubric: see, however, the almost decade-long struggle of the Guantanamo Uyghurs for how much blood, sweat, and tears must go into undoing the terrorist label.

It has been interesting following the chatter on the forums of the Uyghur American Association following the announcement of the arrests. If one thing is plain, it is that diaspora Uyghurs are extremely nervous about the damage a single allegation against a Uyghur terror suspect in a Western country could do to the international reputation of Uyghurs as a whole. For example, on the 10th, a forum visitor excitedly made a post titled, “Good news! It looks like he’s [Mikael Davud] is not a Uyghur!”.

According to the latest information, which I’ve posted below, his name apparently is “Mikael Dawut.” This thug is definitely someone who’s just calling himself a Uyghur, Uyghurs don’t use the name Mikael. Uyghurs in Norway should immediately get in touch with the Norwegian government and make it clear that he’s just someone who’s called himself Uyghur. We must do this to end anxieties among the Uyghurs and clear the name of the Uyghurs!

Of course, having a weird name is pretty poor evidence, and other forum-goers noted this. In a response titled “Don’t be to too quick to claim this is good news,” a replier said:

I’m always happy to hear good news, and if that were the case that would be great, but when you attain Norwegian citizenship it’s possible to adopt a new name, maybe he’s one of those who decided to adopt a foreign name.

Diaspora Uyghurs for the most part live in tight-knit communities, and so it didn’t take long for the channels between and among the American and Norwegian Uyghur communities to take note of Davud’s presence – or in this case, absence – among the local communities and at community events. A most informative post, apparently written by a Norwegian Uyghur, titled “He is Uyghur, his original name was Rashidin Muhemmet,” had this to say:

Today’s issue of VG [Verdens Gangs], one of Norway’s biggest newspapers, revealed everything.

The 39 year old terror suspect is indeed Uyghur, his original name is Rashidin Muhemmet, he’s from Ghulja, and in 1999 he applied for political refugee status at the UN Refugee Commission’s Almaty branch, gained asylum, and with a few other Uyghurs was set up in Bergen city in Norway. In 2003 he disappeared from Bergen and was later discovered that he had moved to Sarpsborg, a city in southeast Norway near the Swedesh border. When he applied for Norwegian citizenship in 2007 he changed his name to “Mikael Davud.”

The author then apparently departs from VG’s exposes and goes on to share some information on Norwegian Uyghurs’ thoughts on Mikael Davud.

A vast majority of Uyghurs living in Norway had no idea that such a Uyghur even existed in Norway. Even people who had originally known of him gradually forgot about him. This was because he would never come to any Uyghur get-togethers – Nowvruz celebrations, demonstrations, wedding celebrations – in any event, he lived ten days’ journey away from any place that had Uyghurs. When he lived in Bergen, other Uyghurs who lived there knew of him, but other than a few other radical Uyghurs living in Bergen he spent most of his time with Arabs. “I won’t study an infidel language,” he would say, and studied Arabic instead of Norwegian. In public, if someone would ask him “What’s your ethnicity, where did you come from?” he’d answer, “I’m a Muslim from Turkestan.”

The terror suspect Rashidin originally was a Uyghur, a descendent of Uyghurs from East Turkestan, however, after he grew up, left his homeland, and “had his eyes opened,” he changed and insisted that calling himself “Uyghur” was wrong, was against Islam, becoming one of those people who says he is of the “Muslim” ethnicity.

And so it’s not wrong if we say that “He’s not a Uyghur” and throw him out from the ranks of Uyghur-ness, however, because he said “I’m a Uyghur” when he was applying for asylum to the UN Refugee Commission and wrote as such on his paperwork, and because a “Muslim ethnicity” wasn’t available as an option, the Norwegian government has outed him as a Uyghur and will continue to treat him as such.

A couple things of note. If we’re to believe this personal account, then Davud explicitly subscribed to a form of Islamic extremism that called for one’s Musilm identity to supersede and replace one’s ethnic identity. This is not an idea that’s foreign to Al-Qaeda rhetoric, or even to Islam in general, where one’s identity as a Muslim is meant to be primary and singular. In other words, it’s not strange to see a terror suspect such as Davud disavow an ethnic identity for the sake of a religious one. Should this be true, it’s important that analysts and scholars to distinguish between a nationalist cause and a religious one among Uyghurs, especially if the two on their own are making efforts to separate themselves, and they are, with Davud saying “I’m a Muslim” when asked about his ethnicity, and, obviously, with forum posters like this trying to make it clear that Davud was separate from the “community” and vocal about the precedence of his religious beliefs.

More fascinating for the realm of identity politics is the idea, implied strongly here, that should one publicly disavow his Uyghur identity, as Davud did, and adopt another one, then he or she is no longer a Uyghur. Perhaps my translation is a little clunky, but the last sentence uses the rarely seen (for me anyway) Uyghurluq which I take to mean “Uyghurhess” or “Uyghurhood,” and the verb in the sentence means to completely, entirely throw or eject Davud out from the hallowed halls of “Uyghurhood.” The writer even emphasizes that such a person has disavowed his Uyghur identity even though he is the descendant of “Uyghurs from East Turkestan.” In other words, he has un-Uyghured himself even in spite of his blood heritage.

Much has been written about the “ethnogenesis” of the Uyghur, and much also has been written about the existence of a tangible ethnic identity in the Tarim Basin even before the term Uyghur was revived. Some apologists for the PRC gleefully point to the traceable rise of the term “Uyghur” as indication that there is something inauthentic or fake about their ethnic identity. I think the implications of this one person’s understanding of “Uyghurness” indicate that Uyghurs themselves often realize that “Uyghur” is a flexible ethnic category, and even acknowledging this in no way detracts from the strength or authenticity of the Uyghur ethnic identity. I find such a unique take on what it means to “be Uyghur” a fresh perspective – coming from a Uyghur individual – to the idea of Uyghur identity.

A few hours ago, Public Security spokesperson Wu Heping held a news conference to divulge details on an alleged Uyghur terrorist plot that apparently was foiled by Public Security forces recently. The most comprehensive Mandarin-language report is hosted at China Net and contains a transcript of Wu’s speech as well as several photos of confiscated evidence and two of the suspects identified as ringleaders. Intriguingly, the Ministry of Public Security claims that this recent crime bust has connections with the Uyghur refugees who were deported from Cambodia in December of last year and the Kashgar and Kuche attacks that occurred in Xinjiang during the Olympic Games.

On June 24, 2010 (Thursday) at 10 o’clock, at a second-floor multi-purpose reception hall of the Asia Grand Hotel, Vice-Director of the Ministry of Public Security General Office and spokesperson Wu Heping reported information on Chinese Public Security organs thwarting a major terrorist plot. Below is a transcript of the news conference:

Wu Heping:

Friends, ladies, gentlemen, good morning to all of you. I’d like to warmly welcome everyone to the Ministry of Public Security’s news conference, the topic of today’s conference is the circumstances surrounding the recent breaking up of a terrorist plot by Chinese Public Security agencies.

Recently, Chinese Public Security agencies foiled a major terrorist plot, arresting plot leaders Abudurexiti Abulaiti (male, from Shache County, Xinjiang, 42) and Yiming Semaier (Male, from Yuepuhu County, Xinjiang, 33) and over 10 other terrorist conspirators, both key and peripheral members, seizing explosives, detonator equipment, and other various criminal implements, forcefully thwarting a terrorist conspiracy and promptly eliminating a concealed threat to social security.

Clues leading to this major terrorist plot were first discovered in 2009 in relation to an illegal border crossing case. On December, 20th, 2009, 20 individuals of Chinese citizenship illegally crossed the border into another country but were then deported and were, according to the usual practice, taken into custody by Chinese police. Afterwards, Chinese police, in line with humanitarian sentiment, quickly released 1 woman and 2 children among those individuals, even setting up living arrangements for them. The remaining 17 were, according to the law, investigated, and this revealed that three of them were fugitive terrorist suspects wanted by the police，all of whom had connections to the recently arrested  core terrorists Abudurexiti Abulaiti and Yiming Semaier.

The Public Security investigation has ascertained that terrorist ringleader Abudurexiti Abulaiti was dispatched into China by the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” from outside the country’s borders, and that Yiming Semaier is a core member of “East Turkestan” terrorist forces. This terrorist organization has planned and carried out several terrorist plots since 2008, including the vehicle attack against Public Security Frontier Defense Officers in Kashgar and the terrorist explosives attacks in Kucha carried during the Beijing Olympics; both were perpetrated by members of this terrorist organization.

During  interrogation Abudurexiti Abulaiti, Yiming Semaier, and others have confessed to traveling through Xinjiang, Henan, Guangdong, Yunnan, and other provinces, secretly carrying out extremist religious activities, developing and training members, setting up terrorist organizations, actively collecting funds, seeking in many places materials for creating improvised explosives, carrying out multiple tests explosions in preparation for the implementation of destructive terrorist activities. For the sake of making the greatest impact, from July to October of 2009 they prepared tens of improvised explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, knives, hatchets, and other implements, plotting to carry out successive, large scale attacks in Kashgar, Khotan, Aksu, and other places. When their criminal terrorist schemes were timely discovered and thwarted by Public Security agencies, a small number of key members of this terrorist group fled to Guangdong, Yunnan, and other regions; congregating in batches and exiting the country from the southwest border areas of the nation. During their escape, the collectively swore an oath to join the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” terrorist organization, to send pictures and other personal information to the email addresses of “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” ringleaders, seek out specific escape routes, and, in doing so, attempt to join the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” terrorist organization abroad. Public Security agencies have learned that these individuals received support and funds from representatives of “East Turkestan” organizations during the process of their escape across borders.

The vanquishing of this major terrorist organization once again proves that the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” and other terrorist organizations are the main terrorist threats our country faces both presently and in the coming future. Chinese Public Security agencies will firmly uphold and fulfill the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council and strike a serious blow to every type of terrorist activity, conscientiously protecting social stability.

That’s all for today’s news conference. Thank you.

The last time Xinjiang had an incident involving a an airplane was March 2008, when Xinhua reported that a young Uyghur woman, apparently in the company of an older man and under the direction of a Pakistani national, attempted to bomb an airplane with a soda can full of gasoline in order to sabotage the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  The fate of the accused girl is still in question, as is the veracity of the state’s narrative of that event.  (For the best blogging on this, see Mutant Palm here and here.)

Babur Mexsut is known to the Swedish and world Uyghur community as a loyal member of the movement. He was arrested, in fact, shortly after returning from a meeting of the World Uyghur Congress (Dunya Uyghur Quriltiyi) in Washington, DC, where he was a guest. Babur Mexsut appears in photographs that show him at rallies holding the blue-and-white East Turkestani flag. Radio Free Asia, which has based its research on rumors from the Uyghur community and interviews with some of its members, that Babur Mexsut is a long-time friend of several prominent members of the Congress. Dilshat Rishit, a frequent spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress who traveled with Babur to Washington, DC, described him as a typical older gentleman, very friendly and welcoming, who acted his age. Babur, said Dilshat Rishit, had never mentioned anything to him about working for the PRC and made comments to him about his desire to work more for the Uyghur cause during his retirement.

According to several individuals interviewed by Radio Free Asia, however, Babur was not above suspicion. Maynur, the head of the Swedish Uyghur Organization, was the first to reveal Babur Mexsut’s identity publicly. She expressed feelings of relief at the vindication of her community’s long-held suspicions of Babur. Maynur urged patience, however, on the part of the world Uyghur community.

More damning is the testimonial of Abdurishit Haji Kerimi, an old acquaintance of Babur, whom he met in Kashgar in the 1990s. According to Kerimi, Babur disappeared the day after the conference. Later, Babur borrowed Kerimi’s cellular phone, as his own was not working, to make several calls. When Kerimi inspected the numbers Babur had dialed, he found several calls to China and to Urumchi, as well as some to the very Chinese embassy in Washington, DC in front of which they had been protesting.

Radio Free Asia has been especially aggressive in seeking out evidence against Babur Mexsut’s character, as well as of the crimes of which he is accused. RFA journalists seem to be looking for any evidence of deviance in Babur’s behavior during the conference. On 19 June, RFA revealed, that Rabiye Kadeer refused Babur’s offer of a donation of 100
000 Euros. The organization also contacted several very old acquaintances of Babur, now living abroad. Their interviews, together with information offered by Kerimi, give us a sense of Babur Mexsut’s biography, albeit one in an unflattering light. The following depicts Babur as a lifelong outsider, just the sort of lonely young man who finds his home with the state.

Babur Mexsut, one of ten children, was born in 1948 in Lanzhou, the son of a Uyghur fruit seller from Kashgar and a Hui (Dungan) woman from Lanzhou. Although his father was poorly-educated, he was of Turkic nationalist inclinations. Soon after Babur was born, the family moved with a group of Uyghurs to Tianjin, where Babur was raised. Babur Mexsut was educated in Chinese and spoke little to no Uyghur, a language he has apparently not grasped fully to this day. (In this light, the early suggestion by RFA that the accused spy was a Uyghur with fluent Chinese may have already identified him to the community.) He kept his distance from other children, preferring the company of adults. In 1969, when Babur was 21, his father, in his sixties, moved the family to Khotan. Babur, it seems, followed in his father’s footsteps, mostly engaging in light trade. When he met Kerimi in Kashgar, he still spoke mostly in Chinese. Eventually, in 1997, Babur made his way to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, whence he moved to Sweden. His younger sister, it seems, wanted to move from Xinjiang to Sweden to live with him, a plan he rejected. Babur apparently resembles his father.

Babur Mexsut’s court date has been rescheduled for 2 July, partly because this is an international problem and partly because it has been difficult to find a lawyer.

Investigations into the accusations of espionage have prompted Sweden to expel one Chinese diplomat. In response, the PRC has expelled a member of the Swedish embassy staff. Neither country has officially confirmed this. The Swedish spokesman, in response to a question from Agence France Presse, did confirm that there had been mutual expulsions, but would not confirm with which country. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, when questioned by another AFP journalist, pretended to have no idea what the reporter was talking about.

Sources:

18 June 2009 (Radio Free Asia) ﺷﯟﯦﺘﺴﯩﻴﯩﺪﯨﻜﻰ ﺋﯘﻳﻐﯘﺭ ﺟﺎﺳﯘﺱ ﮔﯘﻣﺎﻧﺪﺍﺭﯨﻨﯩﯔ ﺋﯩﺴﻤﻰ ﺋﺎﺷﻜﺎﺭﯨﻼﻧﺪﻯ

18 June 2009 (Radio Free Asia) ﺟﺎﺳﯘﺱ ﮔﯘﻣﺎﻧﺪﺍﺭﻯ ﺑﺎﺑﯘﺭ ﻣﻪﺧﺴﯘﺕ ﻫﻪﻗﻘﯩﺪﻩ ﻣﻪﻟﯘﻣﺎﺗﻼﺭ 1

22 June 2009 (Radio Free Asia) ﺟﺎﺳﯘﺱ ﮔﯘﻣﺎﻧﺪﺍﺭﻯ ﺑﺎﺑﯘﺭ ﻣﻪﺧﺴﯘﺕ ﻫﻪﻗﻘﯩﺪﻩ ﻣﻪﻟﯘﻣﺎﺗﻼﺭ 2

22 June 2009 (Radio Free Asia) ﺟﺎﺳﯘﺱ ﮔﯘﻣﺎﻧﺪﺍﺭﻯ ﺑﺎﺑﯘﺭ ﻣﻪﺧﺴﯘﺕ ﺭﺍﺑﯩﻴﻪ ﻗﺎﺩﯨﺮ ﺧﺎﻧﯩﻤﻐﺎ 100 ﻣﯩﯔ ﻳﺎﯞﺭﻭ ﻳﺎﺭﺩﻩﻡ ﺗﻪﻛﻠﯩﭙﻰ ﺳﯘﻧﻐﺎﻥ

22 June 2009 (Radio Free Asia) ﺷﯟﯦﺘﺴﯩﻴﻪ ‘ ﺑﺎﺑﯘﺭ ﺟﺎﺳﯘﺳﻠﯘﻕ ﯞﻩﻗﻪﺳﻰ’ ﮔﻪ ﭼﯧﺘﯩﺸﻠﯩﻖ ﺧﯩﺘﺎﻱ ﺩﯨﭙﻠﻮﻣﺎﺗﯩﻨﻰ ﭼﯩﮕﺮﯨﺪﯨﻦ ﻗﻮﻏﻼﭖ ﭼﯩﻘﺎﺭﻏﺎﻥ

22 June 2009 (The Local) Sweden Expels Chinese Diplomat: Report

24 June 2009 (联合报网) 传瑞典驱逐 涉谍报中国外交官 中国以牙还牙

24 June 2009 (Sina) 瑞典被指驅逐中國外交官

Translation:

“On the Pakistani and Chinese media full of nonsense”

Abdullah Mansur

29/4/2009

[Arabic]

In the Name of God the Most Merciful, the Most Kind

Praise be to God, and Prayers and Salutations to the Prophet of God. But now,

[Uyghur]

In order to achieve its own political goals, the Chinese government, a habitual braggart who is always making up ridiculous things, has in recent times changed its methods, and having taught this game to Pakistan and other of its lackeys, has begun to play it together.

To people of sound mind, this is not something secret.

In this unsightly political game, where the second list of terrorism suspects came to nothing, the Chinese government had conducted itself in a way not befitting the government of a state, and had been disgraced before the people of the world.

In Afghanistan, the American government, in need of help in today’s difficult circumstances where they cannot do without a crutch, made China happy by labeling the Turkistan Islamic Party as terrorists and obtained China’s economic, political, and some military assistance.

In this situation, the Chinese government happily stained its lips and once again set about playing with the government of Pakistan internationally. According to what is known of this game, nine Uyghur members of the Turkistan Islamic Party, which has organized attacks on the Pakistani Security Forces, were supposedly arrested and handed over to China.

The Chinese government, which has all the time been imprisoning the people of Eastern Turkistan without reason, making false accusations and deceiving people, had in recent months, through the hands of its concubine Pakistan, arrested several Eastern Turkistanis occupied with their own private studies and business in Lahore and other cities.

In this way, the Chinese government has sought to show that it is a powerful country can challenge the Turkistan Islamic Party and to
break the spirit of pious Muslims living inside and outside the motherland. The Pakistani government has made this empty disclosure aiming to show its collaboration with the Chinese government against the Turkistan Islamic Party through concrete actions, and that it is reducing the pressure on both sides by blocking the flow of Eastern Turkistani Muslims to the jihad region of Pakistan and Afghanistan with the goal of preparing for jihad.

In recent times, the Pakistan government has not captured or handed over to China a single member of the Turkistan Islamic Party.

A state with the slightest sense of honor would of course not take pride in such falsification. Thus it would be best for the Pakistan and Chinese governments to tidy up this foolish propaganda which is now exposed. Likewise, the world’s news agencies would save themselves embarrassment if they more carefully relayed the propaganda of these states who go around making atom bombs out of “hot air.”

We would like to openly warn you: If any country captures a member of the Turkistan Islamic Party and hands them over to China, they will definitely receive a concrete response. This response, of course, will not be something for them to hear, but to see.

It will be most beneficial for the people of the world, among them the people of Eastern Turkistan, to clearly comprehend that, in the view of the Chinese, each
Eastern Turkistani living abroad, no matter who they are, is an enemy and terrorist. Their strongest desire is to seize them one by one, or group by group if possible, not leaving a single one, and imprison them and their land Eastern Turkistan.

For this reason, we honestly recommend that all the oppressed people of Eastern Turkistan living in exile stand alert on full guard against this viciousness of the Chinese government.

Commentary:

I feel very strongly that the speaker has Yarkand accent. The “r”s are a giveaway, as they are sometimes American and sometimes palatal glides. Note also his raised vowels and some odd moments where he seems to palatalize what would be a stop consonant in standard Uyghur, i.e. äjiship instead of ägiship. This may be immaterial. The last time we saw a video like this was when TIP spokesman Sayfullah threatened the Olympic Games. It was difficult to make much out, but he certainly rolled his “r”s.

On another linguistic note, this video uses, for the first time in my experience, the term hijrät to refer to the Uyghur diaspora. Hijrät, from Arabic, means “flight,” as in the hijra, when Muhammed fled from Mecca to Medina. This is an interesting cue, doubtless employed self-consciously, to emphasize Islamic, rather than ethnic or national, kinship. A brief, unscientific survey of secular Uyghurs shows me that this usage is highly marked, creative, and clearly charged with Islamic symbolism.

Similarly, the speaker only uses the word “Uyghur” once, preferring “East Turkestani.” As I noted in a recent post on an interview with Rabiyä Qadir, this is language that makes the problems in Xinjiang more than Uyghur issues. While Rabiyä Qadir reaches beyond Uyghurs to anyone living in the region, emphasizing cooperation with non-Muslims for the sake of national self-determination, the TIP plays up the Muslim angle. This is more likely to inspire violence within Xinjiang, but Islam could be a much better catalyst for action in Xinjiang, especially among rural Turkic Muslims who have not completely internalized the idea of an ethnonational identity.

Finally, catch the last line of the speech. “…stand alert on full guard…” If you’re a terrorist, scaring the people for whom you claim to struggle, putting them on “alert,” is a great way to get them to do your job for you.

Here is my translation, doubtless below par, of a recent interview with Rabiyä Qadir (Rebiya Kadeer, رابىيە قادىر) published on 6 May 2009 in the Italian Communist daily Il Manifesto.  Commentary follows.

Independence is impossible, we will struggle for autonomy

Rebiya Kadeer has lived her sixty years as though on a rollercoaster. The leader-in-exile of the Uyghurs of Xinjiang (a region of northwestern China, with a Muslim majority) has experienced long years of poverty and a brief, enormous wealth as a result of her trade throughout China; the honor of a seat in the National People’s Congress and the suffering of five years in police detention. These and other chapters of Kadeer’s life – three times a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize – are recounted in her biography, The Gentle Warrior [Die Himmelsstürmerin], just published by Corbaccio. A member of the Transnational Radical Party, on Monday and Tuesday, the “Mother of the Uyghurs,” as she likes to call herself, was in Rome, where she yesterday took part in a meeting of the Committee for Human Rights of the Chamber of Deputies. Over the next few days, she will address the assembly of the World Uyghur Congress, where her reconfirmation as President appears decided. We have discussed with Kadeer the strategies of the movement and the situation in Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs (about 8 million) complain of an attempt to assimilate them on the part of Beijing.

In the most recent stage of your life, you lead the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). What mark have you left while at the top of the umbrella of this Uyghur diaspora organization?

At the end of 2006, my objective had been to unite all of the Uyghurs dispersed across the four corners of the world, creating various associations that would be recognized in the World Uyghur Congress. These groups are making the world aware of the problems of our people and are busy promoting our language, history, and culture among the new generation forced to live far from East Turkestan (the name by which the Uyghurs call Xinjiang –ed.). And in the last three years, for the first time, our petitions were brought to the attention of the Parliament of the European Union, United States, and Germany, where I had the opportunity to speak.

Have you managed to maintain contacts with Xinjiang, despite the strict security measures enacted by the authorities in Beijing?

Since we have been branded a “terrorist organization” by China, it has been particularly difficult. Nevertheless, we have our ways. This is despite the fact that anyone who tries to access an internet page that talks about me or our organization will be treated as a “terrorist.”

Do you not believe that China’s economic development – which has brought construction and infrastructure to Xinjiang – is also to the benefit of the Uyghurs?

The only advantage in the development of East Turkestan is Beijing’s. While our natural resources – natural gas, petroleum, uranium, and others – are transferred to the Interior, we Uyghurs are excluded from the labor market and, through the prohibition of instruction in the Uyghur language, our culture will be wiped out. The economic marginalization of the Uyghurs has been achieved through the bingtuan [Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps – trans.], an enormous organization for military production – distributed mainly along the border with Central Asia – is intended to provide homes and work for millions of Han immigrants.

In your book, you recount the spontaneous protests staged during the 80s and 90s by the Uyghur population against the presence of Han colonizers. What about today?

Now, the only expressions of dissent that are allowed are those abroad. Since the opening up of the 80s and 90s, we have returned to a situation similar to that of the Cultural Revolution.

How are their relations with the Han, the ethnic majority in China?

They can have excellent relations with the Han, of understanding and of mutual respect. But the situation changed with the immigration to East Turkestan. Here we have made life impossible: The very fact of discussing politics, the problems of our people, brings the Uyghurs to be labeled as “separatists,” “Islamic fundamentalists,” “terrorists.”

Before the Olympics in August 2008, Beijing had distributed news of attacks in Xinjiang. What information do you have about these events?

They were staged. What we must stress is that[?], before the Games, 15 000 Uyghurs were arrested and locked up under accusations of “terrorism.” Thanks to the platform offered by the more important sports events, the Beijing authorities had manufactured a belief around the world that there were thousands of terrorists in East Turkestan, thus legitimizing further oppressive constraints on our people.

Last February, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while visiting Beijing, said: We will pressure for human rights, but, in these economic times, other things come first. Have you lost your chief ally?

Unfortunately, at this time, the economic crisis is at the top of the agenda for the great powers. But our pressure on the State Department has continued, and I trust that we can continue to receive the support that we need from Washington.

You protested because Islamabad has recently extradited to Beijing nine Uyghurs who trained in Pakistan to attack China. Doesn’t Beijing have the right to defend itself?

In recent years, Pakistan extradited 21 Uyghurs captured in Afghanistan to the United States. These people were then declared innocent by Washington: Some of them found asylum in Albania, and the others still await freedom.

Let us leave the alleged terrorists aside. Are you not afraid that, in the condition of isolation in which Xinjiang has been constrained, there may have prevailed among its people a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam?

Traditionally, the Uyghurs have had nothing to do with fundamentalism. Every day, however, in East Turkestan, some Uyghurs are arrested because they have been accused of being Islamic fundamentalists. For Beijing, a “terrorist” and an “integralist” [one who adheres to an extreme or traditionalist interpretation of Islam, rather pejorative; some prefer "active Islam" or "political Islam" – trans.] are the same thing. These are labels that are applied to hide their policies towards us: prohibition on the distribution of Uyghur literature, the forced transportation of Uyghur girls into the Chinese interior, birth control, limitations on Islamic practice, immigration of millions of Han and the lack of work for us, execution of political prisoners. Xinjiang is the only region of China where they still condone death sentence for political prisoners.

If China grants real autonomy, will you renounce the dream of an independent East Turkestan?

We demand freedom. Today, only a minority of our people hope for independence. We fight for a true autonomy, such as that demanded by the Dalai Lama for Tibet. And this autonomy can only be obtained within a more general process: that of the democratization of China, one that benefits the whole population, not only the Uyghurs. If they give us liberty, we would be prepared to live with the millions of Han settlers who have been sent to our homeland.

Some thoughts:

Rabiyä Qadir is a politician. Just as the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, Wen Jiabao, Tarja Halonen, Abdullah Öcalan or anyone else in a position of leadership must satisfy the demands and play to the sentiments of a diverse community, so must she. Previously, it has been easier to dismiss her as a figurehead, an actor in political theater, prone to yelling and ranting and riling up her base of angry Uyghurs, pan-Turkists, sympathetic Westerners, etc. In this interview, Rabiyä Qadir comes across as a much savvier player. The talking points are broadly the same, but she makes some key concessions.

The most surprising is when she declares that the goal of her movement is not independence, but human rights and autonomy, not only for Uyghurs, but for all of China. This is not just an imitation of the policies of the Dalai Lama, who is an obvious point of comparison; that, I think, is a useful conceit for helping a European audience understand her movement and the situation in her homeland. Rather, this broader humanitarian goal has been a theme of Rabiyä Qadir’s for some time, albeit one not usually shared or emphasized by the broader Uyghur or East Turkestan movement. Early on, she framed herself not only as the “Mother of the Uyghurs,” taking a page from the early modern nationalist playbook digested fully by her cohorts abroad, but also as someone fighting for the rights of everyone in Xinjiang, even Han Chinese. The Uyghur independence movement, as I know it, is a fractious organization staffed by elites whose navel-gazing obsessions with self-definition prevent it from being taken seriously or achieving much internationally. If Rabiyä Qadir can successfully get them to become a much more broadly inclusive organization, then she may prove to be the leader the movement needs to gain real political traction. This pragmatic and less overtly hostile or racist stance gives the Uyghur rights/independence movement a much more mature face.

Rabiyä Qadir also dodges a sensitive question about the PRC’s right to defend itself. What would happen if she conceded that point? It would be of no help to Beijing, which has no interest in presenting her as an authority figure. It would certainly upset a certain section of her base, particularly actual supporters of Islamic fundamentalist and/or terrorist groups operating in or on behalf of East Turkestan. These are people who, I think, are not yet in the company of the broader, more ethno-nationalistic movement, but who could be drawn into it and away from violent action. This may account for her admonishment of the PRC for conflating terrorists and Islamic activists. I think, rather, that she did not want to say “No.” If Rabiyä Qadir claimed that the PRC has no right to defend itself, she would lose credibility as a mature leader and certainly provide fodder for PRC propagandists who, as she frequently reminds us, label her a “terrorist.”

Overall, I think we are seeing Rabiyä Qadir come into her own as a leader. At the very least, she is getting better advice on statesmanship. It is somewhat sad, I think, to see the Uyghur/East Turkestani movement give up on its central hope of a free and independent state, one that has always been imagined with lofty ideals in mind. This new vision, however, demonstrates that the movement is not entirely mired in the pre-1949 past, but that certain influential segments of it are willing to engage with present-day political realities.

There is little information about who these Uyghurs are and what they did; according to Radio Free Asia, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has divulged nothing more than the detainee’s alleged participation in the abovementioned “activities.” The news, however, did spawn some interviews between Radio Free Asia journalists and Uyghurs living in Pakistan and Turkey, where various members of the Uyghur diaspora speculated that the Uyghurs may have been captured in “Operation Black Thunder,” a military offensive by the Pakistani military directed at Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.

One Pakistani newspaper wrote that the captured Uyghurs had connections to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Turkistan Islamic Party, however, swiftly released a video just yesterday denying that the captured Uyghurs were members of their organization (which itself may or may not have connections to Al-Qaeda) and added further that no members of their organization have been captured and that, instead, Pakistan had apprehended, on China’s behalf, innocent businessmen and students studying in Lahore, the implication being that Pakistan has a dragnet out for Uyghur expatriates in case China needs to be appeased. The video ends with a threat of “real action” against any countries who extradite TIP members to China.

In contrast to previous material released by the Turkistan Islamic Party, the audio here is very crisp and the voice enunciated well, and so a transcription and translation is forthcoming.

As I’ve observed several times before, it’s always interesting to see how strategic media organizations are when releasing information about Xinjiang simultaneously both in English and in Chinese. Bekri’s words on the stability of Xinjiang were deemed worthy enough to translate into English by the folks over at China Daily, and their coverage can be found here where the writer spun the story as a concerned regional leader warning his constituents and the people of China that the worse is yet to come.

The security situation in China’s northwestern region Xinjiang will be “severer” this year, the regional governor said here Friday.

“The (security) situation will be more severe, the task more arduous, and the struggle more fierce in the region this year,” Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said on the sidelines of the annual parliament session.

This characterization of course is not incorrect – “brace yourselves, people of Xinjiang” is certainly part of the message here, and it doesn’t take a genius to ferret out the political advantages of constantly telling the populace that the menacing enemy is just around the corner and is this close to ruining your lives. Rather, this English version of Bekri’s words is a tad incomplete. The China Daily does insert one quote of Bekri’s thoughts on the origins of these seditious activities.

The “three forces” have foreign backings, he said, adding they could not survive without foreign support.

“They don’t want to see Xinjiang’s prosperity,” he said.

However, missing from this English version of events us Nur Bekri’s unambiguous declaration that Western hostile forces are what everyone should be worrying about here. Over at Tian Shan Net, you can read a more complete account of what Nur Bekri told reporters.

现在的新疆经济发展、民族团结、社会稳定、边防巩固，呈现出令人鼓舞的大好局面。但是，西方敌对势力一刻都没有放松和停止对我进行分裂破坏活动。今年是新中国成立60周年，也是新疆和平解放60周年，“三股势力”决不会善罢甘休，我们面临的反分裂形势更加严峻，任务更加繁重，斗争形势将更为激烈。

Today’s Xinjiang has seen encouraging developments in economic growth, ethnic unity, societal stability, and the strengthening of border defense. Nonetheless, Western hostile forces have not spared a single moment in carrying out splittest, destructive activities against us. This year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China, and is also the 60th anniversary of Xinjiang’s peaceful liberation, the “Three Forces” will certainly not stand idly by, and the anti-splittest situation we face will be more severe, the task more arduous, and the struggle more fierce.

Assuming that the English-language publications of the China Daily are meant for Western readers, it appears that the editors did us all the favor of tastefully removing the phrase “Western hostile forces” to spare us from the rather alarming accusation Bekri is making.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the modern Chinese conception of “the West” does not include international Islamist terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, the government’s outward strategy in regard to local discontent in Xinjiang was to paint the whole thing as a part of global Islamic extremism, culminating the successful persuasion of the US State Department to designate the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group. Many Xinjiang scholars and academics mark this domestic characterization of discontent in Xinjiang as a sort of paradigm shift, since before 2001, when by objective measures violent activities were far more numerous, the governmental strategy was to simply hide the incidents as much as possible and claim total peace and stability as the norm in Xinjiang.

This, however, marks the second time since his ascension to the chairmanship of Xinjiang that Nur Bekri either sloppily or intentionally peppers his discussion of violent incidents in Xinjiang with the phrase “Western hostile forces” (西方敌对势力). The first time was back in September when Bekri delivered a massive speech to party officials in which he again identified “Western hostile forces” as the origin and financial backers of the “three forces” (of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism) within Xinjiang, which, in turn, are what brought about the violent criminal acts Xinjiang saw before and during the Olympics. In it, “Western forces”, the “Three Forces”, and international Islamic organizations like Al-Qaeda were mentioned with equal fervor and frequency; this time, as Bekri spoke briefly with reporters no mention of Al-Qaeda and the like occurred at all.

It certainly is up in the air how representative Bekri’s speeches and interviews are of general thinking among party leadership in Xinjiang, and certainly two instances do not by any means constitute a trend, but nonetheless I find it interesting how much polemic flak “Western forces” receive in Bekri’s rhetoric as opposed to extremist Islam which since 2001 has been identified by the government as the origin and backer of violence in Xinjiang. At the very least we may be seeing a tendency on the part of one high ranking Xinjiang official to – again, either because of semantic sloppiness or because of a deliberate agenda – blur the boundary between diasporic Uyghur organizations such as the World Uyghur Congress and individuals such as Rebiya Kadeer, which belong to the “Western hostile forces” rubric, and organizations such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement which, according to the government, are Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda. To Bekri it appears that “Western hostile forces” take precedence over Islamic extremist ideology infiltrating from Central and Southern Asia. At the most, we could possibly be seeing another gradual shift in the way governmental officials think about discontent in Xinjiang – though, of course, before I can take my speculation that far we’ll simply  have to wait and see more of what Nur Bekri and other governmental leaders have to say about the issue.

According to the Tian Shan article, these individuals were honored under the third article of the “Regulations for the Canonization of Revolutionary Martyrs,” which deems individuals who “valiantly sacrifice their lives to protect or rescue human lives, national property, or collective property” and “meet death at the hands of the enemy while carrying out revolutionary responsibilities, or are captured and meet death at the hands of the enemy for remaining steadfast, or are persecuted unto death” worthy of the title.

With Uyghur rendered into pinyin, the three revolutionary martyrs who died in separate incidents are:

• Ma Jun (马军), for sacrificing himself to prevent arson
• Tuerhong Niyazi (吐尔洪·尼亚孜), for valiantly sacrificing himself to save a youth who had fallen into a body of water
  
• Wang Chunsheng (王春生), for sacrificing himself to save Tuerhong Niyazi

The seven honored victims of the attacks that occurred during the summer, all Uyghurs, are:

• Nueraili Aihemaiti (努尔艾力·艾合买提)
• Kuerban Yakufu(库尔班·牙库甫)
• Maimaitiaili Kuerban (麦麦提艾力·库尔班)
• Tuermaimaiti Abola (图尔麦麦提·阿卜拉)
• Duolikun Abudukelimu (多力昆·阿不都克力木)
• Abudureaji Kadier (阿布都热阿吉·卡迪尔)
• Yimingjiang Kadier(依明江·卡迪尔)

The AP article mentions that the victims of the heavy truck attack in Kashgar were all named revolutionary martyrs shortly afterward, whereas it took a good half-year for these victims to be given the honor. I’m curious as to what explains the discrepency; obviously there are a set of regulations defining who can be elevated to the stats of revolutionary martyr, but while both the Kashgar victims and the victims above died during surprise attacks, the first group was honored swiftly whereas the second group was honored only after what one assumes was a lengthy vetting.

The article makes no mention of the fate of the drowning youth that both Tuerhong Niyazi and Wang Chunsheng died to save.