In September, a group of knife-wielding men laid siege to a coal mine in China\u2019s far west, killing at least 11 civilians, three policemen and two paramilitary police officers — a death toll greater than January\u2019s assault by Islamic terrorists on the Charlie Hebdo magazine office in Paris.<\/p>\n
Julie Makinen
Nov 20, 2015 In September, a group of knife-wielding men laid siege to a coal mine in China\u2019s far west, killing at least 11 civilians, three policemen and two paramilitary police officers — a death toll greater than January\u2019s assault by Islamic terrorists on the Charlie Hebdo magazine office in Paris.<\/p>\n
But until this week — more than two months after the incident — Chinese authorities never even so much as acknowledged the attack had happened. State-run media carried no dispatches on it, though Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-government funded news outlet that runs a Uighur-language service and is blocked by Chinese Internet censors — published several reports, putting the death toll as high as 50. (A brief online statement and photos last Saturday from China’s Ministry of Public Security, posted soon after the Paris terrorist attacks, was quickly taken offline.)<\/p>\n
Finally, on Friday, the state-run Tianshan and Xinhua news agencies carried triumphantreports announcing that Xinjiang police had, after a 56-day manhunt involving gunfights, \u201cdisbanded a terrorist group,\u201d killing 28 suspects and securing the surrender of a 29th.<\/p>\n
The official reports added that the \u201cterrorist group was directly guided by an overseas extremist group\u201d and was led by two locals, Musa Tohniyaz and Mamat Aysa; their names indicate that the men were members of China\u2019s Uighur minority. But the government refused to name the \u201coverseas extremist group\u201d because \u201cinvestigations are still underway.\u201d It gave no details about the slain suspects or their supposed motivations, other than to say that they had watched extremist videos.<\/p>\n
In wake of the Paris attacks last week and Islamic State\u2019s slaying of its first Chinese hostage this week, Beijing has vowed to hold the kidnappers accountable and to step up counterterrorism cooperation with other countries. And it has called on other countries to lend more support to China\u2019s own anti-terrorism efforts, particularly against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM.<\/p>\n
“The U.N.\u2019s leading role should be brought into full play to combat terrorism, and a united front in this regard should be formed,” China\u2019s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said at the Group of 20 meetings in Turkey last weekend. \u201cChina is also a victim of terrorism, and cracking down on ETIM should become an important part of the international fight against terrorism.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping, meeting with world leaders at the APEC summit in the Philippines, echoed those comments, while adding that \u201cthere must not be double standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even as China calls for more collaboration on counterterrorism, the lack of transparency about the coal-mine attack — and other recent incidents — underscores how China is still deeply uneasy about revealing basic facts about terrorism on its own soil and efforts to hunt down alleged conspirators. And that may leave potential partners wary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether those killed or convicted were actually responsible for the violence in question, or what motivated them, will remain unknown to the outside world,\u201d Human Rights Watch\u2019s China director, Sophie Richardson, said in a commentary earlier this year about China\u2019s lockdown on information about such incidents in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n
Whether China can force greater international cooperation without being more forthcoming about its problems and its countermeasures remains to be seen. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Uighurs in Xinjiang have long complained about restrictions on their religious practices, clothing and use of the Uighur language at schools and workplaces, plus exclusion from economic development efforts.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups say those systematic violations — and not just out-of-the-blue radicalization — are part of what\u2019s fueling unrest in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n
Many questions remain about the assault on the coal mine in Baicheng county, a rural area of just 230,000 people spread out over an expanse bigger than Connecticut. The county sits at about 9,000 feet above sea level, with farming and livestock among the primary industries. Hunting is common, along with horse racing, cockfighting and wrestling.<\/p>\n
Employment ads for the mine that was attacked indicated that the operators were recruiting workers from eastern and southern China, offering salaries of up to $2,500 per month — more than double what coal miners in other regions make. The Radio Free Asia report said that the workers slain at the mine dormitory were members of China\u2019s Han ethnic majority; Uighurs often complain that an influx of Han Chinese has hurt their livelihoods and that Han business owners discriminate against them.<\/p>\n
The state-run media reports said those who carried out the mine attack began watching \u201cextremist videos\u201d in 2008, but neither ETIM nor any other group has claimed responsibility for the Terek incident. The Radio Free Asia reports, which quoted numerous local residents and low-level officials, said the attackers were angry over being forced to dance during campaigns designed to \u201cexpel extremism,\u201d and that one had been fined for failing to inform the local government that he had adopted a daughter born out of wedlock to one of his friends.<\/p>\n
Exactly who was among the group of 28 slain suspects remains unclear. But wanted posters seen in the area last month included several women. Radio Free Asia quoted a police officer in the area as saying that the last 17 suspects were blown up in a cavewhere they were hiding; the report said a 9-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy and a 1-year-old boy were among those who died.<\/p>\n
Pictures accompanying the Chinese state-run media reports showed black-clad forces with automatic weapons traversing rivers, searching through rocky mountain crevasses and camping in desolated areas while conducting the manhunt.<\/p>\n
The reports claimed that \u201cmore than 10,000 citizens\u201d — some shown in photos marching with shovels — also participated in the effort. Six suspects, the state-run reports said, had colluded with foreign extremists and had even contacted them three times during their attempted escape — but by what means they could do so from remote mountains remained unclear.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrorism is the enemy of all mankind,\u201d the state-run Tianshan dispatch concluded in Chinese. \u201cXinjiang police aver: No matter whether the terrorists come from at home or abroad, no matter what means they adopt, no matter where they hide, they will be completely wiped out!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In September, a group of knife-wielding men laid siege to a coal mine in China\u2019s far west, killing at least 11 civilians, three policemen and two paramilitary police officers — a death toll greater than January\u2019s assault by Islamic terrorists on the Charlie Hebdo magazine office in Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}