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Bombing spree exposes China’s ethnic divisions

Donkeys pulled melon-laden carts through the streets and women sold bowls of yogurt in the market of this mostly Muslim city in a remote corner of China, a day after militant bombings left a dozen people dead.

But underneath the apparent return to normal life on Monday hides a seething anger among the region’s ethnic Uighurs toward Chinese immigrants, whom many here see as symbols of the government’s oppression, residents and experts say.

With two audacious attacks in a week and the appearance online of videos threatening the Beijing Olympics, Uighur extremists in Xinjiang may be trying to use the Games as a way to force themselves out of obscurity into the world’s view.

The remote region grabbed headlines last Friday — just four days before the Olympics began some 2,800km to the east in Beijing.

In Xinjiang’s Kashgar, a city near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, two attackers rammed a truck into a group of police who they then attacked with homemade bombs and knives, killing 16.

GROUP ATTACK

Another group struck early on Sunday morning in west-central Xinjiang. Bombers hit 17 sites — including a police station, government building, bank and shops — in the ancient Silk Road city of Kuqa.

Police said 10 assailants — including one woman — were killed along with a security guard and a bystander. Another of the attackers, a 15-year-old girl, was injured, Xinhua news agency said.

Anti-government violence has flared in Xinjiang for years. But Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, said Sunday’s attacks were more highly organized.

“It presents several new aspects which were not present in previous incidents in Xinjiang,” Bequelin said. “One is the sophisticated coordination of the attacks: It was not just one attack. It’s a string of bombings that requires much more planning and a larger organization to carry out especially at the time of the Olympics when the security is so high.”

CHEERFUL

After the Kuqa attacks, groups of Uighurs in the city of 450,000 people strolled around the streets looking at the damage. Their Chinese neighbors appeared grim and were quick to denounce the violence. But many of the Uighurs seemed amused and cheerful.

When asked if they endorsed the attacks, they wouldn’t answer the question or would reply: “I don’t know.”

That was the answer given — after a grin and a chuckle — on Monday by a merchant walking through Kuqa’s market, which was bustling with life again after the city was shut down by security forces most of Sunday because of the attacks.

“If you look at the streets, everything seems calm and peaceful,” said the merchant, who would only identify himself as Amar because he feared retribution. “But behind it all, the situation is different. People are really angry.”
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