CHINA, Xinjiang, Uighurs, Han Chinese

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,634868,00.html#ref=nlint

07/07/2009 06:03 PMETHNIC RIOTS IN CHINA
Chants of 'Death to Uighurs' Echo Around Urumqi
By Andreas Lorenz in Urumqi

Women are crying, civilians have armed themselves with clubs and axes. Fear and chaos rule in Urumqi. The Han Chinese are bent on revenge on the Uighurs and the police are struggling to keep order.

All of a sudden, Urumqi is a city of wooden clubs. Everyone has one, men and women, police and civilians, Uigurs and Han Chinese. They all want to protect themselves -- the Han Chinese from the Uighurs, the Uighurs from the Han Chinese, the civilians fear the police and vice versa.

In the searing midday heat a leaden calm has descended on the capital of Xinjiang, the remote province in northwestern China.

On Friendship Street, a broad boulevard, shops are shuttered and groups of people have gathered in the entrances. Uniformed guards and civilians are wielding clubs, some even have axes.

All seem to be bracing for new demonstrations by the Uighurs but then it becomes clear who they're afraid of. Suddenly groups of Han Chinese march through the streets in increasing numbers.

They too are armed with clubs and iron bars. Most of them are young men but there are women in the crowd too. Some are chanting "Death to the Uighurs." They are bent on revenge for the violence of the past few days.

Some 200 of them are marching towards a mosque. Uighur women flee into a courtyard followed by the crowd. Windows shatter in a hail of stones. Military trucks and police cars arrive. Soldiers cordon off the mosque. Police with loudspeakers urge the crowd to disperse. "Please leave, thank you for your cooperation."

After another volley of stones, the demonstrators obey. The party chief of Urumqi, Li Zhi, climbs on the roof of a police car and urges people to stay calm. His words, it seems, have an effect, for now.

Earlier, even trained riot police using tear gas had failed to disperse Han Chinese protestors who were attacking businesses owned by Uighurs. The demonstrators had broken through a police line separating the two warring ethnic groups.

The provincial government of Xinjiang has imposed a curfew to restore order. All inhabitants in the province must remain in their homes between 9 p.m. local time (1 p.m. CET) and 8 a.m.

Police Powerless Against Crowds

But despite the orders of the city's party chief, despite the hastily imposed curfew, the clashes with security forces continue into the early evening. The police, demonstratively beating their shields with their truncheons, are met with shouts from the crowd. Military convoys race through the city with sirens blaring. In the press center on People's Square, imams condemn the violence.

The Urumqi city government has allowed foreign journalists to visit the city. That's in marked contrast to the handling of the Tibetan crisis last year when the city of Lhasa was sealed off. Authorities in Urumqi want to show the world how violently the "Uighur terrorists" are rampaging.

There are no international phone connections and it's impossible at times to make phone calls within the city. A total of 156 people have died in the riots, two senior officials say, more than 800 have been injured and some 1,000 people have been arrested. Authorities cancel a planned press tour to see some injured people in hospital.

"Everything happened so suddenly," says Mrs. Qian. She had sold Geely autombiles until Sunday afternoon when a mob burnt down her two car stores on 166 Dawan South Street. She doesn't know why the protestors attacked her business. She isn't a Uighur but she belongs to the Hui minority, which is another Muslim ethnic group. She's fingering a red sales banner, the only thing that remains of her business. Everything else is gone.

In the street, soldiers squat down between military trucks and armored vehicles. But then the journalist trip backfires for the authorities.

'Nobody Protects Us'

In a side street reporters come across crying and screaming Uighur women who are stretching clenched fists into the air. On Monday their husbands and sons were "arbitrarily" beaten up and taken away by police, the women say. "One old woman was beaten," they say. "They even took an eight-year-old boy."

Men complain that the Uighurs are discriminated against. There are two laws, says one man with a long black beard. "Nobody protects us."

The atmosphere grows increasingly tense. Finally some 150 women in headscarves march onto the main street. They are quickly encircled by green-uniformed officers from the armed People's Police and by the normal police in black uniforms. Water cannon and armored vehicles arrive, and some policemen have drawn their pistols. There's screaming and pushing and then the women disappear into the side alley. The reporters are pushed away by police.

A little later authorities confirm the arrest of "around a hundred people" in this area. All are under suspicion of arson, plunder, assault and destruction, officials say. But women and children are of course protected by the authorities, they add.