Chinese Muslim Radicals: Exploring the Historical Origins and Developments of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)
(unpublished (c) 2010)
Abstract: In the People’s Republic of China,
located to its western periphery, there exists an area which is commonly
referred to as East Turkestan, known by the official designation of Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is here that Uyghur Muslims form one of the majority
ethnic groups to be found in this part of Central Asia. Immediately to the West
of East Turkestan are the former Soviet Central Asian states that have recently
gained their independence. Undoubtedly, it is through the spirit of
independence and revolt, the need for change under what is perceived to be an
“imperial” or totalitarian state power, many Uyghur Muslims have consequently
started speaking out against Beijing’s control. Similar to several
pro-democracy movements occurring in China in recent times, such as the issue
of Tibet’s struggle for independency and the Tiananmen Square incident. It
seems that the Uyghur Muslims also seek to have their own voices heard in what
they consider to be their homeland that is being taken over by the Han (the Chinese
people). The socio-cultural reflex that has resulted is that many Muslim
Uyghurs have radicalized their ideologies and joined the ranks of a greater
power extending far beyond East Turkestan’s present-day borders, borders that
extend back through time to a long lost Golden Age of Islam when the Turks
ruled the world in what was the great Islamic
Turkish revival of the Persian-Arab civilization. In short, the Muslim Uyghurs,
in their longing for this glorious past have joined the ranks of the great
jihad to conquer the infidel Chinese. This paper will retrace the origins of
the Muslim Uyghur people and look at the radical militants among them who are
the ideologues behind the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).
Introduction
In
order to fully understand the roots of present-day Islamic fundamentalism as it
exists in the area known as East Turkestan, it is first quite necessary to
recount some of the early historical events in this part of Central Asia that
would revisit the introduction of Islam into the region. It shall be explored
herein how East Turkestan, an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of
China—known by the official designation of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,
is a land with a long documented history and home to a great number of
different ethnic groups which include among others the Uyghur, Han, Kazakh,
Hui, Kyrgyz and Mongol. The particular strain of Islamic fundamentalism that is
found in East Turkestan is an ideology that is especially espoused by the Uyghur
Muslims. Those who adhere to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have
prioritized their main goal as being primarily the independence of East
Turkestan, and secondly, to convert all Chinese people to Islam (Bashir 2008).
Therefore, it can be stated that due to
the fact that many radical Uyghur Muslims identify themselves as currently
living in an oppressed state, under Chinese rule, with their own peculiar brand
of nationalism, which is a reclaimed political identity intimately linked to
Islam; in essence, because of this underlying political identity that is to be
found at the heart of the ETIM’s ideology, a closer look at the history of the
so-called “independency” of East Turkestan is warranted to better grasp the
group’s national identity politics
that appears to be veiled in contemporary jihadist garb.
East
Turkestan (called Xinjiang by China) as it appears on a map of China.
Islamic roots in
Central Asia
To
pinpoint a very specific long-ago historical event in the area when Islam was first
introduced by the Arabs in East Turkestan, it was at the famed battle of Talas
(751) that Arab forces defeated a Chinese army of the T’ang dynasty north of
the Pamirs in Central Asia, an eventful
battle often compared to that battle of Tours (732) at which the Arabs
were turned back in France (Fairbank 1976: 148). With this defeat at the hands
of the Arabs, the loss put a decisive end to Sinization in the area as Turkish
tribes began to infiltrate (Lombard 2004: 43). As a result of these unique
historical events surrounding the battle of Talas (751), it is this unique
blend of cultural and religious influences at work in the area that could be
said to form the basis of contemporary Turkestan’s traditional ethnic identities.
In
speaking of these early influences post-battle of Talas (751), Lombard (2004:
43) describes the emerging civilization that would find fertile ground in
central Asia. In great detail, he writes:
There
were, briefly, three influences at work in central Asia: Chinese in the form of
techniques, Muslim in the form of religion, and Turkish in the form of
language. In the eighth and ninth centuries the Turks became established in the
region of Talas, in Shash Farghana, and Kashghar. In the eleventh century they
invaded Transoxiana, then the whole of eastern Iran; they pushed forward into
Syria and Anatolia and founded the Seljuq Empire. But these Turks had absorbed
Iranian influences, and what they took with them to the most westerly parts of
their conquered territory was Iranian civilization, yet again with a few
additional elements of horsemanship which were purely Turkish. One can quite
confidently assert that the Turks continued the process of Iranization. [ ] In matters of religion the invaders were
until the end of the ninth century Shamanist or Manichaean (the Uigurs), or
even Nestorian (Karaites at the beginning of the eleventh century). They were
tolerant towards the religions of former Iranian cities which still adhered to
Buddhism, Mazdaism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism, or Judaism. But from the middle
of the tenth century the Samanids began the process of Islamization.
In understanding the historical
development discussed above, essentially the Turkish tribes in central Asia
ultimately gained the ascendency in the area—hence the name Turkestan, quite
literally the ‘land of the Turks.’ In addition, the Uyghur language
(formerly known as Eastern Turki) is a Turkic language spoken by
the people of the same name, and alongside Chinese Mandarin enjoys the status
of being the other official language of East Turkestan (Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region). Moreover, as Lombard (2004: 43) described previously, it is
these same Turkish tribes originating from central Asia that would eventually
overrun eastern Iran, thence absorbing Iranian influences before pushing on
further into Syria and finally onwards into Anatolia where they founded the
Great Seljuq Empire (1037-1194), the direct forerunner of the Ottoman Empire
(peaking in the 16th and 17th centuries) and the
present-day Republic of Turkey (quite literally the ‘land of the Turks’).
A map of
the Great Seljuq Empire in its zenith in 1092, upon the death of Malik Shah I.
The Turkish
tribes that left the proto-historical ‘Turkestan’ of central Asia during in the
eighth and ninth centuries (Lombard 2004: 43) would continue the process of Iranization (to use Lombard’s words) and
eventually be themselves Islamized under the Samanids in the middle of the tenth century (Lombard
2004: 43). Thus controlling a vast area
stretching from central Asia to eastern Anatolia—essentially from ‘Turkestan’
to ‘Turkey’, this mass expanse of land the “Iranized-Islamized” Turkish people
had conquered would become an integral part of the Persian-Arab civilization of
Islam. The reign of the Seljuq sultans, following in the tradition of previous
Persian sultans, would usher their newfound empire and subsequently all of
Islam into a golden era of not only art and literature but also of—to use C.W.
Previté-Orton’s words (1953: 279), into an era of “…political capacity, fighting spirit and
fanatical aggression.”
Their level
of cultural and political advancement are best expressed by C.W. Previté-Orton
(1953: 279), who writes of the early Seljuq rulers and describe them as
follows:
[T]hese
immigrant Turks in Moslem Nearer Asia, or their leaders at any rate, were not
impermeable barbarians like their nomad kinsmen of the northern steppes. Many
of them had long been educated in the service of Moslem courts as slaves or
mercenaries. Turks had already founded Moslem dynasties. Besides destruction
the Seljūks brought revival, energy, and reunion to the Persian-Arab
civilization of Islam and its fragmentary powers. The Seljūks, like their
forerunner Mahmud of Ghazna, the conqueror of northern India, were patrons of
art and literature. They used the acuter minds of their subjects. Tughril Beg’s
nephew and successor, Alp Arslan (the valiant lion) (1063-72), owed much of his
triumphs to his famous Persian vizier, Nizam-al-Mulk, who founded the two
Nizamiyah universities of Baghdad and Nishapur, and gathered round him eminent
men, such as the astronomer Omar Khayyam, whose translated quatrains have
become an English classic, the philosopher Ghazali, and the sinister founder of
the Shi‘ite sect of the Assassins, Hasan ibn Suffah. The Turkish rulers did
anything but light the fire, but they fanned the flame. [ ] What the Seljūks brought to their new
empire was political capacity, fighting spirit and fanatical aggression. Their
zeal to spread the faith and to conquer the infidel more than equalled that of
the earlier converts. Their state was founded on a military basis.
Unfortunately, despite this great Islamic
Turkish revival of the Persian-Arab civilization of Islam, henceforth the Turks
as a people, religion and culture—all inextricably linked historically together
in this glorious past would eventually be dissolved. What remains today as
direct descendants as political and culture entities that are nothing more than
remnants of this historical era reminiscent of the Golden Age of Islam are the
distant lands to be found stretching from Turkey through Central Asia in the Chinese-controlled
East Turkestan, stretches of land politically separated and ruled over by so
many “[a]uthoritarian politicians of the new Central Asia republics [that] have
refused to institute democratic reforms, thus reinforcing the strength of
Islamist movements.” (Gardaz 2003: 163)
Thus, this
is where the past meets the present.
The spirit of
independence in Central Asia
In essence, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991 immediately to the west of Chinese Turkestan, lies the aforementioned
five Republics of Central Asia that were declared independent countries, which
are Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (Gardaz
2003: 162). And, as Gardaz (2003: 162) makes mention, militant Islam has found
fertile ground in the Ferghana valley as the main centre of Islamic
fundamentalist subversive activities. This current form of religious oppression
owing much to the inherited views of the anti-religious and/or anti-Islamic
Communist Soviet political position vis-à-vis religion in general. In regards to
this Soviet anti-religious political position, as it related specifically to
Central Asia, Gardaz (2003: 162) points out in his introduction,
As
is commonly known, the political position of the Soviets towards Islam was one
of intolerance. The aim of the ideologues of the Communist Party was to
‘disintoxicate’, or to purge the proletariat of its subversive to the ‘opium’
of Islam. Anti-religious propaganda was an active feature of the Soviet Union.
A considerable number of mosques and madrasas were closed, and all religious
activities not approved by the governments were formally banned.
While these
former Soviet five Republics of Central Asia do not include Chinese Turkestan,
it certainly does not preclude its Communist Chinese-controlled autonomous
Muslim inhabitants (namely the ETIM ideologues) in
East Turkestan from the fundamentalist views eschewed by the Uyghur people’s
direct neighbours.
In fact, it is this same historical vast
expanse of ‘Muslim land’ spreading ‘from
Turkestan to Turkey’ and beyond including even the Islamic conquest of Spain
(Anatolia) that the prominent al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri evokes in his jihadi tract
in qualifying a perceived ‘Muslim land’ in opposition to a ‘dominant Western
empire.’ In relation to this Islamic perception of the world, Kepel (2004: 95) describes
and quotes al-Zawahiri at the very onset of the jihad coalition as follows:
At the time when Zawahiri was writing, the jihad
coalition was taking its first steps; but soon, he said, it would witness a
spectacular increase in its ranks. “Free from servitude to the dominant Western
empire, it bears a promise of destruction and ruin for the new Crusaders [fighting]
against Islamic land. It seeks revenge against the gang-leaders of global
unbelief, the United States, Russia, and Israel. It demands the blood price for
the martyrs, the mother’s grief, the deprived orphans, the suffering prisoners,
and the torments of those who are tortured everywhere in the Islamic lands—from
Turkistan in the east to Andalusia.” This last reference, in the imagination of
the target audience, was to the conquest of the Iberian peninsula by Tariq bin
Ziyad in the seventh century and the Reconquista in 1492 by the Catholic kings.
To the jihadists, this fifteenth-century defeat and humiliation must be erased
by conquering Spain anew and reintegrating it within Islam. The commuter rail
bombings in Madrid in March 2004 would be part of this strategy.
Kepel (2004: 95), quoting al-Zawahiri
In making a
connection between the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other Islamic fundamentalist movements,
there is definitely a concrete link that can be made in linking ETIM not merely
with the spirit of jihad, but by directly linking many of the group’s members
to other more popularly known radical Islamic terrorists organizations such
as al-Qaeda.
The ETIM: China's Islamic
Militants and the Global Terrorist Threat, by
J. Todd Reed and Diana Raschke (Praeger
Publishers). Image Source: http://uhrp.org/uhrp-news-books-uyghurs/book-review-mystery-east-turkestan-islamic-movement
In fact,
in his al-Qaeda Manifesto, al-Zawahiri
(2001) writes about what he refers to be the two powers of Egypt and links jihadists in East Turkestan to the
“jihad nucleus” in Egypt. In explaining this relationship that exists between
the Egyptian and East Turkestan radical Islamic movements, al-Zawahiri (2001) writes:
An analysis of the political situation in Egypt would
reveal that Egypt is struggling between two powers: An official power and a
popular power that has its roots deeply established in the ground, which is the
Islamic movement in general and the solid jihad nucleus in particular. [ ] The first power is supported by the United
States, the west, Israel, and most of the Arab rulers. The second power depends
on God alone then on its wide popularity and alliance with other jihad
movements throughout the Islamic nation, from Chechnya in the north to Somalia
in the south and from Eastern Turkestan in the east to Morocco in the west.
Quoted from Part six of serialized al-Zawahiri
(2001) excerpts published in London
Al-Sharq
Al-Awsat 2002
This
relationship that exists between Islamic radical movements that is alluded to
by the al-Qaeda leader, al-Zawahiri, is of the utmost importance in
understanding the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), their goals and their true raison d’être. ETIM has a long history
which can be traced back to 1940, when the Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan (Islamic
Party of Turkistan or Turkistan Islamic Movement) was founded by Abdul Azeez
Makhdoom [also transliterates as Mahsum], Abdul Hakeem and Abdul Hameed (Stratfor
2008). Although, despite this long lineage mentioned above, the organisation’s
most recent incarnation is from the late 1990s, when in 1997 ETIM was
reorganised under Hasan Mahsum and Abudukadir Yapuquan (Stratfor 2008). It is
here specifically during this time that ETIM’s most recent rebirth brings it
into contact with other radical Islamic fundamentalist groups.
In 1997, Mahsum (idem) along with several members of ITEM, meaning other Uyghur
Muslims, moved ETIM’s headquarters to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan (Stratfor
2008). The reason for this move was because since the mid-1990s, China began to
‘crack down’ on Islamic teaching in Xinjiang due to the presence of several
militant and criminal groups present in the area (see below). Stratfor (2008) provides
the following analysis into these developments that occurred in East Turkestan
that would finally lead up to the radical ITEM members accompanying Mahsum,
their leader, to Afghanistan where the most radicalised Uyghur Muslim join up
with the broader Islamist/jihadist movement. This is where ETIM’s timeline
brings us into contact with the war in Afghanistan. Further, this also brings
ETIM into the presence and writings of the al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri (as
previously explored) and consequently garnishing the radicalised Uyghur
Muslim’s cause for an independent East Turkestan international attention. In
describing this series of events that prompted ETIM’s leader Mahsum et al. to join the ranks of fellow
jihadists in the Afghan war, Stratfor (2008) gives the following analysis in
providing a comprehensive ETIM timeline that is crucial in understanding their
current status as officially being recognized as a terrorist organization by
the US:
In
1995, China began to crack down on Islamic teaching in Xianjiang. In July of
that year, authorities arrested two imams in Hotan, which led to riots and
clashes with security forces. China further intensified its efforts to stem the
rise of Islamist and separatist militancy in Xinjiang in 1996 by forming the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (at the time referred to as the Shanghai
Five), establishing new security arrangements with Russia and Central Asian
states and encouraging Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to clamp down on
the political and militant activities of the Uighur diaspora in Central
Asia.[ ] This was followed by a series
of so-called “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang by Chinese security forces.
But rather than quell separatism and militancy, this move caused a flare-up in
Xinjiang as Beijing tightened its grip. In 1996, Mehmet Emin Hazret founded the
East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), and future members of ETIM
started their own militant groups in Xinjiang, carrying out a series of armed
attacks against political, religious and business leaders. That same year, a
larger flood of Uighurs left China, seeking shelter in Central Asia and
Afghanistan. During one of the “strike hard” campaigns in August 1996, Mahsum
was again briefly detained. Upon his release, he traveled from Urumchi to
Beijing to Malaysia and on to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Following these series of attacks China
carried out against the militant Uyghur Muslim groups in Xinjiang, as described
above, these were the precipitous events that prompted ETIM’s leader, Mahsum,
to leave first leave Turkistan and instead to bring his militant cause for the liberation
of Turkistan to Saudi Arabia. Mahsum remained in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,
from January to March 1997, as Stratfor (2008)
puts it, where he received very little
support from the local Uyghur community . And, consequently, so onwards he
went, bringing his cause with him to Pakistan (in March and April 1997) and
then to Turkey (in April and May), but unfortunately for Mahsum, missions that
proved to be just as unsuccessful and ended with similar results as the Saudi
Arabia one (Stratfor 2008). This series of uneventful trips or missions in
seeking support—whether financial or political for ETIM’s cause, culminated
with a seemingly desperate Mahsum interacting with other radicalised Muslim
groups in Central Asia, yet this time the main difference being that they were
non-Uyghur. It seems that the only true support that could be had for Mahsum
and ETIM’s cause, was to be found in Afghanistan, where according to Stratfor’s
(2008) intelligence report,
Following
the Hajj in Saudi Arabia in May [1997], Mahsum and a small group of followers
headed to Central Asia, likely Afghanistan, where they began to interact with
the broader Islamist/jihadist movement. [
] Around September 1997, Mahsum and Abudukadir Yapuquan reformed ETIM
[…]. In March 1998, with about a dozen members present, ETIM formalized its
ideology and mission, rejecting much of Dia Uddin’s ideas from the late 1980s
and seeking broader regional ties. This new manifestation of ETIM sought closer
cooperation with other Turkic peoples and non-Uighurs abroad and no longer
focused on starting an uprising or holding territory in Xinjiang. In September
1998, ETIM moved its headquarters to Kabul, Afghanistan, taking shelter in the
Taliban-controlled territory.
Therefore, it can be generally surmised
that Mahsum’s failure to reach any kind of substantive support for ETIM in
either the diaspora Uyghur community or even at large in the greater Islamic
world (during his trips abroad) would oblige him to take drastic measures and
found a new alliance with the most radical of the militant Islamists, the
Afghani Taliban regime. Hence, in light of this newfound radical Islamic
support for ETIM’s goal and ideology, the solidification or concretisation of
this broader Islamist/jihadist alliance effectively took shape in September
1998 when ETIM moved its headquarters from Xinjiang to Kabul (idem). If anything, it could be said
that this move more than anything formed ETIM into a sort of jihadi ‘tentacle’
reaching out from the Taliban-controlled Afghani soil linked with al-Qaeda instead
of East Turkestan’s own autonomous body controlled solely by Uyghur Muslims.
In the weeks leading up to 9/11, or more
specifically, as can be seen in an article published September 2 (2001), the
Xinjiang Chinese authorities had initially downplayed anti-state terrorism in
East Turkestan and any subsequent danger posed by ETIM or any other militant
group. In regards to this, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports:
Although
the Xinjiang authorities began to publicly acknowledge anti-state violence in
Xinjiang in the mid-1990s, they generally suggested that it was carried out
only by “a handful of separatists” and stressed that the region was stable and prosperous.
In early September [2] 2001, the Xinjiang authorities had stressed that “by no
means in Xinjiang a place where violence and terrorist accidents take place
very often,” and that the situation there was “better than ever in history.”
[HRW references Bao Lisheng, “Chinese
Officials Say Not Much Terrorism in Xinjiang,” Ta Kung Pao, September 2, 2001 (in Chinese)]
HRW, Vol. 17,
No. 2, p. 16.
Yet, immediately after 9/11 attacks on the
United States, the Chinese authorities formidably reversed their stance,
because—as HRW reports it:
For
the first time they [the Chinese authorities] asserted that opposition in
Xinjiang was connected to international terrorism. They also asserted that in
some cases the movement had connections to Osama bin Laden himself. China
claimed that “Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan had provided the
‘Eastern Turkestan’ terrorist organizations with equipment and financial
resources and trained their personnel,” and that one particular organization,
the “Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement” (ETIM) was a “major component of the
terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.”
HRW, Vol. 17,
No. 2, p. 17.
This new revelation on the part of Chinese
authorities in regards to ETIM’s role in the anti-state activities in the East
Turkestan’s movement towards independence squarely placed ETIM as a jihadist
terrorist cell instead of simply being an anti-Chinese independence movement.
Therefore, in the new political rhetoric which was taking form in the Post 9/11
climate, China had sided with the U.S. as being also “a victim of international
terrorism,” as declared in October 2001 by the Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman (HRW, Vol. 17, No. 2,
p. 17). In addition to this, the Chinese Foreign officials stated that in
consequence of this consideration, China hoped that “efforts to fight against
East Turkestan terrorist forces should become a part of the international
efforts and should also win support and understanding.” (HRW, Vol. 17, No. 2,
p. 17)
As previously discussed, the fact that
radicalised Uyghur Muslims and leading members of ETIM—such as Mahsum (idem) had all made their way into the
Taliban-controlled jihadi stronghold of Afghanistan and consequently had
entertained direct ties with al-Qaeda and their influence; in short, this posed
a very serious problem indeed for China. This means to say that ETIM was no
longer a local anti-state independency ‘outfit,’ but rather now with this
broader jihad it had allied itself with, ETIM became for China what in the Post
9/11 era was rapidly becoming to be known as some sort of ‘terrorist cell’ or
simply put, a jihadi movement. More
importantly, in retracing ETIM’s leap from the East Turkestan local radicalised
‘jihadi’ operation to its new identity on the international scene—meaning that
broader Islamist/jihadist movement that had given ITEM its rebirth in 1997
under Mahsum’s leadership (idem), is
a transition that is captured in none other than the al-Qaeda leader
al-Zawahiri’s own words. Essentially, it is through al-Zawahiri’s writings more
than any other that an outsider can gain an insider perspective into what
Afghanistan meant for ETIM (along with all of the other radicalised Islamic
movements).
Ayman al-Zawahiri
is shown in this undated file photo (Photo: Reuters)
Image Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/163919/20110616/ayman-al-zawahiri-becomes-al-qaeda-new-leader-a-king-without-a-court.htm
Therefore, in
taking a glimpse into al-Zawahiri’s (2001) writings, ETIM’s new identity can be
seen to emerge in full form. In 2001, the prominent al-Qaeda leader describes
what is occurring in Afghanistan at that time. Al-Zawahiri writes:
"4. A further significant point was that the jihad battles in Afghanistan destroyed the myth of a (superpower) in the
minds of the Muslim mujahidin young men. The USSR, a superpower with the largest land army in the world, was
destroyed and the remnants of its troops fled Afghanistan before the eyes of the Muslim youths and as a result
of their actions."
"That jihad was a training course of the utmost importance to prepare
Muslim mujahidin to wage their awaited battle against the superpower that
now has sole dominance over the globe, namely, the United States."
"It also gave young Muslim mujahidin-Arabs, Pakistanis, Turks, and
Muslims from Central and East Asia-a great opportunity to get acquainted
with each other on the land of Afghan jihad through their
comradeship-at-arms against the enemies of Islam."
"In this way the mujahidin young men and the jihadist movements came
to know each other closely, exchanged expertise, and learned to
understand their brethren's problems."
Quoted from Part Two of serialized al-Zawahiri (2001) excerpts published in
London Al-Sharq Al-Awsat 2002
Thus, al-Zawahiri (2001) bears witness
himself to the Turkish Muslim mujahidin
from Central and East Asia present in
the land of Afghan jihad—writing this
in the Post 9/11 climate of 2001, this undoubtedly lends credence to China’s
claim that ETIM’s Muslim Uyghurs were linked somehow to not only the Afghani Taliban
regime, but also to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden himself. As previously notes,
in the Post 9/11 climate, Chinese authorities asserted that the “Eastern
Turkestan Islamic Movement” (ETIM) was a “major component of the terrorist
network headed by Osama bin Laden.” (HRW, Vol. 17, No. 2, p. 17)
Gitmo, WikiLeaks and U.S. foreign policy
―Uyghur detainees caught in the middle
Indeed, the radical
Muslim Uyghur presence in Afghanistan ultimately resulted in some of the
militants being captured by the U.S.-led invasion in the course of the war. Inadvertently
these “Chinese Muslims,” as the American press often called them, formed a part
of the Afghan detainees that would be imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. At the time of their capture, these
Uyghur prisoners of war were deemed to be detained as “enemy combatants”
against the United States because, since, as it was reported in the American
press (Jost 2010: 84):
[These Chinese Muslim] Uighurs had been
receiving firearms training at a camp run by the Eastern Turkistan Islamic
Group near Tora Bora, Afghanistan—the same area where al
Qaeda training camps are found. They fled to Pakistan after U.S. air strikes
destroyed their camp but were captured, turned over to U.S. forces and brought
to Guantánamo.
Essentially, the Uyghurs were caught in
U.S. enemy territory—in the Afghani jihad training grounds alongside al-Qaeda
members, and subsequently were turned over to the American military and
detained at the prison facilities established at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The ultimate irony in all this though, is that these
Guantánamo Uyghur
detainees recently came into the international spotlight following Barack
Obama’s pledge to close the ‘terror camp’ at Guantánamo Bay by January 2010. As an EU Observer foreign affairs
correspondent, Valentina Pop (2010), reports it in an attention-grabbing
article with the following rather telling headline: Guantanamo inmates traded for money
and Obama handshakes.
In regards to the possible resettlement of the Uyghur detainees in countries
‘other than China,’ Valentina writes that many European governments negotiating
with the U.S. “on the resettlement of
Guantanamo Bay inmates asked for money and meetings with Barack Obama, while
others refused to accept Chinese Uighurs for fear of upsetting Beijing,
diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks show.” (Pop 2010)
Of course, the reason the Uyghur
detainees, who are now free to go and leave the Guantánamo detention centre, do not wish to return to their home
country in China is for fear of retribution in the form of torture or worse. Therefore,
it is primarily for this reason that they have no country to return to.
Further, the fact that the U.S. do not wish to hand over the Uyghur detainees
to Beijing’s control, is perceived by China to greatly undermine their government
and consequently is considered to be “a
slap in the face” (as Zhang Yannian, the Chinese ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, puts
it in a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, see Thai 2010), seen as an
affront made from one international superpower to the other. To make matters
worse, the European countries that fear any sort of impact on their ‘bilateral
relations’ with China in response to accepting any number of Uyghur detainees,
puts the U.S. in an impossible position. This frustration is clear in the newly
released WikiLeaks documents which brings to light many diplomatic cables in
regards to the negotiations surrounding the possible resettlement of the Guantánamo Uyghur detainees. This brings us behind
the scenes and shows us how China obstructed efforts to move the 17 Muslim
Uyghurs. As Xuan Thai (2010) puts it “The relocation of 17 Chinese Muslim
Uyghurs detained at Guantanamo Bay was a thorny issue for the United States,
according to cables released by the website WikiLeaks.” Thai (2010) goes on to
explore the main reason behind these difficulties the U.S. were facing in
resettling the detainees, writing that—
Attempts
to find new homes for the 17 [Chinese Muslim Uyghur] detainees was met with
resistance because of fear of retribution from China. [ ] At one point, Germany considered accepting
seven of the Uyghurs. But the government was “subsequently warned by China of
‘a heavy burden on bilateral relations” between Germany and China if the
Germans accepted the detainees. [ ]
According to one [newly published WikiLeaks diplomatic] cable, German
Chancellery Security and Foreign Policy Advisor Christoph Heusgen said
relocation of the Uyghurs “would be ‘too difficult,’ but that Germany could
probably accept ‘2-3 others’ from Guantanamo.” [ ] The document also summarized Heusgen as
saying, “If Germany were to take any [Uyghurs], it would be best to do so in
combination with other European countries to prevent China from focusing its
opposition on any one country.”
The Uyghurs, thanks to ETIM’s move to
Afghanistan in the past—being previous to the 9/11 world stage, in joining the
broader Islamist/jihadist movement (idem)
was a move that somehow had placed the Uyghur cause for independency in the
limelight. The fact that these radical Chinese Muslim Uyghur militants were
captured by the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan had consequently elevated
their cause from among so many other obscure jihadist groups to that of a
literal ‘thorny’ point of contention between the world’s two current rival
superpowers; somehow the Uyghurs and everything they stood for had come to
stand in-between the U.S. and China. The usual discourse in relation to the
U.S. refusal to return the Uyghur detainees to China is based on a human-rights
pro-democratic stance—because legally speaking, the Uyghurs detainees cannot be
repatriated to China upon their release since domestic U.S. law proscribes
deporting individuals to countries where they are likely to be abused (Wolfe 2004).
Nevertheless, despite domestic U.S. law
and such socially acceptable rhetoric that gains much popular favour in the
West, others are quick to point out that ultimately some of Washington’s
underlying motives and strategic goals in promoting human rights in China is
not for any real humanitarian reason but rather it is really with the intent to
weaken the Chinese government’s control on its’ peoples and regions.
Furthermore, it is possibly also for this very same reason that the Muslim
Uyghur detainees captured (and many killed) alongside al-Qaeda forces in
Afghanistan cannot be charged as “enemy combatants” against the United States.
This means to say that this reluctance in the U.S. charging the Uyghur
detainees along with the other captured and convicted terrorists caught in the
course of the Afghanistan war and subsequently brought to trial in Guantánamo reflects Washington’s fear
anticipating China’s response to such an outcome.
The alluded-to outcome of any Guantánamo Uyghurs being convicted in Guantánamo could have
disastrous repercussions in the Xinjiang (East Turkestan), results that would
do nothing but help bolster China’s control in the troubled western region. It
is along this line of reasoning that the
U.S. possibly fear aiding and abetting China in their finding a legitimate
reason for strengthening their presence in Xinjiang and quashing, once and for
all, the ETIM separatist movement and all others. Adam Wolfe discusses this
possible underlying motive entertained by the U.S., that instead of the whole
Xinjiang separatist anti-state activities centring solely around certain human-rights
issues, that instead the American position might really reflect a very real desire
to weaken the Chinese control of its western
periphery regions (see article below). Wolfe (2004) writes:
After
seeing the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movements, the Tibetan autonomy or
independence movements within China, and witnessing the former Soviet Central
Asian states gain their independence to the west, the Uighurs in Xinjiang began
to speak out against Beijing’s control. […] Militant groups emerged to
challenge China’s rule forcefully, while non-violent groups agitated within
China and sought backing from Western governments. [ ] Beijing focused on the violent groups,
while Washington highlighted the grievances of the non-violent groups. […] Throughout
the 1990s, Beijing’s efforts to increase its control over Xinjiang were
answered by a series of attacks by militant Uighur groups. Washington’s
position on the attacks was that they were being launched by a small minority
within the opposition movement, which had legitimate grievances with the
Chinese government. [ ] While the US
promoted human-rights issues in Xinjiang, Beijing claimed that the attacks were
being waged by groups that had ties to terrorist organizations in Central Asia.
In many cases these claims were valid, but Washington’s strategic goals were to
promote human rights in China and weaken the government’s control of its
western periphery regions, in case a conflict should arise between the two
states in the long term; it was not in the United States’ interests to provide
a justification for China to rein in the Uighur groups seeing greater autonomy
or separation. To this end, Washington dismissed Beijing’s claims that Uighur
groups fought on the side of the Taliban during the 1996 revolution in
Afghanistan as propaganda—and an excuse to persecute political dissidents.
Undoubtedly, as the article reports, in
relation to such possibly unfounded accusations made by Beijing in relation to
dissident Muslim Uyghurs being linked with the Taliban; in short, this time
around Washington could not simply dismiss such claims since it was they themselves—the U.S.-led forces who
had caught the Uyghurs ‘red handed’ in enemy territory. Undoubtedly, this
bolstered Beijing’s claims that they had been making all along, previous to
9/11, that the Uyghurs had ties to terrorist organizations in Central Asia (idem). After Uyghur militants were
captured and killed in Afghanistan while fighting alongside the Taliban and
al-Qaeda operatives, this obviously prompted Washington to shift their camp in
being forced to bring Xinjiang into the ongoing discussion regarding the ‘war
on terror’. To say the least, this put Washington into a very difficult
position since as Wolfe (2004) puts it, the new “war on terrorism” made it
increasingly more “difficult to reconcile [U.S.] support for Uighur freedoms
and the desire to eliminate any group that aligned itself with al-Qaeda.” Thus,
Washington was forcibly put into the rather uncomfortable position of
cooperating with China on Xinjiang affairs (Wolfe 2004).
Nonetheless, the plight and dilemma of the
resettling the detained Guantánamo
Uyghurs outside of China managed to bring to light on the world stage some of
the competing agendas that are intimately linked with their cause for
independency. Eventually, it is reported that the 17 Uyghur detainees relocated
to Palau, Bermuda, Albania, and Switzerland (Thai 2010; Pop 2010).
Most interestingly though, while admittedly awaiting to be released from Guantánamo and deemed innocent insofar as all the
accusations levelled against them, even if the U.S. sought to find a ‘third
country solution’ to their problem in resettling the 17 Uyghurs elsewhere
outside China; notwithstanding their innocence, they were not permitted to
settle in the U.S. Even after in October
2008, a federal judge ordered the Bush administration to immediately free 17
Chinese Muslims from Guantánamo Bay
into the United States, a ruling made by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina
(Yen 2008). Despite the objections of government lawyers who referred to the
Uyghur detainees as ‘security risk,’ Urbina ordered their release in Washington
D.C. and stated that “it would be wrong for the government to continue holding
the [Uyghur] detainees […], who have been jailed for nearly seven years, since
they are no longer considered enemy combatants.” (Yen 2008)
Incidentally, in opposing this federal U.S. ruling, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said before this court hearing that the Uyghurs in
question were suspected of being members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement
[ETIM], which the United States lists as a terrorist organization (Yen 2008).
In consequence to this, Qin Gang went on to add, “China has urged the U.S. to
repatriate these Chinese terrorist suspects to China on many occasions. We hope
the U.S. will take our position seriously and repatriate these persons to China
sooner rather than later.” (Yen 2008) The same article goes on to speak of Rebia
Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress, calling Judge Urbina’s decision
“a victory for oppressed Uighurs in China,” and [through a translator, Yen (2008)
notes] Kadeer adds: “This is our destiny. This our people’s win. This concerns
our freedom. China accuses us of being terrorists, but we are not.” (Yen 2008)
The media
exposure received by the radicalized Muslim Uyghurs through their imprisonment
and subsequent acquittal as “enemy combatants” of the U.S. brought much
attention to not only the plight of these 17 detainees but of East Turkestan’s
history and cause for independence. The likely association with ETIM does not
seem even of relevance in the discourse surrounding their looming freedom. In
fact, far from being treated as possible terrorists, even Amnesty International
has come to the 17 detainees’ rescue. Ignoring the complexities and possible
long-term international political repercussions of the prosecution of the
Uyghur detainees (as explored in the limited scope of this essay), Amnesty
International has greatly petitioned in favour of the 17 Uyghur detainees to be
released and allowed to settle into the United States (AI Index: AMR
51/023/2009 Amnesty International 19 February 2009).
Once again,
perhaps the manner in which the 17 Uyghurs’ release from Guantánamo was framed
in the American media coincides all too well with (as previously explored in
Wolfe: Nov. 4, 2004), the all too likely underlying motive that the American foreign
policy has a vested interest in weakening
the Chinese control of its western periphery regions (see article below). Therefore,
in considering the American foreign policy interests in keeping East
Turkestan’s independence movement alive in contrast to a reinforced Chinese
police-state, the U.S. cannot afford to vilify the Uyghurs any more than it already
has as a result of the Afghanistan war. There is even a sense of palpable
reluctance on the part of the U.S. in having placed ETIM on its official
terrorist watchdog list. Wolfe (2004) hints at this reluctance on the part of
the Americans, writing, “It was widely viewed that Washington placed the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement on the official US list of terrorist organizations
on August 26, 2002, as a sign of cooperation with Beijing after the US attacks
in September 2001.” Kerry Dumbaugh (Finn 2007: 18), Asian Affairs Foreign
Affairs, Defence and Trade Division for U.S. Policy, even goes so far as to
write, “But some believe that the U.S. government made a concession to the PRC
on August 26, 2002, when it announced that it was placing one small group in
China, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), on the U.S. list of
terrorist groups.” The fear was that this new global anti-terror campaign would
be used to persecute Uyghurs or other minorities in China with political
grievances against Beijing (Finn 2007: 18).
However, as if to counterbalance all the
negative effects the “war on terrorism” has had in undermining the US foreign
policy in relation to being supportive of the East Turkestan independence
movement, the Bush administration has actually increased funding and support to
the nonviolent Uyghur groups (Wolfe
2004). Washington, in attempting to “maintain its previous position of
supporting greater religious freedom within China and weakening Beijing’s
control over its western provinces” (Wolfe 2004) has to this effect since 9/11
increased funding to the East Turkestan National Congress and the Regional
Uyghur Organization and most prominently
(as Wolfe points out), “the Uighur American Association received a grant from
the US-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy—a first for a Uighur
group.” (Wolfe 2004).
In conclusion, seemingly, by all accounts
it appears that the rationale of US foreign policy warrants an increase in
funds into the Uyghur independence cause in an unofficial capacity, thus in all
likelihood permitting many anti-state radicalised Uyghur Muslims to continue their
training in paramilitary operations such as the Uyghur camp which the US-led
invasion into Afghanistan destroyed. It is even not totally impossible that the
members of ETIM or the organization itself directly or indirectly somehow
benefited from such US funding in the past. This possibility cannot definitely
be ruled out, specially since previous to ETIM being placed on the official US
list of terrorist organizations on August 26, 2002 (Wolfe 2004; Finn 2007: 18),
funding the radical militant organization would have been permissible. So, on
the one hand, there is the official discourse in which the U.S. tend to
minimalize the Muslim Uyghur element in the “war on terror,” reducing their
involvement to ETIM, the one small group
in China having been placed on the terror list (Finn 2007: 18). Yet, on the
other hand, there are the Uyghur Guantánamo
detainees who were found to be no longer
considered to be enemy combatants against the United States, but who nevertheless were not welcome to settle
there on American soil (Yen 2008). Or, for that matter, nor were Uyghur Guantánamo detainees wanted anywhere else without the
U.S. having to pay a handsome sum in exchange, traded for money and Obama handshakes as Pop (2010) put it.
In regards
to China, since ETIM was placed on the official “terror list” by the U.S. on August 26,
2002 (idem), since that time there
has been a small ETIM cell cracked in Hebei province bordering Beijing, and
another one also dismantled in Kazakhstan (Stratfor 2008). But, as Stratfor
(2008) reports it “The biggest blow to the organization came in October [2003],
when Mahsum was one of several killed in a joint Pakistani-U.S. operation
against multinational militant targets in Angoor Adda, South Waziristan.
Mahsum’s death left an already-fractured ETIM largely leaderless.”
Nevertheless, if Stratfor’s (2008) intelligence report is a good indicator of
ETIM’s recent activities, the group apparently remains very active to this day
despite all the losses they have suffered in their ranks.
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