Xinjiang Yarkand Massacre: Ramadan prayers trigger soldiers and police to kill thousands

On August 2 Boxun reported on a massacre in Xinjiang’s Sige Village in Shache (aka Yarkand) County. The government acknowledged that a serious incident had taken place, but didn’t give details. A military source confirmed the event but said it happened two days earlier than reported. Here’s an eyewitness account.

On August 2, 2014 at 6:15 a netizen “Uyghur from E.T @Uyghurspeaker” tweeted the news that in four villages in Shache county, Xinjiang province a massacre was taking place and 3,000 Uyghurs had been killed.

Attached is the original Uyghur version of the document

An image to accompany the description

Except for soldiers and police no people should leave. Haul away the people and buildings with trucks. Arrest people in nearby villages. Shock them. Make them wish this weren’t happening.

Compatriots! Our country is in an abyss of suffering. Please pass our words on to the world. We are too helpless. On July 28, in the numbers 14, 15, and 16 villages in Ailixihu Township, Shache County, Xinjiang, the village women gathered to recite passages from the Koran on the last night of the holy month of Ramadan. There were 45 women altogether. The village men were at the mosque. Chinese government soldiers and police came to where the women were praying with their children and began shooting them to death. More than 50 people were killed. When the men came back the soldiers and police were gone. The furious men carried the corpses to the police station and were arrested for attempting to attack a police station. The village imam that night drove to 3-4 neighboring villages announcing “Our women and children were slaughtered, can we continue to stand idly by? Where is our faith? This is holy war!” When the authorities heard about this, they dispatched more soldiers and there was another bloodbath.

After the three villages were bombed, soldiers entered to finish off survivors and the wounded. Some victims’ heads were even cut off. Children who had not yet been weaned, women still recovering from childbirth, the elderly… each and every resident of the three villages was killed, with the exception of servants of the Chinese state. Seventeen Uyghur military police responsible for finishing off the massacre lied and reported that they had not found any survivors. However, when the village party secretary reported that thirteen survivors still remained, these seventeen Uyghur military police were executed on the spot. The remaining thirteen survivors were also brought out to be executed: among them were an elderly man, a mother who had recently given birth, and a few children. After the massacre in these three villages, they continued on to nearby Nuoheshigeman (諾荷土格曼), Naxikuduke Village (納西庫都克村) as well as nearby Hangdi (杭迪), East Bage (東巴格), West Airike (西艾日克) and other nearby villages to continue their killing. They sealed off East Bage (東巴格) on one side, and West Airike (西艾日克) on the other, preventing anyone from leaving or entering these four villages, where the killing continues. They have also been frantically arresting people in Gulibage (古力巴格), Tuomuniaositang (托木烏斯唐), Wodanlike (沃旦裏克), Qiareke (恰熱克), Tahaqi (塔哈奇), Pakeqi (帕克奇), Misha (米沙), Yishikuli (伊什庫裏) and other townships in the interior of the Ye’erqiang River (葉爾羌河). And they have not even shown any mercy to those marking the end of Ramadan. As a result, people have been afraid to gather together to mark the end of Ramadan, because groups of even two or three people together will all be arrested. It is still not clear how many died in Hangdi, because it is still impossible for anyone besides the military to enter this village. I personally saw a person who broke down in tears because his 7 year old daughter and uncles were killed, but he could not make it to Ailixihu. The mutilated bodies were carried away on a truck. Heads and limbs were strewn on the road behind it, but anyone attempting to pick these parts up and give them a proper burial was arrested.

Compatriots, Ailixihu is the largest township in Shache. The smallest township already has a population of 500 to 600, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to estimate that between 3000 and 5000 people were killed in Ailixihu. In fact, the actual numbers may be even higher. They have tightly sealed off all channels of information. Three Uyghur military police who leaked information about these events were executed. Compatriots, every word that I write here is true. I might not be the best writer, and my words might not be the prettiest, but the situation is very serious. This may be the biggest massacre in our history. As I write this, I hear the sound of one siren after another outside, and hope that Allah may protect us. Compatriots, please pass on our news to the world, translate it into other languages. If an international fact-finding mission is able to come to Xinjiang, the whole world will be able to see these villages whose residents have been massacred. Compatriots, please think of us every time that you pray, and please spread this news far and wide.

Knowledgeable source: everyone was massacred to ensure there would be no living witnesses

A knowledgeable source told us that such a massacre of everyone in these villages, whether men, women, children, or the elderly, was to ensure that there would be no survivors and thus no witnesses. This has happened many times in Xinjiang. The first was senior CCP official Wang Zhenkai, who attacked and destroyed entire villages. Such events from the past are already an open secret. However, since reform and opening, the outside world has assumed that this could not happen again. Clearly, they could not be more wrong.

As early in the reform era as May 17th, 1989, an entire village was massacred in Xinjiang. An information blockade was enforced on this massacre. Then during the violence in Urumqi in July of 2009 (referred to as the “July 5thIncident” in Chinese), the authorities used the cover of night to gather up all 3000 suspects in the rioting, brought them to a big field, and gunned all of them down with machine guns.

We asked, how could this many people be disappeared without a trace? Our source responded that it’s not easy to keep track of Uyghur people’s names, and that information is a tightly controlled. As a result, there’s no way for anyone to keep track of everything going on in Xinjiang. After all, a few thousand people were killed in Beijing one night in 1989: and aren’t the details of that night also still a mystery?

Creating chaos and terror, Xinjiang’s stability maintenance expenses continue to rise

A knowledgeable source from Xinjiang informed us that during Wang Lequan’s rule in Xinjiang, Wang and Zhou Yongkang worked together to continually raise stability maintenance funds for Xinjiang. Wang would manufacture “Uyghur rebellions” in his reports to the center, so that ever more funds would flow towards security in Xinjiang. For their own interests, local officials actually hope that Uyghurs will “create trouble,” and are of the opinion that the bigger the trouble is, the better. This has produced a vicious cycle, insofar as for the sake of expanded security funding, local governments have no interest in improving relations between nationalities. Leaders who continually benefit from “Uyghur troubles” wish only that the situation might continue to deteriorate.

Since Xi Jinping came to power, this trend has become ever more prominent. A well-intentioned cadre disturbed by these developments has revealed that, as was reported by Boxun, some officials are consciously working against resolving issues, getting blood on Xi Jinping’s hands.

This trend of working against resolving issues can be seen in a number of locations across China. The most apparent cases today are Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. Leaders in these regions are not working through issues, but are rather looking for all types of ways to further anger the populace, leaving Xi Jinping unable to resolve these challenges.

Authorities continue to reward soldiers who participated in the suppression

Xinjiang is not an easy place to be a soldier, and there are no real benefits for the average military personnel in Xinjiang. But once soldiers participate in killing of the type we see in Ailixihu, they are transferred from their military position to an official position, and given a secure job in the public security apparatus. For example, during the upheaval in Urumqi in July of 2009, two brigades that were involved in massacres were soon thereafter transferred to Shanghai to oversee security for the Shanghai WorldExpo. They have remained in Shanghai ever since, and have not been sent back to Xinjiang.

Despite the transfer of power to Xi Jinping, these policies continue.

The situation in Xinjiang has never been worse

An official from Xinjiang has revealed that in the past the vast majority of Uyghurs were moderates who opposed extremist organizations and the use of violence, and even accepted Han rule. However, particularly since the news of this massacre in July broke, even moderates have been radicalized. People have no hope, and when they see a massacre of this scale, they feel they must join the resistance.

Furthermore, Han residents who have been living in Xinjiang for years or even for generations have lost all sense of security. Many have begun looking elsewhere, to move out of Xinjiang. If this trend continues, the only people left in Xinjiang will be armed police, military, and the Uyghurs.

Limited international attention

The treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a human rights issue, but the United States and the West in general rarely comment on the Uyghurs’ plight. Analysts told us that a number of factors contribute to this silence: 1. Uyghurs are Muslims, and some have contacts with extremist organizations and even Al Qaeda. Some have also engaged in terrorist attacks targeting civilians, making it easy for the West to view oppressed Uyghurs as “terrorists;” 2. There is a tight information blockade, meaning that evidence of what is actually going on in Xinjiang is lacking.

Analysts have noted that, rather than using violence, the Uyghur people would be better served by using their courage to investigate, unveil, and disseminate the truth about what is really going on in Xinjiang, so to let the world know. This would be far more effective than violent attacks, particularly terrorist attacks on civilians; such attacks should be rightly condemned, and will certainly not win anyone over to their cause.

http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2014/08/201408021101.shtml

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/yarkand-08052014150547.html