Uighurs in Peril: Gitmo17 Have No Where to Go
US: Gitmo17 can’t leave because they face doom in China…So they plant tomatoes
17 Guantanamo detainees from China are Uighurs – a muslim minority in western China caught between an ever-expanding and oppressive China to the east and the simmering GWOT to the west. Both fronts are considered a great threat to this Turkic, largely Islamic minority that shares strong ties to Central Asia. The Gitmo17 were sold to the U.S. by Pakistan bounty hunters. Not considered a grave threat, the Gitmo17 really have no where to go because the U.S. doesn’t think it would be safe to return them to China for fear of persecution; DHS refuses to assimilate them into the U.S. for less obvious reasons. Five Uighurs have already been repatriated – to Albania. In the meantime, the Gitmo17 are keeping busy planting tomatoes.
Uighur ‘terrorists’: An excuse or a precaution?
A Uighur resistance movement was added to an international terrorist list with U.S. support in the run up to U.S. lobbying efforts in UN regarding the invasion of Iraq. Critics contend that China has used such a terrorist listing to harass the Uighurs and to justify the use of its intelligence services against them.
One group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) recently clashed with Chinese authorities in the Pamirs plateau of Xinjiang. ETIM has been classified as having ties with al-Qaeda. Several ETIM rebels were killed in the fight, and many others were captured.
Oppression abounds in Xinjiang
China has long oppressed the Uighurs, who reside in the restive far western autonomous region of Xinjiang. Uighurs have also clashed with Beijing over efforts to settle Han chinese in Xinjiang, not to efforts to gain mention greater religious and political freedom from the China’s communist government.
Most recently, Amnesty International reported that a prominent Uighur activist’s son, Ablikim Abdiriyim, was secretly tried in a Chinese court in Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang,
A statement from Amnesty on the reported trial read:
“Ablikim Abdiriyim is reportedly very ill as a result of beatings suffered in detention, and continues to be denied access to the medical treatment he needs,” the group said. “Amnesty International is gravely concerned about his health and fears that his life may be at risk,” it added.
Abdiriyim is the son of exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, who had been imprisoned for five years by the Chinese government and then was exiled to the U.S. in 2005.
China sees Xinjiang as a gateway to fuel its booming economy
Beijing has viewed western China as a gateway for energy to fuel its ballooning economy, particularly the intensification of Sino-Russian energy cooperation. A pipeline in Altai exporting natural gas to China was recently approved by government officials. Once complete (projected 2011), the Altai will stretch nearly 2,700 km through the western Russian-Chinese border. This is just one of several energy deals on the books for a China deeply interested in exploiting energy opportunities to the west and north into Central Asia and Russia respectively. Having an autonomous region filled with a long-oppressed muslim minority pushing for more state and religious freedom leaves the Uighurs balancing along an ever-expanding geopolitical faultline in the new regional paradigm of Russian energy dominance and a rising Chinese economy.
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