China riots: 156 dead in ethnic unrest
Peaceful China sitting in the Angels House of the UN,
is killing peaceful protesters back at home where no-one can see...
Why is Satan allowed to sit in the House of Peace?
By John Garnaut
(SMH) - Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region in western China, was locked locked down under curfew last night after being rocked by the deadliest officially-acknowledged violence since the Tiananmen massacres of 1989.
The state news agency Xinhua said the death toll has risen to 156 with more than 800 injured, but it still remains impossible to verify who has been killing who.
The streets of Urumqi were deserted last night. Police road blocks throughout the city ensured the trickle of authorised traffic was confined to main arterial roads.
This correspondent was corralled into a minivan whose driver worked in the local Tourism Bureau, and who took advantage of his privileged road access to charge us more than twelve times the usual fare to get to us downtown.
Foreign journalists have been ushered to the Hai De Hotel, where they can file stories and receive online information at a specially designated press centre.
In contrast to Tibet, when foreign journalists were locked out of the region, The State Council's Information Office has decided to allow foreign journalists into Urumqi under controlled conditions.
But internet connections are unavailable elsewhere across the city while mobile phone and international dialling coverage appears to remain off-limits for most Urumqi locals.
Men in camouflage uniforms loiter on an armoured personal carrier outside the Hai De Hotel. Next to them are troop-carrying trucks including one which is decorated with a huge red banner: "The People's Armed Police Love the People, Stopping Riots for the People". (JEG's: does that mean "killing innocent people to stop the riots?" but who created the riot, it was a peaceful protest, not a riot.)
Elsewhere in Urumqi, it seems, internet connections and many mobile phone services have been cut.
Chinese official media have released only sparse details of the events of the violence and their causes, including television footage of burning vehicles and bloodied and dazed civilians, who appeared to be of the dominant Han Chinese ethnic group.
There are anecdotal reports of gunfire on Sunday night which appears to be corroborated by the background sounds in amateur footage posted on video sharing sites.
Uighur people now make up slightly less than half of the Xinjiang population, but in Urumqi they are a small minority, after waves of Han and Hui (Islamic) Chinese migration from the east.
The city is deeply divided on racial grounds, with Uighurs and Han Chinese often refusing to interact with each other even in commercial transactions.
In September last year, a Han Chinese driver in Urumqi refused to let this correspondent into his taxi before apologising to my Chinese-looking assistant: "I'm sorry, I thought he was Uighur".
Uighurs routinely boycott Han Chinese stores and individuals from both groups frequently categorise the other in offensive racial terms.
Uighurs have largely missed out on the region's recent resource-driven economic boom.
Since 1997 and particularly since March last year China's security apparatus has further inflamed tensions by singling out Uighurs for special restrictions and surveillance.
Uighurs on a plane from Beijing said their Beijing homes had been under constant surveillance yesterday by plain-clothed police, though they have no knowledge of or connection to the Xinjiang violence.
Today Chinese officials have said they will release more information and conduct a guided tour of the riot scene.
As of this morning, however, there remained only fragments of information and a trickle of unverified reports about what may be the deadliest violence to have rocked China in 20 years.
