China: Police watch over calmer Urumqi
Traffic and shopping resumed in Urumqi today after days of ethnic violence in the western city killed at least 156 people.
China’s alarmed leaders have vowed to punish those behind the attacks.
The hundreds of troops that had camped out in the central part of the Xinjiang capital for the past three days were gone, but paramilitary police still guarded People’s Square and military helicopters flew over the city of 2.3 million.
Crowds of Han Chinese, China’s dominant ethnic group, cheered as trucks full of police and covered in banners reading “We must defeat the terrorists” and “Oppose ethnic separatism and hatred” rumbled by.
The region’s worst ethnic violence in decades has already forced President Hu Jintao to cut short a trip to Italy, where he was to participate in the Group of Eight summit and hold talks with US president Barack Obama.
It was an embarrassing move for a leader who wants to show that China has a harmonious society as it prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of communist rule in October.
Public security minister Meng Jiangzhu said: “Key rioters should be punished with the utmost severity”.
Xinjiang – a sprawling, oil-rich territory that borders several Central Asian countries – is home to the Uighur ethnic minority, largely Muslim, who rioted on Sunday and attacked Han Chinese after holding a protest that was ended by police.
Officials have said 156 people were killed and more than 1,100 people hurt as the Turkic-speaking Uighurs ran amok in the city, beating and stabbing. The Uighurs say trigger-happy security forces gunned down many of the protesters. Officials have yet to give an ethnic breakdown of those killed.
The People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s main newspaper, ran an editorial today saying the violence was “in extreme violation of China’s laws”.
Uighurs say the riots – put down by volleys of tear gas and a massive show of force – were triggered by the late June deaths of Uighur factory workers during a brawl in a southern Chinese city. State-run media have said two workers died, but many Uighurs believe more were killed.
Uighurs, who have complained about the influx of Han Chinese in the region and government restrictions on religion, said the incident was an example of how little the government cared about them.
Government officials and state media continued to accuse US-exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and her overseas followers of being behind the violence. She has denied the allegations and accused China of inciting the violence.
Urumqi’s mayor Jierla Yishamuding was quoted by state media as saying that the government would create a £9.1m (€10.6m) “comfort fund” to help families of the dead, as well as those who were injured or disabled in the riot.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that China’s top police officer had been sent to Urumqi to offer condolences to the victims.
Taiwan’s government called on China to handle the crisis with calm and restraint.
“We severely condemn the violence in the incident,” Taiwan’s Cabinet-level mainland affairs council said on its website.
It urged Chinese authorities to “show the utmost tolerance in dealing with expressions of public opinions, protests and ethnic questions”.
