Columnist Hasan Celal Guzel comments on the unrest in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. A summary of his column is as follows:

“Do you know what place, outside Turkey itself, has the world’s largest Turkish population? Eastern Turkistan… There are nearly 38 million Uighur Turks living in eastern Turkistan now, despite the genocidal policies they have faced. The Uighur Turks are the grandchildren of a great culture and civilization which established the Hun, Gokturk, Uighur and Karahanli states, and they are our kin. Did you notice the flag a Uighur Turkish woman was carrying in news reports from Urumchi (the region’s capital) this week? This flag is the same as ours, except for its color. The Uighur Turks in eastern Turkistan have a highly developed Turkish consciousness.

Eastern Turkistan voluntarily attached itself to the Ottoman Empire during the Yakup Khan era (1820-1887). Yakup Bey sent his son, Yakup Khan Tore (Hodja Tore), to seek help from the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz, who then dispatched ships and weapons to Eastern Turkistan. Unfortunately, the region was invaded by the Chinese after Yakup Bey’s death in 1878, but in the 1930s the Uighur Turks rejected the occupation and, after a series of battles, declared the Eastern Turkistan Islam Republic in 1933, and the Eastern Turkistan Republic in 1944. But following communist China’s 1949 invasion, the territory was renamed the Xinjiang (Sincan) Uighur Autonomous Region, and Eastern Turkistan Turks have been trying to survive China’s occupation, captivity and atrocities ever since.

The late Uighur Turkish leader Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who was my close friend, said that forces have tried to silently erase the Eastern Turkistan Turks from history. The massacre of Uighur Turks by the Chinese army and paramilitaries in Urumchi is happening in front of the eyes of the entire world. Although the official death toll is 156, we know that more than 1,000 Turks have been killed and 6,000 Uighur young people who were detained are being threatened with death. Even as the region’s Chinese governor said that the Turks protesting the cruel regime would be executed, he guaranteed protection to migrant Chinese Hans living there. What’s happening in Eastern Turkistan is no mere massacre, but a genocide. Muslim Turks are used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests; babies are killed due to obligatory abortions; everybody who seeks the right to a humane life and liberty is executed without due process; Chinese militant migrants are being systematically settled in the region year after year; and hundreds of thousands of young people are forced to work in torture work camps. In short, there are widespread and blatant violations of human rights.

In our country, Turks are called to account for Armenians who were made to emigrate 100 years ago, but nobody talks about the millions of Turks who were massacred in Rumeli, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Some 800,000 Iraqi Turks who were killed and forced to migrate following the US invasion of Iraq are now all but lost. Think about it: if even a small fraction of the events in Eastern Turkistan had happened somewhere else in the world, how loud would the criticism be? Seyit Tumturk, head of the East Turkistan Culture and Solidarity Association, told me that Uighur Turk leader Rabia Kader might be brought from Washington to Ankara to address the Uighur Turks at a press conference and calm down the situation. We welcome this suggestion. If we stay silent in the face of this massacre so as not to ruin our relations with China, we would be culpable in the eyes of the Turkish nation and history. The remarks made so far from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu are praiseworthy. But they need to do more. Alptekin wrote shortly before his death that as long as the Eastern Turkistan issue isn’t solved humanely and the sun of liberty doesn’t rise in his country, a stain will forever mark his people. He added that he hoped Turkey would work to solve the Eastern Turkistan issue. We all should second this wish.”

Turkish Press Review, 9.7.2009