Uighur Leader Raises New Accusations

By ANDREW JACOBS and MARTIN FACKLER Published: July 29, 2009

In the weeks since ethnic bloodletting claimed nearly 200 lives in the northwest Chinese region of Xinjiang, the government has been waging a global propaganda war against Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader it accuses of instigating the violence.

Yuriko Nakao/Reuters

The exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer in Tokyo on Wednesday, where she leveled new accusations at the Chinese government.

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Times Topics: Rebiya Kadeer | Uighurs

As a result, Ms. Kadeer, who spent more than four years in a Chinese prison and now lives in the United States, has emerged as the international face of the Uighur cause. On Wednesday, she ratcheted up the war of words during a visit to Japan, where she claimed that “nearly 10,000” Uighurs had disappeared “overnight” in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital.

“Where did they go?” she asked during a news conference, according to The Associated Press. “Were they all killed or sent somewhere? The Chinese government should disclose what happened to them.”

Ms. Kadeer did not provide evidence to back up her assertion, which stands in stark contrast to government figures that place the numbers of those arrested at 1,200.

But her comments infuriated China, which summoned Japan’s ambassador in Beijing to express “strong dissatisfaction” with the decision to grant her a visa.

China’s Foreign Ministry demanded that Japan “take effective action to stop her anti-China, splittist activities.” The Japanese government declined to intervene, saying that Ms. Kadeer was visiting as a private citizen.

The true story of what happened in Urumqi may never be known. But Ms. Kadeer’s and the Chinese government’s dueling, sometimes hyperbolic, accounts have sowed confusion and created an even wider chasm between the government and those pressing for greater Uighur autonomy.

“This has become an exercise in influence-building and image management,” said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst of Chinese politics. “As each side scrambles to push their version of events, the chances for dialogue are rapidly receding. Xinjiang could very well reignite, but instead of fire prevention, each party seems bent on trying to prove the other side is the one with the lighter fluid.”

China has not minced words in its approach to Ms. Kadeer, 62, who heads the World Uighur Congress, which advocates for Uighur self-determination. Editorial writers, government officials and even normally staid diplomats have described her as “a terrorist” and “a criminal” who caused the death of 197 people, most of them Han Chinese. As proof, they cite a phone call she made to her brother in Urumqi shortly before the strife began, warning him to stay off the streets. Ms. Kadeer does not deny making the call but says she was just looking out for his safety.

On Wednesday, Chinese officials delivered a DVD to the offices of The New York Times in Beijing titled “Xinjiang, Urumqi, July 5 Riots: Truth.” The 20-minute film, with versions in Arabic, Turkish, English and other languages, begins with idyllic scenes of Uighurs and members of other ethnic groups who inhabit the region and goes on to show graphic images of beatings that it says were “incited and controlled” by Ms. Kadeer.

According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the July 5 mayhem was orchestrated through text and e-mail messages. Gangs of killers, it said, were sent to 50 locations in Urumqi after protesters gathered at a downtown square to express anger over a brawl at a south China toy factory during which two Uighurs were beaten to death by Han Chinese co-workers.

In the official accounting of how events unfolded on July 5, security officials described mysterious women in “long Islamic robes” who issued orders to the rioters. One woman, they said, even passed out clubs.

Such assertions, however, are difficult to verify, and the government has yet to provide proof showing that Ms. Kadeer or her organization had a hand in planning the chaos.

In recent weeks Ms. Kadeer has given a very different narrative. She says that most of the dead were Uighur, not Han, and that as many as 1,000 people were killed, many of them peaceful demonstrators shot dead by security officials who chased them down dead-end streets and opened fire after turning off street lamps.

She has not provided evidence to back up such claims, saying to reveal her sources would put them in peril. Interviews with both Han and Uighur residents in Urumqi, however, have not yielded any witnesses who can corroborate such accounts.

Ms. Kadeer’s next trip, to the Melbourne Film Festival in Australia, is sure to produce a fresh round of invective. A documentary about Ms. Kadeer’s life, which will be shown on Aug. 8, has already prompted three Chinese filmmakers to pull out of the festival. Last weekend, after a Chinese consular official told organizers to drop the film, the festival’s Web site was overrun by hackers, who replaced film schedules with a Chinese flag and slogans denouncing Ms. Kadeer.