Terrorists Attack Chinese Police Station

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics will be Friday, but the games have already been used as a forum to protest the policies of the Chinese government. The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that 16 policemen were killed when attackers rammed a dump truck into a patrol station in China's restive Central Asian border province Monday morning, tossing grenades. The authorities believe it was the work of Muslim extremists, and there will be more before the games end.

The attack occurred in the province of Xinjiang, in the north-west of the country. The area is home to the Muslim Uighur people. Uighur separatists have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades. Human rights activists say the Beijing government is oppressing the Uighurs. The ChiComs claim the Uighurs are ungrateful for the benefits that come from being under the red flag.

The authorities have decided that the attackers were “rioters,” and two people have been arrested. They join 82 others locked up by the PRC to prevent other outbreaks of violence. Senior Colonel Tian Yixiang, the Chinese military officer in charge of Olympic security, said last week that “East Turkistan terrorist groups” represented the greatest threat to the Games, ahead of Tibetan separatists and the religious group, Falun Gong.

Vice governor of Xinjiang, Kuerxi Maihesuti, was less concerned. “We see that these terrorist groups are not that capable of instigating massive sabotage activities, as some hostile forces have hoped to see,” he said. “If there had been such major incidents, no government could cover them up because the media would release the information very quickly. There are only a very small number of sabotage activities in Xinjiang and many were nipped in the bud.”

The Chinese government has already made the Olympics a point of national pride, and it will certainly come down heavily on anyone who steps out of line. The East Turkestan Islamic movement may not care; indeed, it may well provoke the Beijing government deliberately while the world’s cameras are pointed at China.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Kensington Review Home