from yahoo.
Three days after ethnic clashes left 156 dead in the city of Urumqi, the Chinese government is still struggling to bring calm and order to the Xinjiang capital. On July 8, Communist Party leader Li Zhi announced that the government would seek the death penalty for anyone found responsible for the killings as President Hu Jintao
flew home from Italy, cutting short his visit to the G-8 summit. While
the city hasn't seen a return to fighting on the scale it witnessed on
July 5, scattered outbursts are stoking fears that violence could erupt
again, and tensions on all sides of the conflict are still high.
Masses of security forces paraded through the streets of Urumqi on the
morning of July 8. Some 40 trucks filled with rifle-toting People's Armed Police crept through the largely Uighur area near the Grand Bazaar, in the south of the city, as a military helicopter
made sweeps overhead. Dozens of Uighurs eating breakfast at street
stalls walked out to watch the procession. "There are so many," said
one young man, shaking his head in disbelief. (See pictures of China's race riots.)
That was the signal the Chinese government meant to send. It was in
this district that rioting by hundreds of Uighurs, a Turkic minority
group that comprise about 15% of the city's population, exploded after
police blocked a protest prompted by the deaths of two Uighurs at a
factory in the coastal Guangdong province in late June. The fighting,
which targeted the city's majority Han Chinese, left 156 people dead, officials say, and more than 1,000 injured.
On July 7, thousands of club-wielding Han Chinese mobilized on the streets, clearly intent on revenge. Military police blocked them from moving south into Uighur neighborhoods, at times firing tear gas. Xinjiang
People's Hospital in the city center took in at least a dozen Uighurs
who were beaten. One patient, 22-year-old Abdul, says he was attacked
by a crowd of about 100 Han men. He suffered a head injury and a broken arm. (See TIME's China covers.)
There was fear that the violence might spread overnight. The government
enforced a curfew, and in the morning Uighur districts appeared largely
undisturbed. On July 8 small groups gathered in both Uighur and Han
areas, but few people were carrying clubs and knives. There were
reports of scattered attacks, but no large-scale violence. Dozens of
trucks and hundreds of troops lined Renmin Road, a major east-west
corridor that roughly separates the Uighur and Han districts.
State-run media and sound trucks were rebroadcasting a speech by Xinjiang's Communist Party Secretary, Wang Lequan,
encouraging residents to focus their anger on "outside forces" rather
than on Uighurs. "Comrades, this sort of action is totally
unnecessary," he said of the Han street mobs. "Our government forces
are enough to defeat the evildoers."
The government has blamed the unrest on Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur activist who lives in the U.S. She has denied any connection to the violence, and says it was the Chinese government's crackdown on the peaceful demonstration by Uighurs that led to the riot.
Since Hu's return from Italy, the country's top officials are now focused on the Xinjiang unrest. Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu addressed more than 100 police officers
clad in all-black riot gear on a street near the People's Square in
Urumqi, telling them that they were responsible for the people's
safety. Security forces have come from as far away as central Shanxi and eastern Anhui provinces, and the influx of troops has brought the city largely under control. (See TIME's coverage of the G-8 summit.)
But healing the wounds of the past week will be much tougher. Li
Qingcheng, a 43-year-old Han bus driver, suffered injuries to his head,
back and hands when a mob of Uighur men attacked his bus during the
riot on July 5. He said the men smashed the bus windows and then went
after passengers. "This society has gone crazy," he said from his bed
at Xinjiang People's Hospital. "This was a good society, and then they did something like this."
