Letter to the Editor
Formerly published on Aberdeen American News, by Kashi N Pandit:
re: Xingjian ethnic clashes, July 08, 2009:
Dear Editor:
Fifty million Sunni-Muslim Uighurs of Eastern Turkistan, belong to Turkic-Mongoloid race. Under Maoist authoritarianism, demographic change was effected by settling a large number of Han Chinese in the region, which caused friction between two major ethnic groups. (Scores Killed in Ethnic Riots in China?, July 7. Angered by this and Beijing’s old discriminatory policy, the Uighurs responded vigorously to Pakistani radical Islamic organizations that started exploiting their religious sentiments soon after the Saudi-sponsored Sunni Wahhabism began wresting the initiative of Islamic revivalism from the hands of Iranian clerics in mid 1980s. Chinese authorities arrested some rabid Pakistani Islamist activists in Xingjian in post 9/11 period, charged them with inciting secession, executed two and deported the rest. Ever since, Uighurs of Xingjian are in the eye of Pakistan-based radical Islamists of Wahhabi orientation. They are now fully indoctrinated and what has happened is only the tip of the iceberg. The future will unfold more.