I've been to Urumqi and spent some time with the Uyghurs, and have been tracking their fate for years, so here's some information on the China riots that might help you understand a bit more about what‘s going on there.

Suffice it to say, the Han Chinese are not exactly wild about the idea of multiculturalisum, and what we see happening with the Uyghurs is exactly the same thing their People's Republic has done to the Tibetans. Send large numbers of Han out to your city, appoint them to all of the important positions, so that all of a sudden you are powerless and a minority in your own homeland.

When you hear the Uyghurs referred to as “a minority group“ consider this: the fact is that they were never a minority in their Xhingang homeland (formally known as The Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region, but now called Eastern Turkistan by those who aspire for an independent Uyghur state). Not until the Chinese government started shipping Han out there, that is. In the ancient silk road city of Kashgar, the second largest Uyghur city after Urumqi, the Chinese Government is bulldozing the old part of the city as we speak, and moving all the Uyghurs out of an area where they have lived for hundreds of years. The Uyghurs have good reasons to be resentful.

The UN and Amnesty International have all documented human rights violations against the Uyghurs, so the Chinese position that they are simply doing the ungrateful Uyghurs a favor by bringing the fruits of modern culture to them is hardly tenable.

According to what I have read from sources in Urumqi, here's what got this all started: Someone in the eastern part of China published a fake story on the web accusing some Uyghur guys of raping a Han woman. A racist lynch mob formed and stormed a toy factory in the east of China where the government had shipped a bunch of Uyghurs to provide extra-cheap labor. Apparently two (some reports say more) Uyghurs were killed and many more were injured. Since it was just some funky Uyghurs who were killed, the authorities apparently dragged their feet in doing anything about it.

Hence the march in Urumqi.

You are probably hearing that somewhere around 150 people have been killed in Urumchi -- but we are somehow not quite hearing the race of those who were killed. All the official footage shows pictures of bloody Han, with the implication that it's Han who make up the 150 people who were killed, and that they were killed by Uyghur rioters.

If this is so....why don't they just come out and say that it was Han who were killed ?

Again, this is only what I have been able to gather from the small amount of info that is trickling out on the web from people on the ground, but apparently the first march (1000-3000 people) was relatively peaceful. Protesters marched through the streets until they arrived at the government offices. They were told to disperse, and when they didn't, police came out and randomly machine-gunned about 150 people. Again, this is just a web rumor, but if it's true, this is where the figure of 150 deaths comes from, and is the key event that we are not being told about. This slaughter (and the following round-up of the usual suspects) is apparently what sparked the violence and trashing of Han property and individuals that followed.

You will also hear the Chinese Government blaming all of this on a woman called Rebiya Kadeer. But the news people have yet to give us much information on her. In truth, she is essentially the Dali Lama of the Uyghur people, and was held in prison by the Chinese for 8 years. During this time (and for some reason the news people rarely mention this either) she was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize four times.

Condoleezza Rice made a visit to China while she was Secretary of State, and the Chinese released Kadeer the day before Condi arrived. Kadeer is currently living in Washington DC where she now heads the Uyghur-American Society. This group has been the primary advocacy group for Uyghurs around the world. You can check their website via this link.

Why are we not stepping in, and why has the US Govt said nothing about abuses against the Uyghurs in the past ? The Uyghurs are Moslems, and after 911, Osama Bin Laden reportedly sent some money to a Uyghur nationalist group in the area. As a result Bush basically told the Chinese that they could do anything they wanted to the Uyghur people and the US would not do or say a thing about it. You may have heard about the 17 Uyghurs in Gitmo, but for years the US Govt has known that they were just a bunch of poor shmuks who were in Afghanistan looking for work and were turned over to our troops by bounty hunters.

Is there a media bias in this story? This might be one way to tell. Uyghur people pronounce the name of their capital Urumqi in three syllables: Ur-ROOM-chee. Han, and Chinese government sources pronounce it in four syllables: Ur-rue-MOO-chee. Listening to how someone pronounces it may give you a hint as to what side of the situation they are approaching the story from.

Violence is a questionable way to resolve any issue, and there is sure to be more from both sides before things settle down. But it’s clear which side the authorities are on, and interesting to follow the various spins as news from this here-to-fore backwater ethnic becomes more prominent.