Ouïghours

This page concerns the people of the Ouïghours . For the language ouïghoure, to see the article Ouïghour .

The Ouïgours (literally unit , Language ouïghour: RTL ug ئۇيغۇر; ) and Musulman living are Turkish-speaking people the Xinjiang (old Eastern Turkestan) in China. They represent one of the fifty six nationalities recognized officially by the popular republic of China ( Wéiwú' ěr zú in Pinyin). They are related with the Uzbek . Their language is the ouïgour.

Preliminary remark on the various orthographies of the name of the ethnos group and the language

For the orthography of the language ouïghoure one can find many alternatives like “ouïghour, ouïgour, ouigour, ouighour, uigur” in French, and like “Uyghur, Uighur, Uygur, Uigur, Wighor, weiwuer” in English. Orthography most frequently used since the Years 1990 and which tends to becoming the standard is “French ouïghour” and “English Uyghur”. The name of the ethnicity and the language is pronounced and is written “ئۇيغۇر” in ouïghour. The use of “gh” for proper names which have the sound ( R as king) is current in French. For example: Afghan, Gharb, the Maghreb.

History

Before Ouïghours are sédentarisent in the Xinjiang (or Eastern Turkestan), they were nomads living in Mongolia. In 744 they overcame the Köktürks and replaced them as Masters of Mongolia. The November 20th 762, Bögü, third hâkan of Ouïghours, seizes Luoyang, the capital of the Chinese Empire, where it intervened with the call of the Tang to repress a rebellion caused by An Lushan. It converts with the Manichéisme, which will flower in Eastern Turkestan (whose name of Xinjiang only to its conquest by the Mandchoue dynasty in 1884 goes back) until worms the end of (see splendid found illuminations with Qoco close to Tourfan).

The Christianisme nestorien, which reached the Mongolia and the China, was a long time present at Ouïghours; at the 14th century, one still finds one évêché nestorien with Kachgar, capital history of the Xinjiang and, in 1289, the Mongolian Khan of Perse (ilkhan) Arghoun sends the monk ouïghour nestorien Rabban Sauma in embassy near Philippe IV Beautiful the and of the king of England Edouard Ier with a missive who considered a joint attack against the Mamelouks.

Presentation of the autonomous region ouïghoure of Xinjiang (or Eastern Turkestan)

The very vast area inhabited by Ouïghours, today part of the China, is known under various names. Initially its official name: Autonomous region of Xinjiang ouïghour. Then its name militant: Eastern Turkestan. One can also call it Ouïghouristan, i.e. country of Ouïghours.

During 1008 years, this country escaped Chinese control, since the defeat of the army of the Tang Empire vis-a-vis the Moslem armies, made up of Arabs, Tibetans and of Ouïghours close to the Talas river in Kazakhstan (in 751 after Jesus-Christ) until the Manchu conquest of 1759. This conquest marked the end of the Kingdom ouïghour of Eastern Turkestan. The Manchu occupation lasted until in 1862 but these 63 years of occupation were marked by 42 revolts ouïghoures. The last revolt, in 1863, drove out the Manchus and a new independent kingdom was born. He was recognized by the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom. But the British, fearing a Russian expansion towards the East, persuaded the Manchu court to reconquer the country. The British banks financed the reconquest. The Manchu army under the orders of the general Zho Zhung Tang attacked Ouïghouristan in 1876. Eastern Turkestan, renamed Xinjiang (formerly transcribed Sinkiang), which means in Chinese “new territory” or “new possession”, was annexed to the Manchu Empire of Qing the November 18th 1884.

Nationalist China, after the inversion of the “last Emperor” in 1911, maintained Xinjiang in the Republic of China. Ouïghours were raised again. In 1933 was proclaimed with Kachgar the Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan. She was crushed by the Soviet . In 1944, new attempt with Yili, more with North. That one lasted 5 years, during which Ouïghours managed an semi-autonomous area tolerated by Kuomintang (or Guomindang). The experiment ended in 1949.

In 1950, one year after the victory of the Communists over the Guomindang of Tchang Kaï-chek, Ouïghouristan passed under the Chinese communist domination, which perdure since. A new rising ouïghour, in 1954 with Hotan, failed vis-a-vis the Chinese Red Army.

These vast territories are often compared with the Far West américain : it is at the same time an area rich in natural mineral resources (it conceals in particular the most important reserves crude oil and natural gas of the Chinese Empire), and an area of colonization for the Chinese Han, which are on the way to relegate Ouïghours to the minority row of ethnos group in their own country. This situation remains today still a serious source of tensions between Chinese Ouïghours and government.

The First Republic of Eastern Turkestan, 1933-1934

Following the collapse of the Chinese empire in 1911, the province passes under the successive control of three lords of Chinese war exerting a despotic power. After the assassination of the first (Yang Zhengxin) in 1928, Jin Shuren succeeds to him. Its awkward policies on bottom of Japanese, British and Soviet interferences feed the multiplication of the disorders. It puts a term at the mode of autonomy whose the principality profited from Komul (Hami) in the east of Xinjiang. Whereas he encourages the establishment of colonists hans after having exproprié of the peasants, a revolt of Ouïghours de Komul carried out by Khodja Niaz and Yulbar Khan bursts in 1931. The rebels are supported by the lord of war today My Zhongying come in reinforcement from close Gansu. During the winter 1932-1933, whereas the underground nationalist networks and the various factions opposed to the provincial capacity are activated, the oases of the basin of Tarim raise the ones after the others. The provincial capacity based with Ürümqi ends up being cut south of the province by the rebels dounganes combined to the Turkish-speaking Moslems. In the south of Xinjiang, stronghold traditionalist anticommunist, a revolt carried out by the emirs of Khotan bursts in 1933. In the month of November 1933 is founded the first republic of Eastern Turkestan also called Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan (RITO, chart 3). In parallel, Sabit Damollah, near to the current jadid, which actively militated to rejoin the various insurrectionary hearths with the RITO, tries to rejoin Khodja Niaz and of Xinjiang while propelling it president is. The emir de Khotan, Mehmet Emin Bughra, is Prime Minister. An alliance between the preserving Islamic current and the reformists jadid takes place. As its constitution underlines it, the RITO is an Islamic State founded on the application of the sharia. However, much of the Ministers for the RITO are personalities close to the movement jadid. To ensure its own survival beyond, the RITO tries to withdraw Eastern Turkestan from the Chinese occupation and the Soviet influence. But the fragile mode is put at bottom the February 6th 1934 by the pet peeve of the provincial authorities, My Zhongying, turned over by the Soviets against the RITO. See also: http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/publica/etude/etude110.pdf Remi Castets

The second republic of Eastern Turkestan (1944-1949)

See here: Study - CERI/IEP Paris

Resistance ouïghoure

Unknown factor abroad, if it is not that one vaguely heard of a Islamic Mouvement of Eastern Turkestan to the profile rather vague and obscure (it was put on the list of the “terrorist organizations by the US government and UNO in September 2002), popular resistance ouïghoure of today goes back to the end of the Années 1980. Here what one can know. In April 1990, a rising takes place in the town of Akto. More: 1000 inhabitants go down in the street to protest against the refusal of the Chinese authorities to authorize the construction of a mosque. The Chinese troops draw in crowd. More than 60 dead. In July 1990, the authorities of Xinjiang announce the arrest of: 7900 people during an operation aiming at stopping “the criminal activities of ethnic separatists and other delinquents criminal” (sic). The countryside against the crime launched under the name of “Striking extremely” by the Chinese government in 1996, if she intended to answer concerns of the population in front of the expansion of criminality and the delinquency, was the occasion for the Chinese police force to be caught some to the militants political and religious of Xinjiang, including one certain number, shown to be favorable to independence, were carried out publicly with great reinforcements of publicity. More: 10000 marked people of “separatism” were stopped during this countryside.

The revolt of 1997

The February 5th 1997, the day before the Ramadan, thirty religious dignities of reputation are stopped by the police force with Ghulja (in Chinese: Yining). Six hundred Ouïghours young people go down then in the street and will claim their release before the local headquarter of the government. They are maltreated by the police force and the paramilitary troops and violently dispersed with electric truncheon blows, of water cannons and teargases. As of the following day is held a mass demonstration of protest. The police officers and the paramilitaries shoot at the demonstrators. Assessment: 167 dead. In the hours which follow: 5000 people are stopped, of which elderly, young women and children. One shows them to want “to divide the fatherland”, to undertake an criminal activity and fundamentalist religious, in short to be “elements counter-revolutionaries”. The Chinese government then decides the public seven execution Ouïghours for the example. The seven victims are carried out of a ball in the nape of the neck (invoiced with their families!), charged on a truck discovered and walked at low speed through the crowd which attends the bazaar ouïghour and the districts surrounding. When Ouïghours which cries the martyrs approach too much close to the trucks, the soldiers open fire, making nine new victims. The October 15th 2001, two participants in the rising of 1997 were carried out, three others condemned to capital punishments suspended for 2 years and six others with custodial sentences (including two with perpetuity).

Chinese repression since September 11th, 2001

The Chinese government benefitted from the September 11th, 2001 to sell its program anti-terrorist abroad. It obtained the extradition of militants ouïghours several countries, of which the Pakistan, the Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyzstan. It tries to currently negotiate the transfer of a dozen Ouïghours captured in Afghanistan and held to Guantanamo. The fate which awaits them in China east without any doubt the execution, from where the refusal of the United States to return them to China.

Clandestine organizations ouïghoures are active inside the country. One knows very little of it about these organizations. One knows nevertheless the name of two of them: the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan (defendant of a series of attacks to the Xinjiang) and the Youth of the hearth of Eastern Turkestan (described as “Hamas of Xinjiang”). This radical group which fights for the independence of Eastern Turkestan, would count approximately: 2000 militants, of which some would have been involved with the guerilla in Afghanistan and in other Moslem countries. But there exists a multitude of other groups and movements, only known by what wants to say well the Chinese government. This information is thus to take with precaution.

Abroad, Ouïghours are present at the Kazakhstan, in Turkey, Germany, Sweden, Suisse and with the the United States of America. With the Kazakhstan one of oldest organizations ouïghoures, the Comité for Eastern Turkestan is the, based with Almaty, the capital. It would have intensified these activities lately. It was formed at the origin by former insurrectionists who had fought the Chinese occupation between 1944 and 1949. The leader of the freedom fighters ouïghours, Aysa Beg, took refuge in Turkey after the foundation of the Popular republic of China in 1949.

The September 19th 2004 was founded in Washington the “Government in exile of Eastern Turkestan”, of parliamentary mode, whose 1st minister is Anwar Yusuf. A constitution was proclaimed, and translated into Turkish, English, Chinese and Japanese.

Demography

At the time of the census of 1990: 7214431 Ouïgours lived in Popular republic of China, 99,73% in the autonomous region of Xinjiang: 5739 in the Hunan and: 2021 with Beijing. At the time of the census of 2000, they were: 8399393.

Approximately: 300000 Ouïgours live with the Kazakhstan (they are called there the Turks-Ili), others in Mongolia, Turkey, Afghanistan and in countries of Central Asia.

Lastly, of Ouïgours also emigrated in Germany, with the Pakistan, in Indonesia, Australia, with Taiwan and in Saudi Arabia.

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