Han Chinese and Uighurs blame each other; thousands of soldiers patrol the streets of Urumqi
By
Peh Shing Huei, China Bureau Chief
A group of Chinese Muslims calling for unity among the ethnic races stage a goodwill march, hand out water and shake hands with riot police along a street in Urumqi on July 9, 2009. -- PHOTO: AFP
URUMQI - MORE shops opened and more traffic could be seen on the roads as a semblance of normalcy returned to Urumqi on Thursday.
But tens of thousands of soldiers continued to patrol the streets and helicopters did the same from the sky, shrouding the capital city of Xinjiang in an uneasy security blanket.
No clashes were reported as the Chinese Communist Party's security czar Zhou Yongkang arrived here to visit the injured in hospital and talk to the security forces.
The crowds of Han Chinese who had lingered on the streets looking for ethnic Uighurs to beat up on Tuesday and Wednesday were gone. A police presence, estimated at 40,000, has helped disperse them. But harder to disperse are the anger and frustration still felt by Han Chinese and Uighurs after the worst eruption of ethnic violence in decades.
'The government can't just let us die,' said a sobbing Uighur woman covered in a veil who declined to be named. 'The injured Han were sent to hospitals. The injured Uighurs were left on the streets. No one cared for us.'
An Islamic leader who asked not to be named pointed a finger at the authorities, saying they did not do enough to stop reprisals by the Han Chinese.
'The government had time to react after July 5. They should have stopped the mobs,' he told The Straits Times. On Tuesday, thousands of Han Chinese charged towards Uighur neighbourhoods to seek revenge after Sunday's riots and killings.
The Uighurs, who are Turkic-speaking Muslims, make up nearly half of the 21 million-strong population of Xinjiang. The number of Han Chinese in the region has also shot up - from 6 per cent in 1949 to some 40 per cent in 2000.
Both Han Chinese and Uighur residents told The Straits Times they would not go to areas that are largely populated by the other ethnic group.
Anger and fear aside, almost all whom The Straits Times spoke to lamented the violence which disrupted peace and development in Urumqi, a city of 3.5 million.
'The standard of living in Xinjiang has improved a lot,' said Imam Machenglong Yaakob, a member of the Dongxiang or Sarta ethnic group, who is in charge of the Hezhou Mosque here.
Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
