President Hu Jintao Leaves G-8 Summit in Italy Early After Mobs Seeking Revenge Take to the Streets of Urumqi
By SHAI OSTER and JASON DEAN
URUMQI, China -- Thousands of angry ethnic Han Chinese wielding clubs and machetes roamed this capital city of Xinjiang territory and engaged in sporadic revenge attacks against Uighurs after deadly riots Sunday.
The fresh unrest prompted Chinese President Hu Jintao to fly home early Wednesday from Italy, where he had been scheduled to attend the meeting of the Group of Eight lead
ing nations. His departure from the high-profile international event underlined the severity of the challenge the Xinjiang violence presents to China's leadership.
In Urumqi, authorities imposed a curfew, and security forces tried to keep the two ethnic groups apart in an effort to rein in the fresh wave of hostility engulfing the city. The 11-hour curfew Tuesday night appeared to restore a level of calm to the city.
As the curfew lifted early Wednesday, authorities sharply reinforced the already heavy security presence in the city with truckloads of fresh troops, some carrying sheathed bayonets fixed to their AK-47 rifles. Residents returned to the streets, but there were no immediate signs of further conflict.
The renewed violence on Tuesday between Han, the country's majority ethnic group, and Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim group native to Xinjiang, followed a day of relative calm after the government deployed what it said were 20,000 security forces to the city.
Authorities said Sunday's riots killed 156 people and injured more than 1,000. The bloodshed grew out of protests by Uighurs angry over alleged
mistreatment by the Chinese government and the deaths of two Uighurs in fighting with Han Chinese in southern China. The demonstrations, for reasons that still aren't clear, spiraled into ethnic brutality across a wide area of the city of 2.4 million people.
If the official toll is accurate, the unrest would be China's deadliest episode of violence since soldiers crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing 20 years ago.
On Tuesday, mobs of Han residents, enraged by reports that many of the dead Sunday were Han civilians killed in their shops or on the street, armed themselves with rebar rods, meat cleavers and other makeshift weapons. Groups from a few people up to several dozen, including women and children, gathered on corners or walked the streets shouting anti-Uighur slogans and occasionally attacking Uighur establishments. "We have to
protect ourselves. People are getting killed," said one Han resident.
Security forces tried to keep the two groups apart, blocking off streets and occupying key traffic chokeholds. At one point they formed a human cordon as a large group of Han tried to enter a Uighur area of the city, and fired tear gas to turn the protesters back after they temporarily broke through police lines.
At another point, a black car driven by a man in military fatigues crashed into a truck carrying eggplants. Crowds of Han Chinese quickly descended on the car's driver, weapons raised, apparently believing that he was a Uighur. The groups stopped after onlookers pointed out that he was Han.
The latest violence exacerbates the Chinese government's challenge managing a delicate balance in its strategically important border region. Beijing has long faced Uighur discontent in Xinjiang, a vast area that is home to much of China's oil and natural-gas reserves.
The government has encouraged a large influx of Han Chinese into the region, a trend that many Uighurs fear is diluting their culture and leading to discrimination against them in their traditional homeland. But the latest violence is far worse than anything seen in Xinjiang in recent history, and the Han backlash further fuels concern about the stability of the region.
Officials pleaded for calm Tuesday. "On July 5, criminals attacked a number of innocent Han, with serious consequences. This is something that both Hans and Uighurs didn't want to see," Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's top Communist Party official, said in a televised address. "If now groups of Han people are organizing and targeting innocent Uighurs, won't this unreasonable act also bring sadness to the masses of all ethnicities?"
Still, grisly images of Sunday's destruction broadcast on state TV seem to have fanned Han anger in Urumqi. The Chinese government efforts to blame the violence on overseas Uighur activists -- an apparent effort to focus domestic anger on a target outside the country -- have also created a rallying cry for Han demonstrators.
Officials on Tuesday stepped up their attack on the group they allege orchestrated the unrest, the World Uyghur Congress, and its leader, Rebiya Kadeer, who has denied having any role in organizing or promoting Sunday's protests. "Lies by Rebiya can't deceive international society," Qin Gang, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Tuesday. (See a related commentary by Ms. Kadeer on Page A17.)
Authorities appeared to tighten communications in Urumqi late Tuesday, with people experiencing difficulties sending text messages from their cellphones and making international calls. The government has sought to control information flowing out of the city.
But officials have also welcomed foreign journalists to Urumqi, opening a media center and holding frequent news conferences. That appears aimed at gaining a better hearing for the official version of events, after the government was widely criticized for its handling of similar ethnic riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa last year.
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