Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06BEIJING11754
2006-06-09 12:54:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Beijing
Cable title:  

KHOTAN OFFICIALS HIGHLIGHTS IMPROVED SECURITY

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PINR KISL CH 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIJING 011754 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/09/2031
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR KISL CH
SUBJECT: KHOTAN OFFICIALS HIGHLIGHTS IMPROVED SECURITY
CONDITIONS DESPITE CONTINUED FOREIGN INFILTRATION
ATTEMPTS, LOCALS NOTE CONTINUED UIGHUR- HAN MISTRUST

REF: A. FBIS 19980815000167


B. FBIS 20050831000133

C. BEIJING 8788

D. FBIS 20050831000214

E. 05 BEIJING 9604

F. BEIJING 11606

G. STATE 74399

Classified By: Classified by Acting Political Section Deputy Kin Moy.
Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

Summary
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIJING 011754

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/09/2031
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR KISL CH
SUBJECT: KHOTAN OFFICIALS HIGHLIGHTS IMPROVED SECURITY
CONDITIONS DESPITE CONTINUED FOREIGN INFILTRATION
ATTEMPTS, LOCALS NOTE CONTINUED UIGHUR- HAN MISTRUST

REF: A. FBIS 19980815000167


B. FBIS 20050831000133

C. BEIJING 8788

D. FBIS 20050831000214

E. 05 BEIJING 9604

F. BEIJING 11606

G. STATE 74399

Classified By: Classified by Acting Political Section Deputy Kin Moy.
Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) The vast improvement in the security situation
in southwest Xinjiang's Khotan Prefecture is due to
both heightened government counterterrorism activities
and the public's strong support in combating the
"Three Forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism,
Khotan officials told poloffs during a late May visit
to the prefecture. Small groups of "troublemakers"
and foreign-based terrorist organizations, such as the
East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Hizb ut-
Tahrir, however, have continued to plot violent
attacks, which have mostly been prevented by the
authorities with help from locals, they maintained.
While Khotan officials stated that the government
closed several unauthorized religious schools, some
which were advocating terrorism, local Uighurs
reported the continued detention of a large number of
underage Islamic students and their teachers. Uighurs
throughout Xinjiang highlighted the extreme difficulty
of obtaining passports without first bribing the
authorities. Reports from both the government and the
general public indicate that violent conflict has
practically disappeared from Khotan over the past few
years, but relations between the Uighurs and the Han
Chinese community in Khotan City remain cool.
Unemployment appears high among both local and migrant
Uighurs, who perceive the growing number of Han
Chinese as enjoying much greater economic
opportunities. End Summary.

Officials Note Major Improvement in Khotan's Security
-------------- --------------


2. (C) The security situation in southwest Xinjiang's
Khotan Prefecture has improved greatly from the 1990s,
when the area was shaken by numerous terrorist

incidents (Ref A),Khotan Public Security Bureau (PSB)
Office Director Zhang Xiuchen and Deputy Director
Dilimilachi stressed to poloffs during a late May
visit to Khotan. The Central Government's investment
in the region and efforts to spread legal knowledge
and civic responsibility have contributed
significantly to the vastly more secure atmosphere in
Khotan, Zhang asserted, remarking that Khotan is now
the "safest" place in Xinjiang. Unlike during the
1990s, people are no longer afraid to walk down the
street. Homicide cases so far this year have totaled
only seven or eight, only one or two of which were
premeditated murders. Criminal and public security
cases dropped 20 percent this year and mostly involved
theft and robbery, Zhang reported, while stating that
high unemployment was a major factor contributing to
these crimes.

Foreign Forces Main Source of Local Disturbances
-------------- --------------


3. (C) Dilimilachi remarked, nonetheless, that there
are still some small-scale "sudden" violent incidents
and attempts by foreign-based terrorist organizations
to infiltrate Khotan. Weapons are occasionally found
in private homes, while much less frequently than
during the last decade. A small number of
"troublemakers" persist in their attempts to provoke
others, Dilimilachi asserted. For example, the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) has continued to
plan bombings and other attacks, but the authorities
have prevented these plots. The (Germany-based) East
Turkestan Information Center has tried to stir up
unrest within the local community through its Internet

BEIJING 00011754 002 OF 004


activities, Dilimilachi claimed.

Hizb ut-Tahrir Active in Region
--------------


4. (C) Asked about recent reports that Hizb ut-Tahrir
members were arrested in Khotan (Refs B,C),Zhang
stated that Hizb ut-Tahrir recently sent "threatening"
letters to local officials. While Hizb ut-Tahrir,
which maintains a large presence in Uzbekistan,
focuses primarily on distributing propaganda, it has
also stockpiled weapons and planned bombings in
Xinjiang, he asserted, speculating that the group will
continue its attempts to spark violence in the region.
In separate meetings, religious affairs officials
asserted that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a terrorist
organization, not a religious group. Khotan Ethnic
and Religious Affairs Commission Deputy Director
Metnaz Moussa emphasized that neither the Khotan
Government nor people accept Hizb ut-Tahrir as a
religious entity.

Local Community Key in Fighting the "Three Forces"
-------------- --------------


5. (C) Khotan public security officials noted the
successes of international counterterrorism
cooperation and the government's counterterrorism
campaigns. Moreover, they highlighted the general
public's role in improving the security situation and
resisting the "Three Forces" (terrorism, separatism
and extremism). Reports and clues offered by the
local community have helped considerably in uncovering
terrorist plots, according to Zhang, remarking that
the government's improvement of the "110" emergency
hotline has facilitated more effective reporting of
such cases.


6. (C) Khotan Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission
Party Secretary He Chengang explained that the
government, generally speaking through the local
Islamic Association, has stressed to religious leaders
not to permit "interference" from outside groups. The
numerous terrorist incidents in the past hurt locals
and their economy, so religious leaders are aware that
they must resolutely oppose terrorist and extremist
infiltration. In the past, certain "illegal" Islamic
schools preached jihad and trained the students to be
terrorists.

Education Used to Stop Non-Violent Illegal Activities
-------------- --------------


7. (C) Most of the recent incidents related to the
"Three Forces" have involved "illegal publicity," the
distribution or propagation of illegal information,
Zhang reported. The police generally handle such
cases by "educating" the perpetrators if the cases do
not involve violence. Similarly, the government uses
"education" to handle most incidents of illegal
"underground" religious activities, which are dealt
with as civil disputes, unless they involve national
security. He recalled several cases of illegal
religious training of minors less than 18 years of
age. In such instances, the authorities ordered an
end to the activities and encouraged the minors to
participate in regular mosque activities once they
turned 18. Zhang asserted that there have been cases
where youth have been forced to study the Koran.
Unauthorized religious schools have also used
religious education as a pretext to disseminate
information harmful to national security.


8. (C) Officials throughout Xinjiang are trying to
strictly control the circulation of religious
materials. Deputy Director of the regional
(provincial) Xinjiang Religious and Ethnic Affairs
Commission Islamic Affairs Division Ma Jin cited a
regulation that forbids Xinjiang residents from
bringing in religious materials from foreign
countries. Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture
Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission Deputy
Director Lei Xianliang, when asked about a report that

BEIJING 00011754 003 OF 004


Uighurs in the prefecture capital Korla were arrested
after they were discovered carrying religious books
(Ref D),stated that the government will not permit
"misleading" materials to damage people's religious
beliefs and activities. Nonetheless, a Uighur
merchant selling Islamic books in Urumqi's Erdaoqiao
neighborhood showed poloffs a number of Korans in his
book cart that he said originated in Saudi Arabia and
Syria.

Locals Note Crackdown on Underground Religious Study
-------------- --------------


9. (C) A number of Khotan residents in separate
conversations with poloff echoed the government's
assertions that the security situation in Khotan is
generally stable, contrasting it with the more chaotic
years of the 1990s. Mentohte, a Uighur man in his
mid-20s, asserted, nonetheless, that local police have
detained around 3,000-4,000 participants in unofficial
religious activities in each of the past few years.
Authorities have apprehended many underage Islamic
students and those who have been found teaching the
Koran to minors, he explained. Ayli Yasma, a retired
soldier and former Khotan Guesthouse guard, told
poloff that these underground religious schools have
ceased to function in the city but still exist in the
countryside.

Ethnic Relations in Khotan Stable but Frigid
--------------


10. (C) Poloffs did not detect as strong a police
presence in Khotan as in Kashgar (Ref E),but local
Uighurs did indicate that undercover police still
patrol the city and that sensitive political
discussions on the street should be avoided. While
there have been no large conflicts pitting Uighurs
against Han in recent years, as occurred in the past,
mistrust and dislike are still the main features of
Uighur-Han relations in Khotan, where 97 percent of
the prefecture's 420,000 residents and approximately
80-90 percent of the urban Khotan population is
Uighur. Outside the workplace there is very little
interaction between the two ethnic groups, Ayli and
other interlocutors maintained.


11. (C) Many local Uighurs harbor muted resentment
against the Han, who are seen not only as increasingly
encroaching on employment opportunities but also are
associated closely with the Chinese Government, which
has placed seemingly unfair restrictions on Uighurs'
activities. The Han continue to "put pressure on" the
Uighurs, the same form of treatment that led to Uighur
unrest in the 1990s, Ayli asserted, highlighting that
his child cannot attend mosque prayers. The
restrictions are not limited to the religious arena.
Satellite television was banned around seven or eight
years ago, he noted. Locals even seem dissatisfied
with the official Chinese version of Uighur history.
A Uighur Foreign Affairs Office employee-turned
curator at the recently renovated Khotan Museum, when
poloff asked if the 8th century was indeed the period
when Uighurs settled in Xinjiang, quietly suggested
that the actual date was much earlier. This is hard
to prove, however, because many historical records
were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, she
stated.

Passports for Uighurs Hard to Come By
--------------


12. (C) One major grievance cited widely by Uighur
interlocutors, not only in Khotan but throughout
Xinjiang, is the extreme difficulty they face in
obtaining passports. Many Uighurs wish to study or
work abroad, but it is virtually impossible for
Uighurs under 40 years-of-age to get their passport
applications approved. One 30 year-old Uighur man,
while showing poloff the PSB's stamp of approval on
his passport application, remarked that the only way
for middle-aged Uighurs to obtain passports is to
offer large bribes. This individual, as well as a few

BEIJING 00011754 004 OF 004


other Khotan Uighurs, said they applied for a passport
primarily to travel to Saudi Arabia and perform the
Hajj. The government-organized trip is too expensive,
the prospective Hajji asserted. Khotan Ethnic and
Religious Affairs Commission officials noted that
5,000 Xinjiang residents, including 500 from Khotan,
made the pilgrimage on their own this past year. This
is in comparison to the 256 locals out of a total
2,000 Xinjiang Muslims who participated in the
government-arranged trip.

Uighurs Highlight Economic Competition with Han
-------------- --


13. (C) Approximately 10,000 new Han migrants are
arriving each year in Khotan, a city of around 400,000
residents, according to a young Uighur who said he had
not found a full-time job even two years after
graduation from an Urumqi college. Whether or not
these figures are completely accurate, as they differ
somewhat from the official statistics, they
demonstrate the perception that the percentage of Han
residents is rising rapidly. Unemployment in Khotan
appears widespread. Several clusters of young Uighur
men standing casually on the sidewalks during the
middle of the workday told poloffs they lacked full-
time jobs, despite the fact that some of them had
attained high-school and even college-level degrees.
The Han have higher salaries and better quality
housing than Uighur residents, according to Tarim, a
20-plus year-old native of nearby Yutian (Keriya)
County. There is a clear influx of Uighur migrants
from surrounding towns and villages looking for labor
jobs in Khotan City.


14. (C) More than half of the Han Chinese living in
Khotan City moved from other parts of China, and these
migrants have stimulated the economy and created new
opportunities for locals, Khotan Foreign Affairs
Office Party Secretary Che Yusheng asserted. Che and
Prefecture Vice-Commissioner Lu Ping represent a
select group of fluent Uighur-speaking Han civil
servants whose parents settled in Khotan after helping
"liberate" Xinjiang in 1949. But unlike Lu, Che and a
limited number of other Han who were born and raised
in the area, most of the recent Han arrivals lack an
understanding of Uighur traditions and language,
contributing to a distinct separation between the two
communities. One Han shopkeeper who arrived in
Xinjiang from Eastern China ten years ago said that
while most Uighurs treat her kindly, she has faced
"discrimination." Han produce sellers noted that they
have difficulty communicating with Uighurs and
interaction is limited to simple business
transactions.

Comment
--------------


15. (C) Khotan authorities appear confident that
their strategy of combining counterterrorism, economic
investment and civic education, together with strict
religious controls and a program to provide de facto
political training to all Muslim leaders (Ref F),will
effectively maintain local stability and prevent a
resurgence of unrest. Although the government boasts
its recent successes, there are questions about
whether it can sustain the current stability
indefinitely in this, by all accounts, previously
volatile area. It is also interesting that what the
government attributed to terrorist activities in the
1990s is still characterized by some local Uighurs as
opposition to Chinese Government "pressure." The real
test for the government is whether it can address the
economic needs of the local population while
controlling the religious and civil affairs of Uighurs
without creating a breeding ground for anti-government
activism.
RANDT