In the first week of April two "states" are holding elections of some interest to Walt, if not TROTW (The Rest of the World). I put "states" in quotes because we're talking about Québec -- actually a province of Canada, whether it* likes it or not -- and Afghanistan, an occupied territory of the Paranoid States of America.
The idea that there might be an election, no matter how flawed, in the Armpit of the Middle East is being hailed as a great triumph for the USA and its "coalition of the willing". The Afghan people will be free to vote for a replace for outgoing president Mohammad Krazai, we are told. That means there's at least a modicum of peace and stability in the almost-failed state. Yeah, sure. Walt is listening to a radio (!) report from the sandpit right now. Gunfire is clearly audible in the background.
The shooting is probably being done by the Taliban. Yes, they are still there, in spite the lost of 1000s of lives and billions of dollars over a dozen years, trying to run them out of Dodge. Latest realistic estimates put the numbers of Taliban higher than ever, and now they are threatening to kill anyone and everyone who dares to participate in the putative election. Their attack on the Serena Hotel a few days ago shows that they can do it, too... with impunity.
Meanwhile, there will be a free and fair provincial election in Québec. It will be as honest and democratic as such things ever get in la Belle Province, which is to say about as honest and democratic as an election in Chicago. The outcome is, however, of interest to the governments of Canada and (believe it or not) the UK, Russia and China, because of the spectre of separation.
That's right, messieurs/dames, the Québécois are having one of their periodic dithers about whether or not to remain a part of Canada. The real countries mentioned above are interested because they are all trying to figure out what to do about separatist movement in their own nations. The Scots want to separate from Britain. The Chechens and others want to separate from Russia. And Uighurs and Tibetans quite understandably want out of China.
The Québec election wasn't supposed to be about separation. The Parti Québécois, which has had a minority government for the last couple of years, decided to ride a wave of popular support following its introduction of a new Charter of Québec Values, so called a snap election. They looked set to win a majority because the people of Québec, outside of Montréal, really dislike the Islamization of their society.
Unfortunately for Québec Premier Pauline Marois, the prospect of a big win went to her head. She brought in a "star candidate", Pierre-Karl Péladeau, owner of the Québecor media conglomerate. M Péladeau's presence on the platform was meant to show the people that Québec is... or could be... an economic powerhouse on its own, and that's exactly what P-K said, with emphasis on the "I-word" -- Independence. Mme Marois had no choice but to say that, yes, her government would hold yet another referendum, when the time was right... whenever that might be.
The I-word and the R-word, combined in the same speeches, have scared the bejazus out of the naturally conservative Québécois, who are loath to give up things Canadian -- like Canadian passports, Canadian pensions and Canadian dollars. Look for the opposition Liberals to be returned to power and the debate over separatism to be ended... until next time.
As for Afghanistan, it doesn't matter who wins. The pitiful country, awash in opium, will continue to be plagued by corruption and violence. At some point it will officially be declared a "failed state". Perhaps some Western governments will at last admit that the mission to save the Afghans from themselves was a failure. But Walt wouldn't bet on it.
Lifetime pct .986.
* Interpret "it" either way, as you please.
Showing posts with label Uighurs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uighurs. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Monday, December 21, 2009
Uighurs, Gypsies and Mexicans -- what's the difference?
Agent 78 takes me task for having written disapprovingly of the Chinese treatment of Uighur refugees (see previous articles) who she says are, after all, Chinese citizens and "splittists" who want to separate their homeland from the glorious Chinese People's s Republic. (The "treatment" involves the sudden injection of rather large pieces of lead.)
She makes the point that Canada has just announced that it is going to step up the deportation of refugees -- notably gypsies and Mexicans -- to the place from which they came. I've written about this recently too. So what's the difference, she asks?
In the first place, those Canada is deporting are not true refugees, according to the Geneva convention, at all. They are not seeking political asylum, for politics has nothing to do with the reasons why they left Mexico or the Czech republic or wherever. 99% of them are economic migrants, seeking to get their noses in the huge trough that is the Canadian welfare system. That's all.
Secondly, the refugees being deported from Canada are not Canadians. They are being sent back to their countries of origin. As my earlier post today explains, the Uighurs are being returned to the country (China) in which they were born. They are Chinese citizens, even though they may not like being so. China has already executed dozens of what it says are its own citizens, and will likely deal with these returnees in the same way.
Which brings us to the final point. The few "refugees" who Canada succeeds in deporting to Mexico or Jamaica or Nigeria or wherever do not face being deprived of not only their liberty but their lives. So far as we know, not one deportee from Canada has been executed by their country of origin.
Please dear readers keep these things in mind as you ready about the US and Canadian governments cozying up to China...in the interests of better relations and improving the balance-of-trade figures of course. I'd ask you to boycott Chinese-made goods but you'd die, starving and naked. Beats dying at the wrong end of a rifle though.
She makes the point that Canada has just announced that it is going to step up the deportation of refugees -- notably gypsies and Mexicans -- to the place from which they came. I've written about this recently too. So what's the difference, she asks?
In the first place, those Canada is deporting are not true refugees, according to the Geneva convention, at all. They are not seeking political asylum, for politics has nothing to do with the reasons why they left Mexico or the Czech republic or wherever. 99% of them are economic migrants, seeking to get their noses in the huge trough that is the Canadian welfare system. That's all.
Secondly, the refugees being deported from Canada are not Canadians. They are being sent back to their countries of origin. As my earlier post today explains, the Uighurs are being returned to the country (China) in which they were born. They are Chinese citizens, even though they may not like being so. China has already executed dozens of what it says are its own citizens, and will likely deal with these returnees in the same way.
Which brings us to the final point. The few "refugees" who Canada succeeds in deporting to Mexico or Jamaica or Nigeria or wherever do not face being deprived of not only their liberty but their lives. So far as we know, not one deportee from Canada has been executed by their country of origin.
Please dear readers keep these things in mind as you ready about the US and Canadian governments cozying up to China...in the interests of better relations and improving the balance-of-trade figures of course. I'd ask you to boycott Chinese-made goods but you'd die, starving and naked. Beats dying at the wrong end of a rifle though.
Uighurs deported to China and death
How do you deal with refugees and other "illegal immigrants"? If you're the government of Cambodia, you send them back to their country of origin, even if it means almost certain death.
That's how China will likely deal with 20 ethnic Uighurs who were returned from Cambodia over the weekend. In a terse statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said "Cambodia deported 20 Chinese citizens in accordance with immigration laws for illegal entry into Cambodia. China received these people in accordance with usual practices."
Chinese "usual practices" for "criminals" (including people who might have wanted to separate their region from greater China) included execution by firing squad. And it was the practice to make the victim's families pay for the bullet. (Scots, you could learn something from the Chinese!) Agent 78 told me this practice had stopped but I wasn't clear on whether she mean the shooting or making the victims pay.
The Chinese comments came, by the merest coincidence, as a top Chinese official began a visit to Phnom Penh to boost commercial ties. China is Cambodia's biggest investor, having put more than $14 billion into that country in foreign direct investment, including buying up huge tracts of farmland the produce of which will be shipped to China...or possibly to the west.
And where do the Uighurs fit in? They are an ethnically Turkic Muslim people who used to be the majority population in large parts of northwestern China. Lately they have become a minority as the majority Han Chinese have colonized ["developed"? ed.] Xinjiang and neighbouring provinces.
The Uighurs don't much like being colonized and reduced to second-class status in their own land, so have been agitating for the Chinese to go away and leave them alone. In July, ethnic rioting (Uighurs vs Chinese) claimed the lives of nearly 200 people. The Uighurs lost.
Some of them fled into neighbouring Cambodia (the land of Pol Pot and the Killing Fields) and applied for asylum at the United Nations refugee agency office there. The UNHCR has condemned the deportations, but has failed to stop them. Another triumph for international law, human rights and the United Nations.
That's how China will likely deal with 20 ethnic Uighurs who were returned from Cambodia over the weekend. In a terse statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said "Cambodia deported 20 Chinese citizens in accordance with immigration laws for illegal entry into Cambodia. China received these people in accordance with usual practices."
Chinese "usual practices" for "criminals" (including people who might have wanted to separate their region from greater China) included execution by firing squad. And it was the practice to make the victim's families pay for the bullet. (Scots, you could learn something from the Chinese!) Agent 78 told me this practice had stopped but I wasn't clear on whether she mean the shooting or making the victims pay.
The Chinese comments came, by the merest coincidence, as a top Chinese official began a visit to Phnom Penh to boost commercial ties. China is Cambodia's biggest investor, having put more than $14 billion into that country in foreign direct investment, including buying up huge tracts of farmland the produce of which will be shipped to China...or possibly to the west.
And where do the Uighurs fit in? They are an ethnically Turkic Muslim people who used to be the majority population in large parts of northwestern China. Lately they have become a minority as the majority Han Chinese have colonized ["developed"? ed.] Xinjiang and neighbouring provinces.
The Uighurs don't much like being colonized and reduced to second-class status in their own land, so have been agitating for the Chinese to go away and leave them alone. In July, ethnic rioting (Uighurs vs Chinese) claimed the lives of nearly 200 people. The Uighurs lost.
Some of them fled into neighbouring Cambodia (the land of Pol Pot and the Killing Fields) and applied for asylum at the United Nations refugee agency office there. The UNHCR has condemned the deportations, but has failed to stop them. Another triumph for international law, human rights and the United Nations.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Chinese plane diverted from frying pan to fire
Things have been a little slow lately. So, in response to the editor's demand for some serious news, Walt passes on a report by Associated Press that a Chinese aircraft which was to land in Xinjiang province was diverted to another country.
Xinjiang was the scene of ethnic riots in July, as minority Uighurs attacked Han Chinese who they accuse of overrunning their territory. The Han Chinese mounted their own savage counterattack. Nearly 200 were killed and more than 1700 injured in the violence.
Today China's Xinhua News Agency said the airport in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi had been ordered to prevent the plane, which it had earlier reported as hijacked, from landing. It did not say whether the aircraft was civilian or military, but said the reason for the diversion was a bomb threat.
Now here's the odd part. The Chinese were apparently so concerned about the safety and wellbeing of those aboard the plane that they diverted it to... wait for it... Kandahar, Afghanistan!
However, a spokesman for NATO forces in Kandahar said he hadn't heard any report of a plane forced to land there.
"I doubt that anything like that has taken place based on the information we have right now," U.S. navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo said. "That's a significant activity. If something that significant happens we would know about it.''
Yeah, right. Stay tuned.
Xinjiang was the scene of ethnic riots in July, as minority Uighurs attacked Han Chinese who they accuse of overrunning their territory. The Han Chinese mounted their own savage counterattack. Nearly 200 were killed and more than 1700 injured in the violence.
Today China's Xinhua News Agency said the airport in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi had been ordered to prevent the plane, which it had earlier reported as hijacked, from landing. It did not say whether the aircraft was civilian or military, but said the reason for the diversion was a bomb threat.
Now here's the odd part. The Chinese were apparently so concerned about the safety and wellbeing of those aboard the plane that they diverted it to... wait for it... Kandahar, Afghanistan!
However, a spokesman for NATO forces in Kandahar said he hadn't heard any report of a plane forced to land there.
"I doubt that anything like that has taken place based on the information we have right now," U.S. navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo said. "That's a significant activity. If something that significant happens we would know about it.''
Yeah, right. Stay tuned.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Wild West Uyghurs
AP and Reuters report that violent street battles killed at least 140 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China's volatile western Xinjiang region in decades. Chinese officials today said the death toll was expected to rise.
The cause of the "unrest" is the Communist government's policy of colonizing the hitherto sparsely populated province with millions of Han Chinese. (The Han comprise roughly 1.2 billion of China's population of 1.3 billion.) "Volunteers", prisoners and political exiles are forced to work in labour camps and encouraged to remain in Xinjiang forever. Muslim Uighurs make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but not in the capital of Urumqi. The city of 2.3 million is now about overwhelmingly Chinese — a source of frustration for native Uighurs.
There has always been tension -- even before the Chinese occupation of what the Uighurs call East Turkistan -- between the Muslim Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese. Militant Uighurs have waged a sporadic and often violent separatist campaign for centuries. A good history of the region can be found in Wild West China: the Untold Story of a Frontier Land, by Christian Tyler (2003, London, John Murray).
The Chinese government's Xinhua news agency quoted regional Police Chief Liu Yaohua as saying several hundred people had been arrested in connection with the riot and police were searching for about 90 other “key suspects.” Reports from Xinhua typically refer to agitators for independence and freedom from Chinese colonization as "splittists" and "separatists".
Uighurs living outside of China have condemned the crackdown and are organizing protests in a number of cities, including Toronto.
“We are extremely saddened by the heavy-handed use of force by the Chinese security forces against the peaceful demonstrators,” said Alim Seytoff, vice president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association. “We ask the international community to condemn China's killing of innocent Uighurs. This is a very dark day in the history of the Uighur people.”
Here we see yet another example of the Communist Chinese contempt for human rights, even though their constitution purports to guarantee minority rights and freedom of religion. The pious statements of of their constitution are worse than meaningless. They are huge lies!
Yet western governments, including that of Canada, choose to look the other way, and believe the fiction that there is no oppression in China, that human rights is not an issue to be discussed in meetings with Chinese leaders. Why? Look at the trade statistics and you'll see the reasons. The devil offers us a huge Chinese banquet of cheap manufactured goods and investment in our struggling economy. We want to eat as much as we can (even though we might feel hungry again an hour later), but we should remember that he who sups with the devil had better bring a long spoon!
Note: Agent 88 in a city which is not Beijing reports that this blog has already been blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Apparently Communist Chinese censors don't like the phrase "human rights". It's not hard to understand why!
The cause of the "unrest" is the Communist government's policy of colonizing the hitherto sparsely populated province with millions of Han Chinese. (The Han comprise roughly 1.2 billion of China's population of 1.3 billion.) "Volunteers", prisoners and political exiles are forced to work in labour camps and encouraged to remain in Xinjiang forever. Muslim Uighurs make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but not in the capital of Urumqi. The city of 2.3 million is now about overwhelmingly Chinese — a source of frustration for native Uighurs.
There has always been tension -- even before the Chinese occupation of what the Uighurs call East Turkistan -- between the Muslim Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese. Militant Uighurs have waged a sporadic and often violent separatist campaign for centuries. A good history of the region can be found in Wild West China: the Untold Story of a Frontier Land, by Christian Tyler (2003, London, John Murray).
The Chinese government's Xinhua news agency quoted regional Police Chief Liu Yaohua as saying several hundred people had been arrested in connection with the riot and police were searching for about 90 other “key suspects.” Reports from Xinhua typically refer to agitators for independence and freedom from Chinese colonization as "splittists" and "separatists".
Uighurs living outside of China have condemned the crackdown and are organizing protests in a number of cities, including Toronto.
“We are extremely saddened by the heavy-handed use of force by the Chinese security forces against the peaceful demonstrators,” said Alim Seytoff, vice president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association. “We ask the international community to condemn China's killing of innocent Uighurs. This is a very dark day in the history of the Uighur people.”
Here we see yet another example of the Communist Chinese contempt for human rights, even though their constitution purports to guarantee minority rights and freedom of religion. The pious statements of of their constitution are worse than meaningless. They are huge lies!
Yet western governments, including that of Canada, choose to look the other way, and believe the fiction that there is no oppression in China, that human rights is not an issue to be discussed in meetings with Chinese leaders. Why? Look at the trade statistics and you'll see the reasons. The devil offers us a huge Chinese banquet of cheap manufactured goods and investment in our struggling economy. We want to eat as much as we can (even though we might feel hungry again an hour later), but we should remember that he who sups with the devil had better bring a long spoon!
Note: Agent 88 in a city which is not Beijing reports that this blog has already been blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Apparently Communist Chinese censors don't like the phrase "human rights". It's not hard to understand why!
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