Ethnic riots in China

BEIJING – China declared martial law in part of a central province after several people were killed and numerous houses set on fire in clashes between minority Muslims and ethnic Han Chinese, residents and officials said yesterday.

Armed police patrolled the town of Langchenggang and surrounding areas after the violence erupted late last week after a traffic accident involving members of the Hui Muslim ethnic group and the majority Han sparked fighting in several villages. One resident said the fighting began after a Hui taxi driver accidentally struck and killed a young Han girl.Another said the problems started after a collision between two tractors, one driven by a Han Chinese and one by a Hui Muslim.”People were so afraid.No one dared to go to work or go outside.Even the transportation has been stopped,” said one resident of a Han village involved who declined to give her name.She said at least one person in her village had been killed in the fighting and she had heard that several others had died.Another resident of the same village said more than 10 people had been killed.Houses had been burned and residents said the fighting had escalated when Hui villagers from outside the area were trucked in.The situation was now calm but with a heavy police presence.Clashes between Hui people, who make up just 10 million of China’s 1,3 billion population, and Han are not common but tension, exacerbated by a widening wealth gap, has on occasion erupted in violence.In 1993, a cartoon ridiculing Muslims led to paramilitary police storming a mosque taken over by armed Hui in the northwestern city of Xining.In the past decade, scattered minor incidents have been reported around the country.But unrest in rural areas has been on the rise, fuelled by dissatisfaction over poverty and corruption and raising long-held fears among China’s iron-fisted authorities of instability that could even affect the supremacy of the Communist Party.In the last month, a quarrel in the south-western metropolis of Chongqing escalated into a riot that led to looting of government buildings and burning of police cars.- Nampa-ReutersOne resident said the fighting began after a Hui taxi driver accidentally struck and killed a young Han girl.Another said the problems started after a collision between two tractors, one driven by a Han Chinese and one by a Hui Muslim.”People were so afraid.No one dared to go to work or go outside.Even the transportation has been stopped,” said one resident of a Han village involved who declined to give her name.She said at least one person in her village had been killed in the fighting and she had heard that several others had died.Another resident of the same village said more than 10 people had been killed.Houses had been burned and residents said the fighting had escalated when Hui villagers from outside the area were trucked in.The situation was now calm but with a heavy police presence.Clashes between Hui people, who make up just 10 million of China’s 1,3 billion population, and Han are not common but tension, exacerbated by a widening wealth gap, has on occasion erupted in violence.In 1993, a cartoon ridiculing Muslims led to paramilitary police storming a mosque taken over by armed Hui in the northwestern city of Xining.In the past decade, scattered minor incidents have been reported around the country.But unrest in rural areas has been on the rise, fuelled by dissatisfaction over poverty and corruption and raising long-held fears among China’s iron-fisted authorities of instability that could even affect the supremacy of the Communist Party.In the last month, a quarrel in the south-western metropolis of Chongqing escalated into a riot that led to looting of government buildings and burning of police cars.- Nampa-Reuters