Han Chinese protesters seek Muslim Uighur targets

URUMQI – Han Chinese armed with iron bars and machetes spilled down side streets and into the stairwell of an apartment building yesterday, looking for Muslim Uighur targets two days after bloody ethnic clashes killed 156 and wounded more than 1 000.

Chinese riot police used tear gas to try to break up protests in the capital of the Muslim region of Xinjiang and will enforce an overnight curfew to try to quell the violence in which many people were wounded. There were no immediate reports of deaths.Hundreds of protesters from China’s predominant Han ethnic group, many clutching meat cleavers, metal pipes and wooden clubs, smashed shops owned by Uighurs, a Turkic largely Islamic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.Some Han Chinese shouted ‘attack Uighurs’ as both sides hurled rocks at each other. Some entered the stairwell of one apartment building and tried to smash open the door of another as residents rained down rocks from the roof. Police eventually dispersed the crowd.Police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd, but for a while it only emboldened the demonstrators, caught between two sets of anti-riot police 600 metres apart.Some used water to wash the gas out of their eyes as they pressed toward police at the mainly Uighur end of the street.’They attacked us. Now it’s our turn to attack them,’ a man in the crowd told Reuters. He refused to give his name.Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China and in both places the government has sought to maintain its grip by controlling religious and cultural life while promising economic growth and prosperity.The violence, which has showed signs of spreading in the volatile region, appeared to have little impact on China’s financial markets. Stocks slipped on technical factors while the yuan was trading higher against the dollar.Xinjiang has long been a hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by a yawning economic gap between Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han Chinese migrants who now are the majority in most key cities.Beijing has poured cash into exploiting Xinjiang’s rich oil and gas deposits and consolidating its hold on a strategically vital frontierland that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, but Uighurs, who launched a series of attacks to coincide with the buildup to last year’s Beijing Olympics, say migrant Han are the main beneficiaries.- Nampa-Reuters