Another Chinese Massacre:1997

There are no words to express how outstandingly horrible a communist government can be, China is at the top of that list!

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Feb 2007 (remembers the past)

On 5 February 1997, dozens of people were killed or seriously injured when the Chinese security forces brutally broke up a peaceful demonstration in the city of Gulja (Yining) in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China. Hundreds, possibly thousands, lost their lives or were seriously injured in the unrest that occurred the following day. Large numbers of people were arrested during the demonstrations and their aftermath. Many detainees were beaten or otherwise tortured. An unknown number remain unaccounted for.

I arrived in Gulja City in the morning of 7 or 8 February, and went to the home of a Uighur friend of mine. In the afternoon my friend took me to the home of another Uighur family whose two sons had been killed during the Chinese military crackdown on the peaceful protestors in Gulja a couple of days earlier.

I was trying to talk with them, the Ili Prefectural Police and Chinese Military officers and soldiers burst into the house. The soldiers pulled the parents by the hair and kicked them really hard. The top military officer ordered me to put my hands on my head and to face the wall and said, "if you resist or shout and scream, we will shoot you." It was clear that it was the Chinese military officer in command, not the prefectural police, who didn't dare say anything in front of him. They forced me to strip completely naked and searched all my clothes.

....Despite her concern that I was being followed she gave me some tea and spoke to me about the demonstration and the crackdown. She said she had seen numerous Chinese military trucks piled high with dead or beaten Uighurs going into the local Yengi Hayat Prison but had not seen people leaving. She said she was certain that nearly 1000 Uighurs had been taken into the prison, but that the prison could only accommodate 500 prisoners. Furthermore, she said she saw many military trucks leaving the prison that were filled with dirt. Many others I spoke with had also witnessed this. Many suspected that dead bodies were buried in the dirt and were being taken out to be disposed of.

While at his home, the Ili Prefectural Police broke in and detained me for a second time, again taking me back to the police station. I learned later that this gentleman was subsequently arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for passing "state secrets" to me. When he was released two years later he had had a mental breakdown.

In one part dozens of military dogs were attacking – lunging and biting at, peaceful demonstrators, including women and children. Chinese PLA soldiers were bludgeoning the demonstrators – thrashing at their legs until they buckled and fell to the ground. Those on the ground – some alive, others dead, were then dragged across the ground and dumped all together into dozens of army trucks.

...a young Uighur girl screaming, "Semetjan", then running to a young man who was bleeding and being dragged by a Chinese soldier to a truck. Another soldier knocked her down and shot her dead right on the spot. He then dragged her by the hair and dumped her into the same truck into which the young man had been thrown. In another part of the film gunshots were fired into a group of Uighur children, aged 5 to 6, who were with a woman holding a baby, all were shot. It wasn’t clear where the guns were being fired from, whether from a rooftop or truck-top. There were tanks in the street, and in the film one could see three kinds of PLA soldiers: those with a helmet, baton, and shield; those with automatic weapons; and those with rifles with bayonets. In the film I heard Chinese soldiers shouting, "kill them!, kill them!" I heard one officer shouting to a soldier, "Is he a Uighur or Chinese? Don’t touch the Chinese but kill the Uighur."