China official says terror threat may be overstated
01 Aug 2008 10:23:06 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds comment from exile group, paragraphs 10-11) By Ben Blanchard BEIJING, Aug 1 (Reuters) - A vice governor of China's restive far-western region of Xinjiang said on Friday that terror groups operating there did not pose too serious a threat, but a security crackdown was also not an over-reaction. China says it has foiled numerous terror plots targeting this month's Beijing Olympics, and in the first six months of the year police detained 82 people in the mainly Muslim region for plotting to sabotage the Games, according to state media. Vice governor Kuerxi Maihesuti, however, put a different spin on the issue at a news briefing held by Olympic organisers. "Since the start of this year, the public security organs in Xinjiang have stopped terrorist schemes, and there were only three to four of these cases," he said. "We see that these terrorist groups are not that capable of instigating massive sabotage activities as some hostile forces have hoped to see. "If there had been such major incidents, no government could cover them up, because the media would release the information very quickly. There are only a very small number of sabotage activites in Xinjiang and many were nipped in the bud." Beijing has given mixed signals on the terror threat from Xinjiang. It has accused militant Uighurs of working with al Qaeda to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan, but it denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for a series of bus bombings around the country. Senior Colonel Tian Yixiang, China's top military officer in charge of Olympics security, said on Friday that "East Turkestan terrorist groups" were the greatest threat to Games security, with lesser threats coming from Tibetan separatists and the exiled spiritual group, the Falun Gong. Uighur groups deny separatists are plotting attacks in Xinjiang and accuse China of a pre-Olympic security crackdown targeting activists seeking greater freedom for the region, a charge backed by some human rights bodies. Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said Uighurs were not involved in terrorist activities and that such accusations were being used by the Chinese goverment to step up controls in the region. "They are deceiving the international community," he said, referring to the Chinese government. But many ethnic Uighurs resent the migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang and government controls on their religion and culture. Vice governor Kuerxi Maihesuti defended a security crackdown in his region saying any country would step up security ahead of such an important event as the Olympics. "We don't think our reaction has been over the top in cracking down on the damaging actions of terrorist forces and groups," he said. "If there is any overreaction, perhaps it is because China is now hosting the Olympics, which presents special needs. It would be the same anywhere. It is absolutely necessary to take special measures to ensure the Games' security." Xinjiang, a vast area of mountains, deserts and forests, occupies a strategic location on the borders of central Asia and is also rich in natural resources. Some Uighurs complain that China is plundering these resources and leaving nothing for the local people, helping fuel discontent. But Kuerxi Maihesuti said that was not so. Oil extraction and other resource projects were good for both Xinjiang and its people, providing income for the regional government and offering employment, he said. "The development of these resources ... brings all sorts of advantages to all the peoples of Xinjiang." (Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck and Ian Ransom) (For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)
Local villagers stand on the banks of a section of the uncompleted Beijing-Shijiazhuang canal in Gaochang Village, located around 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Beijing in this June 25, 2008 ...
