The New Great Game Round-Up: January 26, 2014
by Christoph Germann
Boiling Frogs Post
January 26, 2014
Western mainstream media reporting about China’s fight against the “liberation of East Turkestan” follows some basic rules, one of which is to highlight the oppression of the Uyghur population at any given opportunity. So Western media outlets widely covered the arrest of Uyghur economics professor Ilham Tohti. European and American officials, led by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, voiced their concern and demanded an explanation. The Chinese government, not amused by all this hype, decided to set the record straight and explained why the West’s new darling had been detained [emphasis mine]:
Leave no chance for malicious preaching
The nearly live coverage shows a particularly close link between Tohti and the West.
Indeed, Tohti is no ordinary Joe. Closely watched by the World Uyghur Congress, he is known to have often given aggressive lectures in class. He founded the Uighur Online website in 2006, which was very active around the riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 2009, which left nearly 200 people dead.
The authorities must resolutely crack down on the terrorists, as well as the “brains” behind them. Without the brains, the terrorists will be like a clueless mob.
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Xinjiang’s Never-Ending Struggle
Beijing knows of course that the real “brains” behind the terrorists are to be found in Washington but it is arguably more difficult to put them behind bars. According to Xinjiang’s police, Tohti engaged in separatist activities and “colluded with overseas East Turkistan separatist forces”, which include among others the NED-funded World Uyghur Congress. While Western media reported extensively about the arrest of the Uyghur economics professor, another incident involving the Turkic ethnic group received considerably less coverage, although the information came from the West’s preferred source, CIA propaganda project Radio Free Asia (RFA):
Uyghur Attack on Police Station Leaves Three Dead, Two Injured
Chinese authorities have shot dead three Uyghurs who attacked a police station in northwestern China’s restive Xinjiang region, officials said Wednesday, calling the attack an act of “separatism.”
The assault on the Yengieriq town police station in Aksu prefecture’s Awat county is the latest in a string of raids by Uyghurs who exile rights groups say could be retaliating for discrimination by Chinese authorities against the ethnic minority group.
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As usual, Radio Free Asia portrays the attack as inevitable consequence of government discrimination against the Uyghur population.
The Manas Question: Drugs, Revolution, and Terrorism (video)
Boiling Frogs
December 21, 2011
CONTINUE WATCHING: http://bit.ly/spXlKQ
TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=3542
The Manas Air Base, situated near the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, has played a key role in the increasingly important Central Asian region since its inception.
First opened in December 2001 to support the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Manas Air Base plays host to the US Ninth Air Force and serves primarily as a transit point for US goods and personnel coming and going from Afghanistan.
As part of the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a key supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan that bypasses the now-blockaded Pakistani borders, Manas continues to be a strategically vital asset for the US. At the same time, the base has also been a point of contention with the locals for years, and the controversy doesn’t seem likely to die down any time soon.
Find out more about Manas and the nexus of drugs, revolution and terrorism in Kyrgyzstan in this week’s Eyeopener report.