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Wednesday November 03, 2004-- Ramadan 19, 1425 A.H.
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China responds to ethnic unrest with military blockade

ZHENGZHOU, China: Deadly ethnic clashes between Hui Muslims and Han Chinese in central China were met Tuesday with a military blockade and a news blackout as officials attempted to curb the unrest and cover it up.

Despite the heavy presence of paramilitary police in Zhongmou, the rural county in Henan province where at least seven people were killed and possibly many more, local residents remained uneasy.

"We don’t dare go out in the fields to work," said a peasant woman in Nanren village, which is mainly Muslim and has been a flashpoint in the riots that began Thursday and were only controlled Sunday. Farmers from Nanren clashed with their neighbours in Nanwei, which is mostly Han Chinese, after tempers flared over a traffic dispute. As well as the seven dead, 42 were injured, state-run Xinhua news agency said. Locals disputed the official toll, saying as many as 20 had lost their lives as ethnic animosities flared across this county of rice fields fed by the waters of the Yellow River. Eighteen people were arrested, according to Xinhua, which carried a brief report only on its English-language service.

None of the Chinese media mentioned the unrest and reports of the incident were blacked out when broadcast by the BBC and CNN television networks. "All the 18 detained are Han Chinese," a teacher at a Nanren elementary school told AFP. "They were held because they killed a Hui child who was on his way to school." On Tuesday Nanren resembled a ghost town as police officers and communist party leaders patrolled the streets to prevent new disturbances, locals said. Uniformed members of the People’s Armed Police sealed off the entire area.

"Now we can at least sleep during the night," said the schoolteacher. "But in the daytime we’re afraid to go out for fear of attack." There were unconfirmed reports that Muslims from other parts of China had tried to get to Nanren to join the fight. Some of them attempted to travel to Henan by train but were prevented by police from getting off, while others arrived in buses and managed to break through the cordons, according to locals. China tried to play down the incident Tuesday, with the foreign ministry refusing to say it was rooted in ethnic tensions.

"This was an isolated fight with weapons among villagers. We shouldn’t exaggerate it into an ethnic conflict," ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said in Beijing. "China is a populous country with many ethnicities, but China has a very good ethnic policy." Foreign journalists trying to enter Nanren on Monday were either turned back or detained. Most residents in Zhengzhou, the Henan provincial capital less than 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Zhongmou, appeared to have heard only vague rumours about the riots and many were shocked as the vehemence of the clashes.

"I’m very surprised so many people died," said Isa, a teacher at a religious school attached to Zhengzhou’s Xiaolou Mosque. "We’ve had occasional clashes in the past, business arguments that got out of hand and that kind of thing, but only the sort of disagreement you would expect among sons in the same family." China’s Huis are descendants of Arab and Persian traders. Over the centuries they have mixed so thoroughly with the Han Chinese that they are indistinguishable from each other but for religion, customs and dress codes.

The Huis are generally considered among China’s best assimilated minorities, but occasional clashes with other groups are known to occur. Wang Huapu, an elderly elementary school teacher in Zhengzhou, said there had been little animosity between the two ethnic groups previously in the area.

"The children in my school, both Hans and Huis, get along very well. They don’t bring ethnic prejudice with them from home," she said.


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