dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

East Turkistan as a Cradle of Civilizations / Prof Alimcan InayetThis proportion reached 40% in 1982:Ethnic Groups Population ProportionUyghur 5,995,000 45.8%Chinese (Han) 5,284,000 40.4%Kazakh 903,000 6.9%Dongan 567,000 4.3%Kyrgyz 112,000 0.9%These figures do not include the troops of the Chinese administration’sproduction-construction army (Sheng-Chan Jian-She Bing-Tuan) in EastTurkistan. The number of these troops was 2,287,896 in 1995 and correspondedto 13.8% of the overall population in East Turkistan. Therefore, the Chinesepopulation in the region actually amounts to 54.2% of the overall populationtoday.Obviously, the Chinese communists have distorted the demographic structurein the region by transferring a Chinese (Han) population to East Turkistan since1950s, and thus making the Uyghur Turks a minority in their own land. Thispopulation transfer is still continuing today through various channels and thepresence of the Uyghur Turks has thus come under threat.In addition to this intensive population transfer to East Turkistan, the ChineseCommunist administration has directly and indirectly applied different methods,including the banning of the Uyghur language in public offices, changing thealphabet, forcing education in the Chinese language, bi-lingual education, birthrestrictions, and the restriction of religious activities and prayer. 166. The current situation in East TurkistanToday, East Turkistan -which is also known as “Xinjiang” by the Chineseisthe second largest country after Kazakhstan in Central Asia, with an area of1,644,000 square km. The country, which covers the Tien Shan Mountains, theAltai Mountains, the Pamir Mountains, the Taklimakan Desert and the TarimRiver, is bordered by the Russian Federation to the north, Mongolia to the northeast,Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan to the west,Tibet and India to the south, and China to the east.281