dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

The Future of East Turkistan: An Evaluation through the SWOT Analysis Method / Assoc Prof Erkin EkremAlptekin and others; they demanded autonomy from the Nationalist Governmentof China and then they fled abroad after 1949. When such intellectual figuresfrom East Turkistan, people who were deputies in the congress of the ChineseNationalist Party and who served in various positions in the local governmentin East Turkistan before 1949, migrated to Turkey, the independence movementgained momentum; yet at the same time, the oppressive policy of the Chinesegovernment equally increased. Some groups claimed that the political strugglehad not sufficed and therefore started to lean towards armed insurgence afterthe end of the Cold War. Some of the people from East Turkistan who adoptedthe armed struggle received training in camps of the al-Qaeda in Afghanistanand began to fight against the Chinese administration in East Turkistan. Thisorganization, operating under the name of the Islamic Movement of EastTurkistan, was included on the list of international terrorist organizations afterthe attacks of September 11. 22 Uyghur youth were brought to Guantanamo Basealong with 500 terrorists who had been seized by the US as terrorist suspects.Other smaller fractions, similar to the Islamic Movement of East Turkistan, havebeen eliminated by means of the anti-terrorism activities conducted by the USA.On the other hand, the difference between the perspectives and definitionsof the Chinese government and international society towards the East Turkistanissue has made the issue more complicated. After the US government includedthe Islamic Movement of East Turkistan on their terrorist list, the UN followedsuit. However, the US was compelled to offer an explanation on this issue, asthe Chinese government not only classified the above-mentioned organizationas a terrorist organization, but also included all other domestic and internationalorganizations that carried out a struggle through political activities. First, thepresident of the USA, George W. Bush, told the Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin,that the rights of these minorities -namely, the Uyghur people- could not beviolated under the cover of fighting terrorism; later the US deputy secretary ofstate, Lorne Craner, paid a visit to Beijing and Urumchi, stating that the terroristorganization listed by the USA was only the Islamic Movement of East Turkistan.Furthermore, the UN Human Rights Committee and other international humanrights organizations criticized the Chinese policy in East Turkistan and gavesupport to the human rights of Uyghur people. 4The fact that the USA and some European countries became interested in563