As the opening of the Olympic games in Beijing was approaching, some of the propaganda projects begun months and even years earlier came into sharper focus. We are alluding in particular to the Uyghur genocide farce and the bogus London proceedings under the auspices of former ICTY prosecutor Geoffrey Nice, staged to give the farce an aura of quasi-judicial sobriety.

It is, of course, not difficult to offer an analysis that turns out to be fundamentally correct whenever you are dealing with unimaginative people who are either incapable of originality or are simply too insecure to abandon the safe precincts of their overused playbook.

In this particular case, the analogy they are straining to produce between the 1980 Moscow Olympics and this year’s Beijing event is rather glaring. In both instances, an international incident is being co-opted to generate massive no-shows and thus wreck the games, inflicting severe PR damage and embarrassment on the host country. Forty years ago, it was the Afghanistan incursion, today it is the concocted “genocide” of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.

Never mind that the Uyghur “victims of genocide” seem to be remarkably alive and well, to the extent of popping up as proxy foot soldiers in imperial interventions all over the map, from Syria to the latest color revolution attempt in Kazakhstan. Well-funded and with ample logistical support, Uyghur émigrés and radicalised elements within Xinjiang itself are making just enough sound and fury to be weaponised by Western masters in their anti-China propaganda offensives.

So the “verdict” of Nice’s phony “tribunal,” actually an ad hoc private association created specifically for the purpose, astonished no one, just as the “verdicts” of the Hague Tribunal, where earlier Nice had honed his persecutorial skills, caused no surprise. China was duly found guilty on all counts of “genocide” against the Uyghur minority in its Xinjiang province. The stage was thus set for the vilification of China by imputing to it the most heinous crime known in international law.

Unfortunately, the Chinese inexplicably left the propaganda field wide open to their perfidious opponents and failed completely to exploit the political opportunities the Uyghur tribunal presented to them. Instead of calling their detractors’ bluff and dispatching competent barristers and credible witnesses to vigorously challenge the flimsy proceeding on its own turf, as initially and for form’s sake the “tribunal” had invited them to do while fully counting on their refusal, the Chinese chose to stand back and nurse their offended dignity. It was an error of tactical judgment which greatly facilitated the phony “tribunal’s” corrupt task by creating the convenient illusion that the accused party was given the opportunity but had nothing pertinent to say.

China’s clumsy response is water under the bridge. The question before us now is what move are the uncreative stage managers next likely to make?

That is not a complicated question precisely because they are imagination-challenged and playbook-bound. Their search for a comfortable old paradigm that, with a few adjustments and little creative effort they can apply to a new factual situation has apparently led to conjuring up a plan. It is to reframe Xinjiang, now in the Black Sea basin, with Crimean Tatars assigned the Uyghur role of genocide victims. With tensions rising around the Black Sea, another splendid little genocide to stoke the public’s fervour would indeed be just what Dr. Goebbels ordered.

So, again predictably, the propaganda drumbeat about Crimean Tatar oppression, abuse and discrimination by Russia is gathering momentum and just by pressing a few additional buttons it can easily be upgraded to the level of “genocide,” should political exigencies so dictate.

The internet accordingly is overflowing with Tatar sob stories. The leitmotiv of the fraudulent new genocide campaign is the assertion that within its vast territory Russia is literally “hiding” captive nations (“Why Russia Hides Countries Inside Its Borders?”) viciously depriving them of their language and culture just for sadistic pleasure. And, of course, as trusted “Radio Liberty” reports, arrests of “Tatar activists” are ongoing, promising to yield a rich crop of new ethnic martyrs. It is apparently yielding already a respectable number of “Tatar refugees” who will be welcomed by Western services as were their Uyghur counterparts, to form the nucleus of the “Tatar Liberation Movement” which is no doubt in the works as this is being written.

Following the tested pattern set previously for the creation of the Uyghur saga, the public are now bombarded with “webinars” and pseudo-scholarly conferences purporting to depict the dire condition of the Tatar minority in Russia. Where this propaganda blitz will ultimately go remains to be seen, but the general contours of the thinking that inspires it are unmistakably visible.

It is now Russia’s turn, after China, to be tarred and put on the defensive as a potentially genocidal oppressor of ethnic minorities which dot the vast expanse of its territory. It is of no importance whatsoever that from the Tsarist period to the present day no minority in Russia has been exterminated or deprived of its cultural identity, in sharp contrast to the numerous nations, ruined and left on the verge of extinction, which had the misfortune of being in the path of Western colonizers. Those nations have no “activists” to advocate for them and their martyrs will never be Western media poster boys.

Should the moribund empire find the audacity to again project its sins onto others by shamelessly setting up a “Tatar Tribunal” as a sequel to the Uyghur charade, hopefully Russia will show itself more savvy than China and will conduct a vigorous and proactive counteroffensive, pour écraser l’infâme.

The short-lived attempt at a colour revolution in Kazakhstan has brought into focus the geo-political game being waged by the West in Central Asia. This clumsy attempt to once again destablise the region was quickly squashed thanks to the response of Kazakhstan’s fellow members of the CTSO, led by Russia. As all colour revolutions do, it tapped into genuine anger among the populace about rising fuel costs and other legitimate grievances. However any pretence that this was an organic, leaderless uprising was soon exposed, the beheadings were the giveaway.

The Central Asian region encompassing all the “Stans” has been largely at the periphery of world affairs until comparatively recently. Remote in the extreme, even during its time as a part on the USSR, it received little attention due to its strategic irrelevance. The emergence of China and Russia has changed that. Kazakhstan, sandwiched between them, along with its Central Asian neighbours, is now a battleground for the “great power politics” being played out. Kazakhstan is an essential component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and as such is a target of the Western powers, who are intent on doing all possible to stop it.

A cursory look at a map will show that China shares borders with 14 countries, seven of which are Islamic nations. It enjoys good relations with all of them. China itself has a large Muslim population, not concentrated in Xinjiang. They are to be found everywhere in China, along with the mosques at which they worship. Not alone as a minority group, China has five different ethnic groups inside its borders. All are free and encouraged to practice and celebrate their individual cultures and languages. In Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, there are at least eight separate Muslim sects with their own mosques. Muslims are not forced to send their children to Chinese schools, and during the almost 40 years of China’s one child policy, the Muslims were the only group who were permitted to have more than one child. The suggestion that China persecutes Muslims is just a Western concoction.

Xinjiang is in the extreme N.W. of China, it borders six of the other central Asian Islamic countries. Once remote and undeveloped, it has in recent years received huge investment from the central government to help it modernise and develop a real economy for the first time. Parents there overwhelmingly want their children to go to Chinese schools, learn the language and have the prospect of a better life than the Islamic schools can offer. The enemy of the majority of the people there, is the same as it is in their neighbouring moderate Islamic countries, radical Islam.

Many Uyghurs have already been radicalised, they comprise a large part of the terrorist factions that have been present in Syria, Iraq, Libya and many more once stable countries that have been reduced to ashes. They are heavily armed and paid a $50 daily stipend, but by whom you may ask? That is not a question that need detain us for long. The Turkic Islamic army is one such faction that sprouted from Central Asia. The U.S. Government took them off the “terrorist” watchlist a year ago. They are just moderate terrorists apparently.

So, does China persecute Muslims? No. But it does have a genuine Western-backed radicalised Islamic faction looking to infect the youth of Xinjiang. It is a problem it shares with all the moderate, peaceful Central Asian countries. If China does indeed have re-education camps as the West claims, most Uyghur parents would prefer their children were there rather than waving an AK47 from the back of a Toyota pickup in a country they don’t belong.

As America continues to bleat on about human rights in China, it supports and promotes the head-choppers to whom it has granted a franchise. Many of the participants of the Kazakhstan violence were killed and many more were captured. In the coming days and weeks we can expect more revelations as to who the “instigators behind it were. It should make for interesting reading.

It’s an especially dumb day for anti-China propaganda. The Biden administration has imposed trade restrictions on 34 Chinese institutions on the unsubstantiated allegation that they are developing “brain control weaponry”, a claim the mass media have been all too happy to uncritically pass on to the public. Between that and the ridiculous reporting on Russian Havana Syndrome ray guns it’s like they’re literally trying to get everyone to wear tinfoil hats.

Then there’s the Tucker Carlson guest who just told Carlson’s massive audience that the US military needs to be full of “Type A men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls.” It’s highly disturbing how much the mass media have been talking about war with China like it’s a foregone conclusion lately, almost as though they’re working to normalize that horrifying idea.

There’s also this new article for The Hill, hilariously titled “‘Allies’ China and Russia are ganging up on America”, about how the poor widdle US empire is being bullied by mean old Xi and Putin’s increasingly tight-knit collaboration. It is authored by Gordon Chang, who has been wrongly predicting the imminent collapse of China for decades, and is plainly absurd because the Moscow-Beijing alignment is in reality nothing other than the natural consequence of two nations realizing the need to work together against the globe-spanning power structure that is trying to bully them into submission.

The US military budget has once again increased despite the US ending a war this year, and despite its facing no real threats from any nation to its easily-defended shores. The increase has been largely justified by the need to “counter China” and includes billions in funding for the ongoing construction of long-range missile systems on the first island chain near the Chinese mainland, explicitly for the purpose of threatening China. One need only imagine what would happen if China began constructing a chain of long-range missile systems off a US coastline to understand who the actual aggressor is between these two powers.

Fox guest: “We don’t need a military that’s woman-friendly, we don’t need a military that’s gay-friendly,” we need “Type A men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls” pic.twitter.com/JztfZKpYyr

— Brendan Karet (@bad_takes) December 18, 2021

In reality, concern trolling from the western political/media class about things China is doing both internationally and domestically has pretty consistently been about actions that China has taken in response to aggressions from the US and its allies. Such concern trolling is generally framed as opposition to alleged human rights abuses and the need to protect China’s neighbors from “Chinese aggression”, but in reality it’s done to facilitate the agenda to make China weaker and smaller by any means necessary.

The actual source of tensions between the US and China never actually has anything to do with “human rights” or “protecting” anyone; that’s just the narrative overlay pinned on top of the actual agenda. The actual source of those tensions is always the fact that it is in the US empire’s interests to make China smaller and weaker and it is in China’s interests to be big and strong. The US resolved after the fall of the Soviet Union to prevent the rise of any other rival superpower, and all of the grievances we see aired about alleged Chinese abuses are really just justifications for aggressions geared toward undermining, subverting, threatening, out-maneuvering and balkanizing China to make it weaker and smaller.

Pretty much everything China gets slammed for by the imperial media is actually a response to western aggressions, whether you’re talking about Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, territorial disputes over borders or ocean waters, or domestic authoritarianism. The US is consistently the aggressor, and China is consistently responding defensively to those aggressions.

Only an absolute moron would believe the US and its allies actually care about Muslims in Xinjiang after they just spent the last two decades slaughtering Muslims by the millions in their post-9/11 wars of aggression. The propaganda narratives focus on human rights, but the real reason is that Xinjiang is a very geostrategically valuable region that US imperialism would benefit from carving away from China, and Beijing would benefit from keeping. Take this excerpt from a 2017 SBS article about China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to illustrate (emphasis mine):

An example of one significant BRI project that has multiple purposes is the creation of an overland route from Xinjiang in China’s far west through Pakistan to its deep water Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea. US$54 billion of infrastructure is planned for this stretch, despite some of the route passing through territory disputed by India and Pakistan.

This route gives China cargo overland access to the Arabian Sea, will spur investment in Xinjiang, and opens up a new route into China for energy imports from the Middle East — a route that is not vulnerable to US maritime power like its east coast sea lanes.

This map says more than any article you’ll ever see in corporate media about why Western imperialist countries (that have spent decades killing Muslims) suddenly pretend to care about Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China.

They want to break China up and stop its Belt and Road Initiative. pic.twitter.com/mhWSsrtSIu

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 25, 2020

When Uyghur separatist groups began inflicting acts of terror with the goal of driving the Chinese government out of Xinjiang and creating their own state, Beijing had essentially three choices:

1. To engage in a US-style campaign of mass military slaughter against these groups until they were defeated,
2. To allow a violent uprising of what would inevitably become western-backed jihadists as they had just seen in Libya and Syria carve away a geostrategically crucial part of China to be exploited by the US and its allies, or
3. To find some alternative to 1 and 2.

Beijing went with option number three, and the alternative it found was the aggressive deradicalization campaign it ended up implementing and the re-education facilities it has been so widely criticized for. This move would surely have entailed many of the abuses you’d expect from a mass-scale police action and dramatic escalation of authoritarian policies, but claims that it constituted “genocide” have been soundly discredited by independent research groups and by members of the public using publicly available information, while the most egregious allegations of abuse have been shown to be subject to manipulation and riddled with major plot holes.

You can criticize Beijing for how it went about its dilemma in Xinjiang all you want, but it was plainly universes less draconian than the US approach of killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its barbaric “war on terror”. And unlike the “war on terror”, Beijing’s approach actually worked, which even western media have been forced to grudgingly concede as tourism surges in Xinjiang.

I would like to think that maybe in the future people will be slightly more skeptical about sensationalist claims about human rights in official enemy countries but that’s probably being optimistic https://t.co/nkdVI3rOsw

— Rob (@robrousseau) October 12, 2021

The west has understood for a very, very long time that it needs to keep China weak and small to retain supremacy. That’s why so many narratives revolve around “liberating” (balkanizing) parts of China from Beijing. Here’s a Winston Churchill quote from over a century ago:

I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China — I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.

This pattern of working to make China weaker and smaller is the same with Hong Kong, where the US was actively working to facilitate the balkanization of that area before Beijing shut down its interventionist operations. It’s the same with Taiwan, which has served as a US proxy for decades, has previously housed US nuclear weapons, is currently hosting US troops, is the subject of an astonishingly virulent western propaganda campaign, and plays a major role in US geostrategic interests.

It’s the same with the militarization of the South China Sea. Xi Jinping had been offering a mutual demilitarization of the sea, and instead Obama ramped up tensions with the still-ongoing “pivot to Asia” which has seen a continuous buildup of US and allied military activity in the area. As former UN Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani explained in an interview last year:

“I quote a former American ambassador to China, Stapleton Roy, who told me, ‘Kishore, when Xi Jinping made an offer to demilitarize the South China Sea, America should have grabbed that offer and agreed to stop all our military activities in the South China Sea. That would have pushed the Chinese out.’ Of course, the Americans would be out too. But the South China Sea is much more important to China than it is to America. If America steps out, the Chinese military steps out. And that’s a win for America, right? Instead, the U.S. Navy responded by sending naval vessels. So Xi said, ‘Okay. You reject my offer. So be it.’”

It’s the same even with the authoritarian domestic policies for which China is frequently criticized by the western world. We learned in a recent Bloomberg article that US spies are finding it hard to conduct operations against the Chinese government because its strict policies make it impossible for them to function.

“CIA officers in China face daunting challenges posed by China’s burgeoning surveillance state, which has blanketed Chinese cities with surveillance cameras and employs sophisticated facial recognition software to track threats,” claim the article’s authors.

Bloomberg explains that China’s anti-corruption measures have made it much harder to recruit CIA assets, writing, “Xi’s broad anti-corruption campaign, which has punished more than 1.5 million officials, has also led to greater scrutiny of Chinese officials’ income, making payments to potential sources far more problematic, two former officials said.”

“Those efforts were detailed extensively in 2017 by the New York Times, which said as many as a dozen U.S. sources were executed by China, with others jailed, in what represented one of the worst breaches ever of American spying networks,” the article also notes.

As John Pilger documented in his prescient “The Coming War On China”, the US has been surrounding the PRC with military bases and weaponry, building a “noose” around that nation which now includes the aforementioned long-range missile systems currently under construction through the first island chain. If any foreign power were doing this to the United States it would be considered an act of war, and war would be declared immediately, but it somehow never enters westerners’ heads that China could be the one who is responding defensively to an aggressor.

None of this means that China is run by innocent little girl scouts who never do anything wrong, it just means it’s clearly not the aggressor in these conflicts, and that the picture we are presented with in the western empire’s frenzied campaign to manipulate public thought about China is not based in reality. The propaganda campaign is so pervasive and forceful that even people who are aware it’s happening still commonly fall for its lies and distortions just because there’s so much of it coming from so many different directions.

The propaganda campaign against China is not going to go away; it’s going to get far louder, crazier, and more aggressive. With each new shrill narrative that comes up, research it with the question “How is this geared toward making China weaker and smaller?” in mind. You’ll find something there every time.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no good reason nations can’t collaborate with each other toward the common good instead of squandering all their energy and resources in this insane struggle of US hegemonic conquest. The word “detente” never enters into mainstream discourse because it does not serve the interests of the western imperialists who rule us, but it does serve everyone else, infinitely more than pouring fortunes into cold war brinkmanship and flirting with the prospect of world war between nuclear-armed nations.

Detente is what’s needed. But in order for that to happen the US empire is going to have to stop aggressing, and it’s going to have to stop lying.

caityjohnstone.medium.com

Realpolitik minds struggle to find a point in this gratuitous provocation, intervening less than two months before the start of the show, on February 4, 2022 at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing.

According to White House reasoning, “the Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

To start with, no one among the Joe Biden handlers in the administration or any other officials were invited in the first place. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, remarked the US was “hyping a ‘diplomatic boycott’ without even being invited to the Games”.

Zhao also stressed the Games are not “a stage for political posturing”, and added the “blatant political provocation” constitutes “a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people.” He left hanging in the air the possibility of “resolute countermeasures”.

What that implies is the recent Xi-Biden virtual summit also melt in the air when it comes to promoting a more diplomatic entente cordiale. Predictably, Washington politicians who prevailed are the ones obsessed on demonizing Beijing using the perennial human rights pretext.

Top billing goes to Polish-American Democrat Senator Tom Malinowski from New Jersey, the vice-chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Malinowski is not strange to dodgy dealings. On October 21, 2021, the House Committee on Ethics issued a report confirming he had failed to properly disclose his stock trades since early 2020, as he

bought or sold as much as $1 million of stock in medical and tech companies that had a stake in the response to Covid-19. The trades were actually just one aspect of a stock buying and selling spree worth as much as $3.2 million.

All throughout 2021, with multiple ethics complaints and an ethics investigation piling up, Malinowski was forced to direct his financial advisor to cease with stock market shenanigans, and announced he set up a blind trust for his assets.

Yet Malinowski’s main line of business is actually China demonization.

In June, Malinowski, alongside Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Michael McCaul (R-TX) was the key articulator of a resolution  urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to move the 2022 Games “away from Beijing” unless the PRC government ended “ongoing crimes against the Uyghur people”. The Americans were supported by legislators in nine European nations, plus the European Parliament.

At the time, Malinowski said, “there’s no such thing as non-political games – dictatorships like China host the Olympics to validate their standing…even as they continue to commit crimes against their people.”

Malinowski is very close to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – who is fervently pro-boycott. So this directive comes from the top of the Democrat leadership: the White House imprimatur was just a formality.

The “genocide” perpetrator

Considering the rolling color revolution in Hong Kong ended up as a total failure, human rights in Xinjiang remains a predictable pretext/target – on a par with the imminent “invasion” of Taiwan.

Arguably the best contextualized exposition of the real situation in Xinjiang is here. The “genocide” fallacy has been completely debunked by thorough independent analysis, as in here and here. The White House essentially regurgitates the “analysis” of a far-right religious nut first endorsed by Mike “we cheat, we lie, we steal” Pompeo. Talk about a continuity of government.

During the Cold War, the Olympics did become hostage to diplomatic boycotts. In 1980, the US under then president Jimmy Carter snubbed the Moscow Olympics along with other 64 nations in protest for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR for its part, alongside the Iron Curtain, boycotted the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

What happens now falls under the seal of Cold War 2.0 and the demonization of China across the spectrum, mostly via Hybrid War tactics.

Xinjiang is a prime target not because of the Uyghurs, but because it is the strategic connector between western China and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridors across Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia all the way to Europe. BRI – which is the centerpiece Chinese foreign policy concept for the foreseeable future – is an absolute anathema in Washington.

The fact that the US has been staging countless, costly, devastating declinations of humanitarian imperialism in Muslim lands, directly and indirectly, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and beyond, but now, suddenly, is in tears about the fate of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, speaks for itself.

“Rights” groups barely disguised as CIA propaganda fronts have predictably been shrieking non-stop, urging the “international community” – an euphemism for NATOstan – to boycott the Beijing Olympics. These are irrelevant. Governments are a more serious matter.

Twenty nations refused to sign the Olympic Truce with China. This tradition, originating in Ancient Greece, makes sure that political upheaval does not interfere with sport. The – Western – justification for yet another provocation: we’re “sending a message” to Beijing.

In the UK, Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg remarked recently that “no tickets have been booked” for the Olympics. The Foreign Office said earlier this week, “no decisions have yet been made” about sending officials to Beijing.

France will “coordinate” with other EU members, although the Elysée made a point that ‘when we are worried about human rights, we tell the Chinese…We adopted sanctions on Xinjiang last March.” That was a reference to the US, UK, EU, Canada and a few other allies sanctioning some Chinese officials for the glaring fake news the White House officially describes as “genocide”.

So any adherence to the White House directive this coming February will come essentially from NATOstan members and of course AUKUS. In contrast, across Asia and the Global South, no one could be bothered. South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Choi Yong-sam, for instance, stressed that South Korea supports the Olympics.

President Putin for his part accepted a personal invitation from Xi Jinping, and he will be at the inauguration.

Extremely strict Covid-19 control measures will be enforced during the Olympics, so for the organizers a smaller number of Western official guests flying in, in terms of cost, is actually a benefit.

So in the end what’s left of this fit of hysteria? Elon Musk may have nailed it this week at a CEO Council Summit, when he remarked that China’s economy could soon be two or three times the size of the US economy. That hurts. And there’s no way any boycott will solve it.

With the recent pledge by China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan for renewed defense of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and right to develop, many have jumped the gun to celebrate a little prematurely.

While watching a hegemonic wanna-be global overlord choke on humble pie is certainly satisfying, and while Afghanistan unquestionably has a renewed hope to recapture its ancient role as a pearl on the Silk Road uniting all cultures of the globe, something darker is also afoot. A process reminiscent of the events of 1979 when Zbigniew Brzezinski, then leading a trilateral Commission takeover of the USA using a dim-witted puppet president, managed to launch a program known as “Operation Cyclone”.

This clandestine operation was premised on the lies of Zbigniew’s Team B analysis of Soviet ambitions to supposedly dominate the world and which thence justified a program that utilized billions of dollars in tax payer money to fund the growth of Mujahedeen terrorist cells and narcotics in a bid to light a fire under Russia’s soft underbelly and suck the unsuspecting soviets into a bloodletting that would be sold to an incredulous western population as “Russia’s Vietnam.”

Over forty years later, the results of Zbigniew’s duplicitous proxy war are well known.

The Soviet Union was certainly bled, leading to its ultimate dissolution under Gorbachev and the world was given the gift Islamic terrorism- funded, armed and trained generously by CIA, MI6 and ISI operatives.

Additionally, organized crime syndicates of the world also grew their influence in leaps and bounds as the world center of opium production was moved from its former zones of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar to more fertile soil in Afghanistan, providing both the funding needed to light the region on fire for decades while also amplifying a new opium war against ALL of civilization. The conspicuous integration of the DEA and CIA during this period which coincided with the heroin boom and also the flooding of crack cocaine into the ghettos of the USA under CIA director George Bush Sr (also a defender of Zbigniew’s Team B takeover of U.S. intelligence estimates) cannot be ignored.

Signs of Darkness

Signs of the re-activation of this old script with a modern twist are already visible on numerous levels, not the least of those signs being witnessed in the strange decision to demolish the CIA torture annex in Kabul in response to the August 26 attack by the mysterious ISIS-K on the Kabul airport which killed 170 civilians and 13 U.S. soldiers. Why was it the case that U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued warnings of an attack at that location and time long before it occurred and yet did less than nothing, other than shooting civilians and bombing three households after it happened?

Why would the U.S. military deem it wise to destroy a CIA base which has been a strategic central point of command of all clandestine activities in the region for the past two decades in response to this completely foreseeable event?

Recently a Lebanese analyst, commenting on the observations of the leader of Hezbollah wrote that “the U.S. have been using helicopters to save ISIS terrorists from complete annihilation in Iraq and transporting them to Afghanistan to keep them as insurgents in Central Asia against Russia, China and Iran”.

This observation is not unique to Nasrallah, but has been echoed at various times over the past three years by the Russian government, Syrian state media and leading officials in Iran including former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who noted as early as March 2018 that “this time, it wasn’t unmarked helicopters. They were American helicopters, taking Daesh out of Haska prison. Where did they take them? Now, we don’t know where they took them, but we see the outcome. We see more and more violence in Pakistan, more and more violence in Afghanistan, taking a sectarian flavor.”

Zarif’s words echoed those of Iranian Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Baqeri who said: “After witnessing ISIS and other organized terrorist groups losing their ground in Iraq and Syria, they are now relocating them to Afghanistan.”

Additionally, U.S. mainstream media has been preparing the western zeitgeist with strange interviews with leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS-K in recent weeks. First the state-funded PBS broadcasted a suspicious interview with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (aka: Al Nusra aka: Al Qaeda) leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani who was repackaged in a business suite and sold as a “moderate resistance fighter” in Syria. Then just days before the August 26 Kabul attack, CNN’s Clarissa Ward interviewed an ISIS-K commander in a silhouetted frame to protect his identity. When asked if he would continue the campaign of international terror, the unnamed terrorist stated “instead of currently operating, we have turned to recruiting only, to utilize the opportunity to do our recruitment. But when the foreigners and people of the world leave Afghanistan, we can restart our operations.”

To top things off, the incredibly talented Bulgarian researcher Dilyana Gaytandzhieva noted on June 22 that the U.S. Army contracted four companies to purchase $350 million worth of weapons made by eight companies located in Serbia, Bulgaria and Croatia which are destined to flood into Syria as part of a program called Task Force Smoking Gun. This 2017 program was part of a U.S. Special Operations Command Unit Task force which carried out the Syrian ‘train and equip program’ designed to overthrow the Assad regime using Al Qaeda affiliates as freedom fighters. In her report, Gaytandzhieva wrote:

“According to the U.S. Federal Procurement Data System, the eight companies have already received orders with an estimated value of $25 million each or $200 million combined under the 5 year-long Pentagon program for non-U.S. standard weapons supplies. These are foreign weapons which are not compatible with the U.S. military standard, hence cannot be used by the U.S. army and will be delivered as military aid to third parties.”

China Will Fill the Vacuum

It is 100% certain that China has great hopes to invest in Afghanistan’s bountiful rare earth, copper and iron deposits, as well as rail, roads, fibre optics, energy plants and communications bringing Afghanistan into the evolving Belt and Road Initiative. However, the expanded presence of Chinese engineers in the region will put China at risk of asymmetric attacks.

Over the past 15 years, projects like the 2007 Mes Aynak copper mining operation and 2011 Faryab and Sar-i-pul oil development deals have stalled due to the frequent occurrence of U.S.-backed terrorist attacks on Chinese engineers and workers. Just this summer, 9 Chinese engineers were killed in Pakistan when an explosive device detonated sending a busload of workers off a cliff. These workers were en-route to work on the large Dasu hydroelectric dam that is part of the CPEC.

China is additionally concerned that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement which has cut its teeth fighting alongside its Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan may also spring to new life. It was only in November 2020 that Secretary of State Pompeo removed the group from the U.S. list of terrorist groups despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council had released a report in May 2020 stating that the ETIM “has a transnational agenda to target Xinjiang, China, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as Chitral, Pakistan, which poses a threat to China, Pakistan and other regional States.”

The refutation of China’s anti-Muslim genocide myth promoted by western MSM was laid out in a recent interview by this author here:

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has attempted to allay China’s fears saying: “Those who are intending to carry out sabotage activities in other countries or have their foreign agenda would not be able to remain in the country.”

However, it is still too early to validate such claims as the ETIM alongside ISIS cells certainly abound in the mountainous northeast regions enjoying support from western clandestine operations and parallel networks still active in Pakistan such as Lashkar-e-Islam and Tehrik-e-Taliban as outlined in the aforementioned UN report.

The need to cut off all Al Qaeda operations are vital at this time and thus the convergence of the “big four” nations of Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan are so vital. With Iran having been inducted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as of September 17 joining both Pakistan and India as full members, it is understood by all relevant parties that a new security doctrine is needed in the region premised on win-win cooperation.

This is most apparent when one considers that the living force for the multipolar alliance’s long-term success is hinged upon the continued success of China’s 130 nation strong Belt and Road Initiative whose four of the six primary networks pass through Xinjiang and the region which Brzezinski lit on fire four decades ago to keep the “world island” divided and weak.

The Chinese and their growing array of partners have come to the fundamental insight that the only way to destroy terrorism is not by bombing nations to smithereens, but rather by providing the means of improving the lives of people. This is the true meaning of “civilization” that not merely builds infrastructure for the sake of shareholder value, but uplifts and ennobles the hearts and minds of a people who have been caught too long in the darkness of ignorance, despair, war and poverty. This is the only antidote for global terrorism, the plague of drugs that have ravaged countless lives, and even the poisonous misanthropy underlying the decaying “Rules-Based International Order”.

The author can be reached on his Substack

The jury is now in on former Hague prosecutor Geoffrey Nice’s London travesty earlier this month, audaciously misnamed the “Uyghur Tribunal.” For those mindful of the spirit and practice of the Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) who were following the June 4 – 7 2021 proceedings of this so-called Tribunal which was staged in London, most of what was seen and heard there was eerily familiar.

The thrust in both instances can be summarised in terms of the pinning on the designated target the charge of “genocide” and the application of ICTY’s nebulous concept of Joint Criminal Enterprise as the overarching mode of its criminal liability. The allegation of genocide was made explicitly by practically all “expert witnesses” brought so far to give evidence before the Uyghur Tribunal and the alleged data they presented tended uniformly to support such an inference. During this session, the JCE liability concept was strongly suggested rather than explicitly advanced. That may, of course, change between now and the Second session scheduled to take place in September. It should be borne in mind that, though extremely unfavourable to the party to which it is applied, genocide is by now an overused and mainly propagandistic device with little legal substance left to it, resorted to largely to discredit and make seem abhorrent the targeted party. Joint Criminal Enterprise, on the other hand, is a more serious matter because it purports to explain the mechanism and assign specific responsibility for genocide and other heinous offences imputed to the target. It is therefore important to stress that in the present phase of the London proceedings a foundation is being laid for asserting at some point later that a JCE, involving the highest officials of the Chinese Government in executive positions, is what best accounts for the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law that are alleged to be taking place in Xinjiang at their behest.

That is plain when considering two characteristics of these proceedings. First, “fact” witnesses who claim to have seen or suffered numerous forms of grave abuses coincide in the common narrative that these alleged violations of international law, potentially amounting even to genocide, are widely dispersed throughout the province of Xinjiang. Evidently well coached in the law of genocide, they are careful to stress that targeting is being conducted of Turkic Muslim inhabitants not as individuals, but as a group. Second, the evidence of “expert witnesses” does not just echo these allegations but goes a step further, to offer an interpretation of why and how these outrages could have occurred. The point of convergence of all “expert” interpretations is that such widespread occurrence of identical phenomena throughout Xinjiang could not have occurred without the involvement of the coordinating hand of the central government in Beijing. The language that almost all “expert witnesses” use is that these phenomena are “neither isolated nor sporadic” (direct quote from the evidence of purported expert Sean Roberts), clearly implying that they are orchestrated from a superior centre. Thus, the stage is being set, when the political moment is judged to be opportune, to flesh out this particular mode of criminal liability for the crime of genocide and a long list of other grave alleged offences by simply inserting the names of specific Chinese political officials at the national level.

It may be noted, based on a careful listening to Geoffrey Nice’s introductory remarks for the opening session on 4 June, that a discrete reformulation, or at least amplification for public purposes, of the “Tribunal’s” agenda may have taken place.

Nice pointed out that “the Tribunal follows but is entirely separate from the China Tribunal that investigated forced organ harvesting.” While focusing on alleged mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, Nice said, that Tribunal also “heard some evidence” of persecution of the Uyghur ethnic minority, linking the two events (at 9:02-9:03 minutes).

Further on in his introductory remarks, Nice made reference to what he termed some historical precedents for a “people’s tribunal,” of the sort that he is heading. (In wartime Germany, that institution was known as the Volksgerichtshof, and it was presided by the notorious Nazi judge, Dr. Roland Freisler.) Nice cited as a precedent the Women’s Tribunal which considered allegations of sexual abuse committed by Japanese Imperial forces during World War II. He pointedly noted in his remarks that in its “judgment” in 2002 the Women’s tribunal found that criminal culpability was attributable to Japan’s head of state, the then “long dead Emperor” (4 June video record, at 9:06 minutes). The allusion to that emperor’s very much living analogue, in the country currently being targeted by Nice’s operation, is quite transparent and not at all difficult to decipher.

Finally, Nice drops a huge hint that in light of the evidence presented to the Uyghur Tribunal questions may arise “whether the definition of genocide may have to be expanded” (4 June at 9:27 minutes). Immediately following, he introduces a reassuring caveat, that in rendering its judgment in December the Tribunal will “confine itself to factual conclusions based on the law as it is, when satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt only on the basis of the evidence received” (4 June at 9:28 minutes). However, notwithstanding the prudent backpedalling, it would be a serious error to disregard the possibility that the thought of even further expanding and diluting the Genocide convention, to enable the inclusion within its purview of all manner of offences not originally contemplated, has occurred to those for whom Nice is fronting. Such a reframing of the legal concept of genocide would conveniently make it possible to target and tarnish a much broader range of uncooperative states, institutions, and individuals. It would correspond to the ominous tendency that Prof. George Szamuely has aptly termed “defining genocide down.”

In sum, already in his opening remarks Nice alluded to what may have been some discretely guarded features of what all along might have been the Uyghur Tribunal’s actual agenda. By linking that Tribunal’s formation and activity to the previous “China Tribunal” of a few years back, he confirms the coordinated role of both in a continuous effort to put political pressure on China. By highlighting that aspect of the Women’s sexual abuse tribunal judgment which imputes criminal liability far beyond direct perpetrators, all the way up to the head of state, he clears the way for taking a similar approach in the current proceedings as well. Finally, by raising even the possibility (though at this point carefully confined to the hypothetical level) that the legal definition of genocide might have to be expanded (presumably in response to the projected findings of this “tribunal”) he hints at his sponsors’ desire to turn the Genocide convention into an even more broad-ranging and efficient tool for prosecutorial targeting of non-conformist individuals and entities.

These flawed proceedings, as broadcast by the Uyghur Tribunal itself in direct transmission, essentially vindicate our previously expounded anticipations of their likely course. Many will be dismayed by Geoffrey Nice’s own statement on the first day that “the Tribunal has no rules of procedure and will operate by free evaluation of evidence, unrestricted by technical rules on admissibility” (4 June at 9:17 minutes). That admission, that the panel has not been furnished with any normative precepts to assist it in sorting out what passes as evidence that is put before it, appears at first glance incompatible with Nice’s commitment, expressed earlier on, that the “evidence [is] to be tested and assessed” (4 June at 9:10 minutes). In accordance with what criteria is the testing and assessment of evidence to take place?

The prospects raised by such a freewheeling approach are rendered even more disturbing by Chairman Nice’s description of the role of “witnesses of fact giving evidence of things they had seen and sometimes told to them by others” (4 June at 9:18 minutes). This readiness to admit what in the Western legal tradition is impermissible hearsay evidence (which in the witness statements published on the Uyghur Tribunal’s website often takes on multiple forms) vitiates fact testimony wherever it appears. That sort of witness evidence, however, is a standard feature in the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where Nice was a prominent prosecutor and where presumably he perfected his trade.

The Uyghur Tribunal conducts its business in disregard of numerous precepts of legal procedure considered fundamental in the Western legal tradition. To illustrate its flawed character, it is sufficient to highlight just two.

First, the principle of cross-examination of witnesses to test the veracity of their evidence, detect and point out inconsistencies and possible bias, and where warranted to impeach them, is completely absent and disregarded in the proceedings of the Uyghur Tribunal. The role of cross-examination in a properly conducted trial was cannot be overemphasised. It was stressed long ago by the distinguished American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes when he called cross-examination the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”

While there is a “counsel” (Hamid Sabi) who plays a quasi-prosecutorial role by prompting witnesses, there is no officer of comparable rank and stature to put to them probing questions once they are finished giving their evidence. Panel members are allowed to ask questions; however, these questions amount to requests to the witness to clarify and enlarge upon his or her testimony and thus do not serve to critically probe but merely to enhance the witness’ evidence.

As a result, the “evidence” remains totally uncontested and in such form could not pass muster in any British, common law, or even Continental law court.

The second major flaw is the failure of Tribunal organisers, once they understood that at this stage at least China would not be taking part, to institutionalise in some form the protection of China’s interests in the proceedings. They could have done that by appointing an amicus curiae or a qualified barrister to adversarially represent the accused party in order to at least mimic the appearance of fairness. For incomprehensible reasons, unless one should explain it by arrogance and the secure expectation that the entire operation is under such tight political and media control that they did not need to bother with trifles, they have chosen not to do that. Even the Hague Tribunal is careful to observe that formality whenever the need arises to give its proceedings a veneer of regularity.

Nefarious practices of the Hague Tribunal in fact pervade the proceedings of its Uyghur counterpart.

Notable among these uncreative replications is the use of prima facie unrealistic and obviously exaggerated figures. One such example is the claim that “up to a million Uyghurs” in Xinjiang are missing. No factual basis for such a figure is provided, just as no forensic basis is given for the claim that 8,000 prisoners were executed in Srebrenica. And there is another clever detail that is common to both narratives. The dubious figures are preceded by the easily overlooked caveat, “up to.” Up to a million can be anything between just one and a million victims. Estimates given in this deliberately vague form are psychologically effective but substantively meaningless. They conveniently preserve deniability in the event that accurate figures are at some later point discovered and must be explained away.

Another standard ICTY device used also by Uyghur Tribunal witnesses is the Srebrenica narrative meme of “men and boys.” The insertion of “boys” is designed to tug at the audience’s heartstrings and to enhance the abhorrence of the imputed crime. In the Srebrenica narrative the usual age range of the “men and boys” victim group is between 16 and 40. In the London proceedings, exactly the same Uyghur victim age range has been alleged by various “fact witnesses”, with some even putting the lower limit at 12 years of age. (Evidently aware of the inherent absurdity of incarcerating virtual children, a witness suggested that the Chinese authorities’ motive was that the young man was found to have had a prohibited application in his telephone.)

Rape is also a commonly cited allegation that links both narratives. In both instances the alleged incidence of rape is accompanied by mind-boggling numbers. In Bosnia, initial reports advertised figures of “up to 50,000,” only to be later whittled down to about 2,000, encompassing victims from all ethnic groups, once serious and independent inquiries had been conducted. Uyghur Tribunal witnesses alleged hundreds of thousands of rapes (as well as forced sterilisations). The authenticity of these figures could have been tested by effective cross-examination, of which there was none. One witness, Qelbinur Sidik, alleged that in the female concentration camp where she was teaching detainees her professional subject, Mandarin Chinese, which must have been useless to the detainees, she estimated the presence of 8,000 to 10,000 women prisoners. All the women were according to her raped by the guards on a nightly basis and consequently were unable to sit up straight in her class. Again, this is another instance where one sorely misses cross-examination as the proverbial legal engine that could have assisted us to sort out the truth of this highly improbable tale. (Whether the Chinese guards were permanently high on Viagra is obviously one of the first questions that a competent trial attorney would have put to her.)

ICTY’s generally sloppy use of unverified exhibits was made even sloppier in the Uyghur Tribunal proceedings. At ICTY, documents, pictures and other exhibits are introduced by the prosecutor for acceptance by the chamber through a particular witness who may have had some connection to them. At the London proceedings, it appears that the witness is permitted to bring exhibits he or she deems supportive of the evidence and that these items are then submitted to the panel without any particular examination of their provenance or relevance, a practice that is unacceptable in a regular courtroom situation. (As we learned from Chairman Nice, in his “tribunal” that is not a problem because it has no rules of procedure that might govern the handling of such matters.) Uyghur Tribunal witnesses could be seen bringing in “exhibits” that they themselves could not possibly have acquired, such as purported aerial photographs of concentration camps where Uyghur detainees were allegedly held and tortured. Such visual evidence, even if authentic, could only have been prepared and given to them by intelligence agencies.

What is the basic lesson to be learned from this appalling travesty of any semblance of legal process? In order to sound a thousand alarms, one need not be too concerned about the Chinese; they are big boys with nuclear toys and presumably can fend for themselves. From a global standpoint, it is supremely concerning that there lurks behind this a deliberate effort not just to lower standards in international justice, be they formal or informal. With the bogus ad hoc tribunals that had been set up over the last several decades that was successfully accomplished and these standards have already been dragged into the gutter.

The danger is that with the repetition of each such charade people will become progressively more accustomed to deviations from accepted practice, and it does not matter whether the offending body is a government court or an informal citizens’ inquiry. The same general rules for establishing the truth should apply to both. It is to be feared that corrupt practices such as have already characterised the Uyghur Tribunal are meant to gradually seep into the procedures of what legitimate courts still remain. Such a development would be to the grave detriment of what over the centuries has evolved in the West into a legal process designed to establish truth and secure justice. We can plainly see that Nice has used many of the tricks he learned at ICTY, except that this time round he has done it in a way that degrades the legal process even further.

Last but not least, China’s participation in the next phase would enable it to at least prepare and submit to world public opinion a Final Brief summarising its view of the proceedings, demanding that it be attached to the “tribunal’s” judgment scheduled to be announced in December of this year. That would deprive “tribunal” organisers of the coveted prize of a one-sided, unchallenged litany of fabrications (see here and here) being misrepresented to the largely unsuspecting public as the legitimate fruit of an honestly conducted citizens’ inquiry.

Such a triumph must not be conceded to Geoffrey Nice and his sinister directors.

An impudent farce vaguely shrouded in pseudo legal garb is due to be staged on 4th – 7th June 2021 at Church House, in London. A so-called “Uyghur Tribunal” will be convened there to deliberate on the danger of imminent extinction allegedly threatening the Uyghur Muslim minority ethnic group in China’s Xinjiang province. For the geographically challenged, Xinjiang (or Sinkiang in more common transcription) is the westernmost region of China. That is important, and relevant to this topic, because Xinjiang happens to be the most convenient land route corridor which China’s Belt and Road Initiative must inevitably employ if it is to be viable. Accordingly, make Xinjiang a sufficiently hazardous place and for all practical purposes B&R trade goes up in smoke. Chinese products cannot reach their foreign destinations, and neither can the products of foreign partners be reliably delivered to the Chinese market.

Even from a superficial, layman’s point of view Xinjiang is seen, therefore, in a pivotal strategic role on the Great Chessboard. That most certainly is not because of possible human rights abuses that might be occurring there, if indeed they are, but for entirely different, hard-nosed geopolitical reasons. Indeed, Xinjiang plays a far more strategically prominent role today than could have been contemplated even by Brzezinski in 1997, when his famous book was published.

The way it works was explained by Russian geopolitical analyst K. Gadzhiev of the Primakov National Research Institute who cogently argues that “the revival of Russia as a strong military and political power capable to defend its national interests, the emergence of powerful new actors such as China, the weakening of geopolitical positions of the West in general and the U.S. in particular, their defeat in aggressive wars and other failures have led to deep cracks in the conventional Grand Chessboard, which have brought about changes in both the line-up of the leading players and the rules of the game on it.” Gadziev further argues that even though combined Western power has seriously frayed, it would be unreasonable to expect it to “simply … give up the protection of their interests in Eurasia as a whole, and particularly in Central Asia.”

Thwarting any projection of Chinese power and influence that could be deemed threatening and retaining and enhancing the power and influence of the Western coalition, viewed as a zero-sum-game, is therefore the context in which the intensification of efforts to destabilise China should be viewed. The sudden obsession with human rights issues, specifically in the strategically positioned region of Xinjiang, is either completely coincidental or it is an important element of that very destabilisation campaign.

But to return to the “Uyghur Tribunal,” which is a very important facet of the just described picture. It was set up in 2020 in the United Kingdom, on the cusp of the publicity campaign designed to enhance a public perception of the allegedly grave human rights situation in Xinjiang. The “Tribunal’s” task now is to make the transition in the public mind from routine charges of “human rights violation,” always useful for exerting diplomatic pressure on the targeted government, to the substantively new level of “genocide,” with more serious legal, political, and moral implications.

According to information available on the Tribunal website, the initial step toward Uyghur Tribunal’s formation was taken in June 2020 by Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, an organization of faux Uyghur émigrés with close ties to the Western, primarily U.S., political and security establishment. (See NED Grants Database site for an itemised schedule of financial support to WUC totalling $1,284,000. For the many interlocking organisations which constitute the “Uyghur diaspora” under the patronage of Western agencies, and the individuals most prominently involved in it, both Uyghur and their non-Uyghur overseers, credible and thoroughly researched sources of information are available here and here.) The official account has it that Isa turned to Geoffrey Nice QC, Hague Tribunal (ICTY) prosecutor in the case of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, with a request to „establish and chair an independent people’s tribunal to investigate ‘ongoing atrocities and possible Genocide’ against the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic Muslim Populations.“ Accordingly, „[t]he Uyghur Tribunal was launched on 3 September 2020 with assistance from a non-governmental organisation, the Coalition for Genocide Response.“

The engagement of Geoffrey Nice to supervise this operation is of considerable symbolic significance because of his close association with the Yugoslav Tribunal in the Hague. That in turn triggers associations with that Tribunal’s principal task, which was to legally validate the alleged Srebrenica Genocide and personally inculpate the head of the Yugoslav state at the time in that and numerous other imputed serious violations of international law. It should be borne in mind that one of the specific named targets of the consortium of organisations, all masquerading as NGOs, which are advocating legal proceedings against China over the Uyghur Question, is President Xi himself, in a clear analogy to Milošević.

There are numerous oddities about the Uyghur Tribunal, of which it suffices to mention just two.

First, the entity described, using deliberately misleading legal terminology, as a „Tribunal“ was in fact „constituted as a UK Private Company Limited by Guarantee – under the name ‘Uyghur Administration Ltd’“. That means that it is a private citizens’ association without any official standing whatsoever within the judicial system of the United Kingdom. The juridical status of the „Uyghur Tribunal“ is therefore null. The conclusions it draws and „verdicts“ it issues are completely non-binding and technically unenforceable. Since it misrepresents itself as a „Tribunal,“ not being a proper court it lacks the requisite authority to make its judgements heeded, except to the extent that through manipulative political and mediatic mechanisms a perception should have been created that they ought to be.

The second significant anomaly of the „Uyghur Tribunal“ is that it apparently lacks a governing document (known as the Statute in the case of the Hague Tribunal) as well as, even more importantly, Rules of procedure and evidence. These are practical roadmaps without which no actual or pretended „tribunal“ is even conceivable.

The lack of procedure and evidence rules means that there are no set guidelines for the conduct of UT’s essential business. Since the conclusions the panel will ultimately draw supposedly will have been based on the “evidence” put before it, the lack of rules governing admission and assessment of evidence seriously impairs the integrity of the entire process.

It is a mystery how Geoffrey Nice QC, touted on the Uyghur Tribunal website as a „prominent barrister,“ could have overlooked these obvious defects and still have agreed to head such an outfit. Regardless, it is fair to say that the “Uyghur Tribunal,” the entity over which he presides, is operating as no more than an insolent improvisation.

But to underestimate the improvisation’s potential for propaganda mischief, would be a serious mistake.

This year’s G7 meeting is scheduled to take place in Cornwall, UK, from 11-13 June. The first hearing of the “Uyghur Tribunal,” as already noted, will take place on 4th – 7th June 2021 at Church House, London. That is neither a chronological nor a geographical coincidence.

There is a record of similar “coincidences” in the annals of Western propaganda machinations. A pertinent example, directly relevant to our topic, can be cited in the form the Report of the Mazowiecki Commission which was submitted to the Security Council of the UN on 3 September 1992 about alleged atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia. The Report, overwhelmingly burdened the Serbian side with charges of grave transgressions and largely absolved other actors. Like the “Uyghur Tribunal” set to open just before G7, it was perfectly timed just before an important Security Council meeting on intensifying sanctions against Yugoslavia and the Republic of Srpska, and as intense lobbying was being conducted behind the scenes to set up an international tribunal, which ultimately turned out to be ICTY, to try war crimes suspects. By generating a human rights violation frenzy at precisely the right moment, the Mazowiecki Commission Report was hugely instrumental in successfully accomplishing both its assigned purposes.

The forthcoming “Uyghur Tribunal” should be viewed in a similar light. By feeding the media and the Western political class selected disinformation about the situation in Xinjiang its mission is to set the stage for whatever restrictive or punitive measures against China are contemplated to follow.

Mainly because of China’s veto power in the Security Council, it is unlikely that the “Tribunal’s” conclusions would lead to the formation of an ad hoc court to try China and its leadership, as occurred with Serbian defendants after the establishment of ICTY. However, the “Uyghur Tribunal” verdict undoubtedly will be useful to increase political pressure on China, as well as to attempt to get Western public opinion on board in favor of exacerbating tensions and approving whatever further hostile measures are in store.

Two recent examples of the use of the Uyghur issue for political profit will suffice. The Coalition for Genocide Response, one of the principal sponsors of the “Uyghur Tribunal,” announced not long ago that “on 22 April 2021, the UK House of Commons will have the opportunity to set the record straight and recognise the China’s atrocities against the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities as genocide”. In similar vein, in a news report from New Zealand dated 28 April 2021 it is stated: “The Act Party today plans to ask Parliament to debate a motion to declare China’s oppression of the Uighur ethnic minority an act of ‘genocide’. Its motion would ask MPs to vote on whether human rights abuses in the Chinese region of Xinjiang amount to genocide, a move that could compel the Government to take stronger action in condemning the nation”. Significantly, the report goes on that “similar motions have passed in the UK and Canada”.

These are sufficient clues to the overall political strategy behind the “Uyghur Tribunal,” in the near term at least.

One wishes that Chinese representatives would boldly march into Church House (piously located at Westminster Abbey, Dean’s Yard, London) on June 4 to teach Geoffrey Nice, and his fellow panellists who simulate judges, a memorable “rule of law” lesson. Their task, not at all difficult of execution, should be to demonstrate to all present that “Uyghur Tribunal” proceedings are a sham because they do not satisfy even minimal judicial standards, whether in the UK or any other civilized country. They should vigorously challenge any and all evidence admitted by a forum operating without any evidentiary rules whatsoever. They should insist on cross-examining all witnesses and “experts” brought to testify. And they must bring along their own audio and video equipment to record the judicial buffoonery and show to the global audience how in London, United Kingdom, the fount of a once impressive legal tradition, an illegitimate, private, and self-appointed court now sits and hands down its farcical verdict.

By Alan MACLEOD

In the dying months of his administration, President Donald Trump removed from the United States terrorist list a little-known paramilitary organization called ETIM, an acronym that stands for either the East Turkestan Independence Movement or the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, depending on whom one asks. The group is also sometimes known as the [East] Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP or ETIP).

Explaining the decision, the State Department said that “ETIM was removed from the list because, for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence that ETIM continues to exist.” The move was hailed by a wide range of Uyghur groups in the United States, who saw it as a step towards blocking China’s actions against Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province.

Yet the decision will have confused anyone with a long memory or who closely followed the War on Terror. Only two years previously, the U.S. was actively at war with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, with Trump himself ordering an escalation of a bombing campaign against them.

In 2018, Major General James Hecker, the commander of NATO Air Command-Afghanistan, gave a press conference in which he noted that not only was ETIM real but they were working hand in hand with the Taliban and boasted that his forces were destroying their training bases, thereby reducing their terrorist activities both in the Afghanistan/Pakistan/China border region and inside China itself.

Major General Hecker via Teleconference from Kabul, speaking about/showing their preferred approach to dealing with radicalized Chinese Uyghurs, on February 7th, 2018. https://t.co/0pIeMGviJ6 pic.twitter.com/lakT50OLp1

— Daniel Dumbrill (@DanielDumbrill) August 6, 2020

“Anybody that is an enemy of Afghanistan, we’re going to target them,” Brigadier General Lance Bunch told the The Washington Post, also announcing that “[w]e’ve got new authorities now that allow us to be able to . . . target the Taliban and the ETIM where they previously thought they were safe.”

Why then was the government suddenly insisting that ETIM/TIP did not exist? And who is this shadowy organization?

Who are the ETIM/TIP?

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement is a jihadist group led since 2003 by Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, a Xinjiang-born Uyghur. Its goal is to set up a Muslim-only ethnostate (East Turkestan) in Xinjiang. A dry and mountainous region at the western edge of China, Xinjiang is about the size of Alaska and is home to around 25 million people.

“This land is for Muslims alone,” Haq explains in an al-Qaeda PR film; “the mere presence of the disbelievers on this land should be a sufficient reason for Muslims to set out for jihad.” ETIM is still considered a terrorist organization by the United Nations, European Union, United Kingdom, and Russia, among others.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government also classifies it as such. When asked for comment, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told MintPress that “ETIM has long been engaging in terrorist and violent activities, causing heavy casualties and property losses, and posing serious threats to security and stability in China, the region and beyond.” Wenbin also criticized the U.S. “flip flop” on ETIM, something that, in his words, “once again exposes the current U.S. administration’s double standard on counter-terrorism and its repulsive practice of condoning terrorist groups as it sees fit.” MintPress also reached out to a range of Uyghur organizations for comment, but all declined to do so.

Some of the most high-profile of these attacks inside China, cited by Wenbin, were ETIM’s attempts to sabotage the 2008 Beijing Olympics by carrying out bomb attacks on host cities. Just before the games, ETIM released a video featuring a burning Olympic flag and warning all Muslims to stay away from the venues. There has also been a string of deadly attacks attributed to ETIM in which terrorists drive vehicles into crowds of pedestrians then proceed to carry out stabbing rampages.

In 2009, tensions between Uyghurs and ethnic Han Chinese spilled over into deadly riots in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, where nearly 200 people, mostly Han, were killed. As a result of the unrest, Beijing ordered a massive increase in surveillance and security across the region, flooding the province with cameras, armed police, and spies. To this day, it retains an extremely high-security presence.

Of course, the large majority of those killed by ETIM around the world have been non-Salafist Muslims, and considering ETIM to be representatives of the Uyghur population as a whole would be extremely misleading. In fact, the Uyghurs of Xinjiang have been caught in the crossfire between the ETIM and the Chinese government. To this day, the Afghan government also considers the group to be a serious threat to peace and security in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda, Taliban ties, Chinese target

ETIM units have trained and fought in what seems like virtually every single conflict involving Muslims over the past 20 years, but always with an eye to bringing their skills back home. A 2017 Associated Press exclusive titled “Uyghurs fighting in Syria take aim at China” found that at least 5,000 Xinjiang Uyghurs had traveled to Syria to train and fight alongside both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. “We didn’t care how the fighting went or who Assad was,” one ETIM fighter told the AP; “We just wanted to learn how to use the weapons and then go back to China.” For many, Beijing’s crackdown on civil liberties in the wake of the Urumqi riots was the catalyst. “We’ll avenge our relatives being tortured in Chinese jail,” another fighter told the AP. A 2015 New York Times report also notes that one Chinese Muslim had been trained in Libya before going to Syria to fight against government forces.

The United Nations states that ETIM “has maintained close ties with the Taliban, Al-Qaida and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.” Indeed, since 2005, ETIM leader Haq has been a member of al-Qaeda’s council of elders, a group of about two dozen individuals who control the organization’s direction. The UN notes that the ETIM’s major source of funding was Osama Bin Laden himself, who directly employed and paid Haq.

“The organization is clearly a part of al-Qaeda’s network — there is no real question about this fact. Al-Qaeda doesn’t hide its sponsorship of the TIP [ETIM]. And the TIP [ETIM] doesn’t hide its allegiance to al-Qaeda,” wrote Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, a hawkish think tank located in Washington. “But the Chinese Communist Party’s detestable policies in Xinjiang have led some democracy and human rights activists to downplay or dismiss the TIP’s overt jihadism,” he added.

In 2002, U.S. forces captured and detained 22 Uyghur militants at an ETIM camp in Afghanistan. They were sent to Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba and were accused of traveling from China to join the ETIM jihad, something many admitted to. However, all insisted that they were uninterested in harming the United States and instead saw China as their major enemy. Considering them no direct threat to itself, the United States began releasing them to third countries and by 2013 all had been freed.

The training camp was located in the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan and run by Haq himself. U.S. intelligence actually concluded that many of the trainees acted as a “blocking force” for Bin Laden in 2001, when American forces came very close to capturing him. This allowed him to evade the U.S. for a further ten years. The U.S. carried out an assassination attempt on Haq in 2010, with media reporting that he had been killed by an unmanned drone. However, he was merely seriously injured and escaped with his life.

The State Department designated the ETIM as a terrorist group, adding them to its list in September 2002. At that point, the Bush administration had declared a war on terror, was battling the Taliban in Afghanistan and was about to invade Iraq. Furthermore, relations with China were good at the time and the Bush administration wished to secure Chinese co-operation or at least dampen Chinese resistance to its campaigns.

“Designating ETIM/TIP as a terrorist organization does seem appropriate,” Daniel Dumbrill — a Canadian YouTuber currently in Xinjiang, and an outspoken critic of U.S. policy towards China — told MintPress, adding:

I don’t believe they suddenly and abruptly cease to exist and I don’t believe the U.S. government believes this either. Even if they did, the Tamil Tigers have been inactive for over 10 years since their defeat, but they remain on the U.S. government list of terrorist organizations. Therefore, it doesn’t seem like clearing off inactive terror groups has ever been a matter of priority. There is of course, I believe, an ulterior motive to [their removal from the terrorist list].”

A fight for global supremacy

Today, however, relations with China have definitely soured. The country’s rapid economic rise has alarmed and preoccupied many planners in the West, who now see China as America’s “unparalleled priority” for the 21st century. President Trump placed sanctions on the country and attempted to block the growth of Chinese tech companies like Huawei, TikTok, and Xiaomi. Along with the trade war has come a war of words, with top brass in Washington suggesting that the new Cold War with Beijing will be less about tanks and missiles and more “kicking each other under the table.” Others have advised that the U.S. should wage a widespread culture war, including commissioning what they call “Taiwanese Tom Clancy novels” meant to demonize and demoralize China.

The prospect of a hot war cannot be overlooked, however. And U.S. actions are making the threat all the more likely. In 2013, the Obama administration announced a “Pivot to Asia,” meaning a draw-down from the Middle East and an escalation of tensions in the Pacific. Today, over 400 American military bases encircle China. American ships and aircraft continue to probe the Chinese coastline, testing their defenses. In July, U.S.S. Rafael Peralta sailed within 41 nautical miles of the coastal megacity of Shanghai. Earlier this year, the head of Strategic Command stated that there was a “very real possibility” of war against Beijing in the near future.

Uyghur repression

It is in this context that the United States has begun to denounce China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority. Xinjiang has been under serious security measures for more than a decade, and the internment of Uyghurs has been going on since at least 2014. Yet the U.S. was largely silent about their treatment until recently. Today, the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) accuses China of imprisoning between one and three million Uyghur Muslims, describing it as a genocide. The NED has given nearly $9 million to Uyghur groups and has condemned what it sees as a “deafening silence in the Muslim world” about their plight.

Amnesty International has largely agreed, labeling what China calls re-education facilities, meant to deradicalize the population, as “detention camps for torture and brainwashing of anyone suspected of disloyalty.” Uyghurs have alleged that they have been forcibly sterilized, that their places of worship have been demolished, and that they were made to eat pork and separated from their families while interned.

Others have rejected this interpretation. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, recently wrote:

There are credible charges of human rights abuses against Uyghurs, but those do not per se constitute genocide. And we must understand the context of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which had essentially the same motivation as America’s foray into the Middle East and Central Asia after the September 2001 attacks: to stop the terrorism of militant Islamic groups.”

Dumbrill seemed to agree, noting that many Uyghurs in Xinjiang see the extremist jihadists as their primary worry, not government forces, of whom some Uyghurs speak fondly. “The police presence aside, people lead fairly ordinary lives here with the same kinds of hopes and dreams that people anywhere else would have as well,” he told MintPress, criticizing the foreign coverage.

Wenbin was, unsurprisingly, even more dismissive of the charges. “Western politicians and media are frantically spreading lies on Xinjiang,” he said, adding that “the allegation of ‘genocide’ is more than preposterous.”

The politics of terror

At the same time as it was delisting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement for apparently not existing, the Trump administration added Cuba to its list of state sponsors of terror. Without a hint of irony, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed to the island’s “malign interference in Venezuela and the rest of the Western Hemisphere” as the reason for the designation. A report released last month by the Department of Health and Human Services outlined what such malign influence was: offering doctors and other medical teams to other needy countries during a global pandemic.

Yet the politics of the terror list has always been highly suspect. In an attempt to dampen worldwide support for his cause and shore up the Apartheid government, the Reagan administration placed South African leader Nelson Mandela on the terrorist list in 1988. Mandela was not pulled off it until 2008 — 14 years after he became president.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration also recently removed Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terror, in what was an openly transactional event. Sudan agreed to normalize relations with Israel and give the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars. As usual, Trump was unable not to say the quiet part out loud: “GREAT news! New government of Sudan, which is making great progress, agreed to pay $335 MILLION to U.S. terror victims and families. Once deposited, I will lift Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. At long last, JUSTICE for the American people and BIG step for Sudan,” he tweeted.

Ultimately, the drastic change in U.S. policy on the ETIM has nothing to do with the movement itself — which remains the same jihadist group linked to al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban — but rather to a changing American stance towards China. For years, the U.S. ignored human rights issues in Xinjiang, as China was seen as a useful workshop for American capitalism. But the PRC’s rapid rise has frightened many in Washington; hence the sudden fascination with the plight of the Uyghurs. The designation of the ETIM as a terrorist group was likely seen as getting in the way of longstanding U.S. attempts to provoke unrest in China. With China now in the crosshairs, the group has moved from being an adversary to being a potential asset. It appears that the government decided that insisting they no longer exist was an easier sell than pretending they are no longer a terrorist group.

While the change in status might seem inconsequential, it could be a harbinger of a dangerous future. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement was placed on the list because of the War on Terror. Now it has been taken off because of the coming war on China.

mintpressnews.com

During the first Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union injustice and human rights increasingly became a central issue. This ought to have been a positive development, but it was devalued by partisan use and the issue turned into an instrument of propaganda.

The essence of such propaganda is not lies or even exaggeration, but selectivity. To give one example, the focus was kept on very real Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe and away from the savage rule of Western-backed dictators in South America. The political weaponisation of human rights was crude and hypocritical, but it was extremely effective.

As we enter a second Cold War against China and Russia, there are lessons to be learned from the first, since much the same propaganda mechanisms are once again hard at work. Western governments and media unrelentingly criticise China for the persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, but there is scarcely a mention of the repression of Kashmiri Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Diplomatic and media outrage is expressed when Russia and the Syrian government bomb civilians in Idlib in Syria, but the bombing of civilians during the Western-backed, Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen, remains at the bottom of the news agenda.

By Ajit SINGH

On March 21, US-government-funded Uyghur activists were caught on video disrupting a gathering against anti-Asian racism in Washington DC, barking insults at demonstrators including, “Wipe out China!” and “Fuck China!” The Uyghur caravan flew American and “East Turkestan” flags and drove vehicles adorned signs bearing slogans such as, “We Love USA,” “Boycott China,” and “CCP killed 80 million Chinese people.” 

Really wild stuff downtown. A Stop Asian Hate rally is clashing with a Pro-Uighur drive by. The pro-Uighur group is shouting “F— China!” The Asian rally is responding by calling them “racist.” pic.twitter.com/h8a2hB4Oqe

— Nic Rowan (@NicXTempore) March 21, 2021

Organized by the Uyghur American Association (UAA), the drive-by heckling of anti-racist demonstrators drew widespread condemnation on social media, including from other sections of the Uyghur separatist movement. Salih Hudayar, the self-proclaimed “Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile,” slammed “the UAA’s reckless drive-by” for causing “severe backlash against Uyghurs,” and insisted that Uyghur Americans were “not racist.”

The UAA has attempted to distance itself from accusations of extremism and racism, stating that its members’ actions were misrepresented. Despite refusing to rescind their call for China to be “wiped out,” the UAA declared that it “condemns any form of bigotry and stands with all victims of racism.”

Reposting from April 2020 – Uyghurs have been the victim of state-sponsored racism in the Chinese colony of East Turkestan and are facing genocide in China. With first-hand experience, Uyghur American Association condemns any form of bigotry and stands with all victims of racism. https://t.co/UrCnBiQXaE

— Uyghur American Association (@Uyghur_American) March 22, 2021

However, an investigation by The Grayzone into the Uyghur separatist movement in the Washington DC area has uncovered a jingoistic, gun-obsessed subculture driven by the kind of right-wing ideology that was on display during the March 21 car caravan through downtown.

Leading figures of the UAA operate a right-wing gun club known as Altay Defense. Proudly dressed in US military fatigues, Altay Defense drill in advanced combat techniques with former members of US special forces who also train private mercenaries and active duty US service members. Members of the militia-style gun club espouse pro-Trump politics and anti-immigrant resentment.

The UAA is the US-affiliate of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an international network whose first president outlined an objective to precipitate the “fall of China” and establish an ethno-state in Xinjiang. The recipient of millions of dollars of funding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government-sponsored entity, this network works closely with Washington and other Western governments to escalate hostilities with China.

Despite claiming to represent the interests of China’s Uyghur and Muslim minority populations, many of the UAA’s closest allies represent some of the anti-Muslim, far-right forces in Washington, from Republican Rep. Ted Yoho to the Family Research Council, as well as the FBI.

During the pandemic, the UAA and members of its affiliate organizations helped inflame anti-Asian resentment by spreading far-right propaganda referring to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus,” and claimed that China was waging a “virus war” against the world, “[p]urposefully, intentionally export[ing] the virus to cause the pandemic.”

Behind its carefully constructed image as a peaceful human rights movement, the UAA and its offshoots in the DC-based Uyghur separatist lobby are driven by far-right ideology and envision themselves as militant foot soldiers for empire.

“I belong to America!” Uyghur human rights leader teams up with far-right, Islamophobes in anti-China crusade

The UAA’s ultra-patriotic reverence of the US and fanatical anti-China politics have been on full display under the organization’s current president, Kuzzat Altay.

Altay frequently takes to social media to make his allegiance to Washington known.

“May GOD bless you American Veterans! May GOD bless America!” declared Altay on Veterans Day in 2019.

Shortly following the illegal US assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, Altay left no doubt as to where he stands: “Looks like the war just started […] I belong to America!”

Amid the US uprisings against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Altay chided Black Lives Matter protesters, saying that he “support[ed] peaceful protestors […] but do[es] not support looters, rubbers [sic] and criminals”

“Your LOVE for #America should be greater than your HATE for #Trump,” Altay pronounced.

The degree of Altay’s infatuation with the US is only matched by the ferocity of his enmity towards China. “The most normal thing that I could ever imagine is anti-China activities every freaking day,” Altay stated on July 25, 2020. “You should help us to stop China. China is ALREADY the common enemy of humanity.”

Kuzzat Altay (left) and fellow Uyghur separatists visiting Rep. Ted Yoho

Altay is a staunch supporter of Washington’s new Cold War agenda. Applauding the Trump administration’s trade and technology war, Altay declared “[a]ll counties [sic] should treat #Huawei as war criminals.” 

Despite claiming to be the international representatives of Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim, Uyghur ethnic group, and struggling against religious persecution, Altay and his comrades have routinely teamed up with far-right, Islamophobic forces in the US to advance their separatist campaign.

The UAA has worked closely with Republican Rep. Ted Yoho, a homophobic, anti-abortion ultra-conservative who once told a Black constituent that he was not sure if the Civil Rights Act was constitutional. Yoho was one of only four lawmakers to vote against legislation making lynching a federal hate crime. In a high-profile dust-up on Capitol Hill, he reportedly called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “fucking bitch.” In 2019, Yoho was one of 24 members of Congress to vote against a resolution condemning bigotry because it included anti-Muslim discrimination.

Yoho has also ardently supported regime change in Venezuela, defended US missile strikes against Syria, and proclaimed that the “US army must defend Taiwan” against China.

A demonstration organized by the Uyghur American Association in Washington DC. Rep. Ted Yoho appears at the center of the photograph, with Kuzzat Altay to his right and Rushan Abbas to his left

In 2019, Altay spoke on a panel of US government-funded Chinese dissidents organized by the Family Research Council (FRC). The FRC has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) due to its extreme anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, and anti-Muslim ideology.

UAA President Kuzzat Altay speaking at the Family Research Council on February 6, 2019

Retired US General and undersecretary for defense under former President George W. Bush, Jerry Boykin, serves as the FRC’s vice president. Boykin is a virulent Islamophobe who believes that the religion is evil and should be outlawed, and that there should be “no mosques in America.” During a sermon at an evangelical church during the US war on Iraq, Boykin boasted of taking on a Muslim warlord in Somalia: “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol,” he declared. Boykin’s anti-Muslim tirades grew so extreme that he was investigated by the US Department of Defense and drew a rebuke from Bush.

In recent years, Altay has organized several events for Uyghur Americans in collaboration with the FBI, the federal law enforcement agency notorious for its surveillance of Muslim Americans and ensnaring countless mentally troubled young Muslim American men in manufactured terror plots. In 2020, the UAA organized an “FBI Workshop for Uyghur Community” which aimed to teach Uyghur Americans about “the role of the FBI in protecting Uyghurs” and how “Uyghurs [can] communicate with the FBI”.

Throughout the pandemic, Altay and fellow leaders of the Uyghur separatist movement have incessantly spread right-wing conspiracy theories blaming China for Covid-19 and all related deaths. Such disinformation has played a key role in whipping up anti-Asian racism in the US and West.

Altay’s Twitter page is an endless stream of noxious, far-right coronavirus-related propaganda.

“I support @realDonaldTrump’s decision to call it ChineseVirus,” declared Altay on March 18, 2020, defending Trump against criticism from “[p]eople whining about racism.”  Altay also routinely referred to Covid-19 as “Wuhan virus” and “CCP virus”, as have WUC leaders such as Dolkun Isa and Rushan Abbas.

Altay promoted Steve Bannon’s claims that the “CCP unleashed [Covid-19] on the world”, and would later echo this sentiment. “China [p]urposefully, intentionally exported the virus to cause the pandemic,” Altay declared on July 5, 2020. “No war has kileed [sic] more people than China’s Virus war.”

World-famous UFC champion @TeamKhabib’s father has passed away because of #CCPVirus.

China Purposefully, intentionally exported the virus to cause the pandemic.

550,000 people died. No war has kileed more people than China’s Virus war. #HoldChinaAccountable pic.twitter.com/EAayRykilr

— kuzzat Altay (@KuzzatAltay) July 5, 2020

Altay also endorsed right-wing conspiracy theories which claimed that Covid-19 was engineered as a bioweapon in a Wuhan lab and the World Health Organization was controlled by the Chinese government.  

Kuzzat Altay’s political activities are a reflection of the deeply rooted right-wing culture that pervades the Uyghur separatist movement.

Foot soldiers for empire: Uyghur human rights activists training with US military instructors for “mission readiness”

Leading members of UAA have founded Altay Defense, which arranges for constituents in the Uyghur separatist movement to receive arms training by former US special forces soldiers and instructors. The organization boasts that “[a]ll security training [is] provided by former special force officer!”

The Instagram page of Altay Defense

A mission statement published by Shadow Hawk Defense outlines a goal to train “elite armed security professionals, who serve the high threat needs of the US government, military, and intelligence communities,” including “hosting and training classified security personnel.” The facility employs “trainers [who] have years of experience training contractors for the U.S. Government” with the goal of “achieving mission readiness.”

In a recent interview, Shadow Hawk’s co-founder and Director of Training, Randy Weekely, described his work in detail: “I teach military contractors before they deploy to these ‘other places’, defensive tactics, CQB [close-quarters battle], pistol, rifle, bounding, attack on vehicles, all the skills that they need […] before they deploy.”

Altay Defense receives instruction from James Lang, a former US Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and works as a firearm instructor for the US Department of Defense. Lang also operates Ridgeline Security Consultants, which provides firearms and tactical training to “prepare law enforcement officers [and] armed security professionals […] to survive and win deadly force confrontations.

Altay Defense’s primary instructor is former US Army Ranger, Jim Lang

Leaving little to the imagination, UAA members conduct training using assault rifles while dressed in official-seeming battle dress fatigues bearing the US flag.

Altay Defense is led by Faruk Altay, brother of UAA President Kuzzat Altay and nephew of Rebiya Kadeer, who is perhaps the most prominent international figurehead of the Uyghur separatist movement.

A look at Faruk Altay’s online activity reveals him to be a far-right, anti-communist, ultra-nationalist.

“Trump is the best!!!” Altay posted to Twitter in 2018.  Altay also expressed support for Trump’s border wall and seemingly justified the “Stop the Steal” Capitol riot which took place on January 6, 2021. He has also shared an anti-immigrant meme comparing Central American migrants to the international criminal gang MS-13.

Faruk Altay flaunts his dedication to the US military, posting images on social media of himself dressed in US military fatigues, wearing a skull face mask, and holding an assault rifle, with captions reading: “I STAND WITH UYGHUR, TIBET, HONG KONG, AND FREEDOM AGAINST COMMUNISM”.

Altay refers to himself as a “freedom fighter” taking “revenge for my father,” and refers to his children as “[m]y future West Point officers!

Far from a lone wolf, Faruk Altay has been joined by leading figures of the Uyghur separatist movement. Social media posts show UAA President Kuzzat Altay, Murat Ataman, and Bahram Sintash, among others attending Altay Defense training sessions.

Kuzzat Altay (second from the left) at an Altay Defense training session

Murat Ataman embracing Nancy Pelosi

Bahram Sintash is also affiliated with the NED-funded UHRP, authoring reports which allege that the Chinese government is demolishing Uyghur mosques and shrines. Sintash was a key player in lobbying efforts to urge the US Congress to pass the Uyghur Human Right Policy Act of 2019, visiting more than 380 members of Congress.

In his spare time, Sintash keeps company with the far-right, evangelical Xinjiang researcher Adrian Zenz. During a meeting at Radio Free Asia (RFA), Sintash referred to Zenz as “the CIA agent,” and the US government-sponsored broadcasting service as “the original CIA branch of RFA’s headquarters in DC.”

While Sintash may have been sarcastic, the New York Times has described RFA in no uncertain terms as part of a “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the CIA.”

As prone as they might be to unalloyed expressions of right-wing jingoism, the leaders of UAA operate at the heart of a multi-million dollar lobbying complex funded and cultivated by the US government.

Uyghur separatist movement cultivated by the US government for “toppling” Beijing

Established in 1998, the Uyghur American Association (UAA) is the Washington DC-based affiliate of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which claims to be “the sole legitimate organization of the Uyghur people” around the world. Portrayed by Western governments and media as the leading voice for Uyghur interests and human rights, the WUC has played a central role in shaping Western understanding of Xinjiang.

As The Grayzone previously reported, the WUC is a right-wing, anti-communist, and ultra-nationalist network of exiled Uyghur separatists who have stated their intention to bring about the “fall of China” and establish an ethno-state called “East Turkestan” in Xinjiang. The WUC has developed deep ties to Washington’s regime change establishment and received extensive US government-funding and training.

In recent years, the WUC has worked closely with US and Western governments, and partnered with fraud-prone pseudo-scholars such as Adrian Zenz to intensify their New Cold War against China, advocating for Chinese policy in Xinjiang to be labeled ‘genocide,’ along with sanctions and boycott.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been central to the rising international prominence of the Uyghur separatist movement. In 2020, the NED boasted that it has given Uyghur groups $8,758,300 since 2004 (including $75,000 in annual funding to the UAA) and claimed to be “the only institutional funder for Uyghur advocacy and human rights organizations.”

“As a result of NED’s support, the Uyghur advocacy groups have grown both institutionally and professionally over the years,” said Akram Keram, a program officer and regional expert at NED. “These groups played critical roles in introducing the Uyghur cause in various international, regional, and national settings against China’s false narratives, bringing the Uyghur voice to the highest international levels, including the United Nations, European Parliament, and the White House. They provided firsthand, factual resources documenting the atrocities in East Turkistan, informing and inspiring the introduction of relevant resolutions, sanctions, and calls for action to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.”

“The National Endowment for Democracy has been exceptionally supportive of UAA,” echoed former UAA President, Nury Turkel, in 2006, “providing us with invaluable guidance and assistance” and “essential funding.” According to Turkel, thanks to NED support, the “UAA and UHRP have gained a new level of influence and credibility among media organizations in the U.S. and other countries.”

“In short, NED has helped us to increase our credibility in Washington and throughout the world. We are very moved by and grateful for their steadfast assistance,” stated Turkel.

Turkel confirmed that the UAA aims to leverage Washington’s support to advance regime change in China. In 2006, he told his allies, “as we witnessed the ‘Tulip Revolution’ and the toppling of the former government of Kyrgyzstan, our hopes were again reinforced.” Turkel emphasized that the US-sponsored color revolution sent a “strong message” to China, and recalled how he was immediately summoned to Bishkek to coordinate with the new government.

The NED helped the UAA launch the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) in 2004, serving as its principal source of funding, with $1,244,698 in support between 2016 and ’19 alone. The UHRP has brought together leading figures of the WUC, including Turkel and Omer Kanat, and NED, with former NED Vice President, Louisa Greve, serving as the group’s Director of Global Advocacy.

The UAA’s leadership consists of US national security state operators including employees of the US government, US propaganda network Radio Free Asia, and the military-industrial complex. Past leaders of the organization include:

Nury Turkel, former President (2004-2006) — Co-founded the UHRP with the NED. In 2020, Turkel was appointed a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Rebiya Kadeer, former President (2006-2011) — A self-described oligarch and longtime figurehead of the Uyghur separatist movement. According to The New York Times, Kadeer’s “[d]issidence brought the end of her Audi, her three villas and her far-flung business empire”. Kadeer’s husband, Sidik Rouzi, worked for US government media outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Under Kadeer’s leadership, the WUC and UAA forged close ties with the Bush administration.

Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, former President (2016-2019) — Since 2008, Kokbore has worked with notorious private US military and intelligence contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton. Edward Snowden was employed at the firm when he decided to blow the whistle on the National Security Agency’s invasive, all-encompassing system of mass surveillance.

Omer Kanat, former Vice President – Serves as the WUC’s Chairman of the Executive Committee. Kanat helped found the WUC and has been a permanent fixture in its executive leadership. The veteran operative has a lengthy history of work with the US government, from serving as senior editor of Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service from 1999 to 2009 to covering the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and interviewing the Dalai Lama for the network. In an interview with Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal at a 2018 NED awards ceremony in the US Capitol building, Kanat took credit for furnishing many of the claims about internment camps in Xinjiang to Western media.

Rushan Abbas, former Vice President — Previously boasted in her bio of her “extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, and various US intelligence agencies.” Served the US government and Bush administration’s so-called war on terror as a “consultant at Guantanamo Bay supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.” Following a disastrous publicity appearance on Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” question and answer forum, during which participants blasted Abbas as a “CIA Asset” and US government collaborator, she has attempted to scrub her biographic information from the internet. Abbas currently heads the WUC affiliate organization, Campaign for Uyghurs.

The UAA current leadership includes:

Kuzzat Altay, President — Nephew of Rebiya Kadeer. As documented above, Altay is a rabid anti-communist and ardently pro-US. He has favorably compared the establishment of Israel to the separatist movement for “East Turkestan.”

Elfidar Itebir, Secretary — Sister of Elnigar Itebir, who was appointed by the Trump administration as Director for China in the White House National Security Council. Itebir’s father, Ablikim Baqi Iltebir, worked for the US government media outlet, Radio Free Asia, from February 2000 to August 2017

Arslan Khakiyev, Treasurer  — Previously worked at Radio Free Asia for over 18 years. Khahkiyev’s wife, Gulchehra Hoja, has worked for Radio Free Asia since 2001.

* * *

The weekly deluge of US media reports of Uyghur oppression in Xinjiang is clearly designed to appeal to liberal sensibilities, presenting the struggle of an oppressed minority against a tyrannical government, and omitting any pieces of context that might prove disruptive to the David-versus-Goliath narrative. But it is becoming clear that some profoundly illiberal forces lie behind the veneer of a peaceful campaign for human rights.

The US government has engaged in a marriage of convenience with a Uyghur separatist movement that is firmly aligned the gun-obsessed, anti-immigrant subculture of Trumpism. As the Biden administration turns up the heat on China, it has turned a blind eye to the far-right politics of one of its most important proxy groups.

The UAA did not respond to multiple requests for interviews from The Grayzone sent by email and on Twitter.

thegrayzone.com