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Xinjiang unrest was planned, says state media

The ethnic unrest in Urumqi two weeks ago was planned and co-ordinated to erupt at more than 50 sites across the city, in a terrorist act of violence, state media reported yesterday.

In a fresh effort to counter claims by overseas Uygur groups that the violent ethnic clashes in the Xinjiang capital were set off by police cracking down on a peaceful Uygur protest, Xinhua compiled a list of what it said was hard evidence that the July 5 riots were premeditated.

The lengthy article by the official news agency was also carried by yesterday's People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party.

'This was a well organised, well planned and well schemed terrorist crime of serious violence,' the report said, citing unnamed witnesses and surveillance camera footage.

Analysts and activists say Beijing's account of the incident would be a hard sell to the rest of the world.

Xinhua cited as key evidence the fact that violence erupted in at least 50 spots across the city in a short period of time - a sign that the incident had been organised.

Videotapes showed around a dozen Uygur women dressed in similar outfits leading the crowds, the report said. The women wore black, white and brown long robes and black head-scarves and were seen waving their hands and shouting instructions to the crowd. Police told Xinhua it was not common to find Urumqi women in such outfits.

The report also cited police as saying that the kinds of rocks thrown during the riot were hard to find in Urumqi, indicating they were transported to the city beforehand.

Sales of long knives, which were used as weapons during the riots, had also shot up in the preceding days, Xinhua said, quoting a number of knife sellers.

And the rioters appeared to be well trained in how to set buses and other vehicles on fire. For example, some rioters opened the gas valves of buses before setting them alight, the report said.

Xinhua did not blame any person or groups for organising the unrest, which left 197 people dead. Shortly after the riots, however, Beijing accused the Munich-based World Uygur Congress and its president, Rebiya Kadeer, for instigating the incident. Both Ms Kadeer and the organisation have denied the claims.

Accounts of how the riots evolved differ between Beijing and overseas Uygur groups, and between Han Chinese and Uygur witnesses.

The government said the unrest was instigated by overseas forces that seek independence. But Uygurs said it started as a peaceful protest over the death of two Uygurs in ethnic clashes at a Guangdong factory. Things turned sour when police began a violent crackdown on the protesters, mostly university students.

The Xinhua report said the protest was just a pretence that allowed rioters to distract police.

Ilham Mahmut, the World Uygur Congress' representative in Japan, urged China to allow a third party to hold an independent investigation.

Yitzhak Schichor, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Haifa, Israel, said the Chinese government would face difficulty convincing the world of its account due to its reputation as a dishonest authority.

'It's possible that some unhappy Uygurs could have planned the incident, but the government has 90 per cent of the responsibility for its Xinjiang policies,' he said.

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