Another attack in Western China

China has set itself a goal of delivering a safe Olympics, so it’s not surprising the Chinese government’s Olympic Committee Secretary General has tried to distance the Olympics from the events in Western China. The Chinese government makes a point of calling the separatist violence �terrorism,� and in the wake of 9/11, it even got the Bush administration to list a separatist Muslim group from the region as an international terrorist organization. There’s certainly been plenty of violence in the region recently. just over a week ago, 16 police were killed in Kashgar in an explosion. On Sunday, 11 more people were killed in a series of homemade grenade attacks�10 of the killed were the attackers, and one was a security guard. Today, near Kashgar, reports say assailants jumped off a vehicle while passing through a security checkpoint and stabbed three guards to death. some of the foreign journalists in the area have themselves been assaulted. This reporter says one thing is already clear: this is a tragedy, both Muslims and Chinese are dying. He also hopes the Chinese will stop using the war on terror as an excuse to kill ethnic Muslims in the area, and the ethnic Muslims will be patient and not resort to violence. Many Wiegers have long resented the flood of Han Chinese into their land, and that resentment has built during the rush to the Olympics, where it’s rumored that Chinese have cracked down harshly on the region, which has included extrajudicial killings and disappearances. This analyst says the violence is in response to loss of human rights and the harsh crackdown. But that distinction is lost on the Chinese government, and the recent violence is only reinforcing those views in the Chinese government.