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On January 5, 1945, ETR government passed
a political platform, which
stated:
1) End the Chinese dictatorial rule in the land of Eastern
Turkistan.
2) Establish a free and independent Eastern Turkistan based
on equality for
all nationalities.
3) In order to fully develop East Turkistan's economy,
promote industrial,
agricultural and animal husbandry as well as private
businesses. Increase
people's living standard.
4). Since the majority people of Eastern Turkistan believes
Islam, so the
government particularly advocate this religion. At the same
time, promote
religious freedom for other religion.
5) Develop education, culture and health standard of Eastern
Turkistan.
6) Establish friendly relations with all the democratic
countries in the
world, especially with the neighboring USSR. In the mean
time, promote
political and economical relation with China.
7) In order to protect Eastern Turkistan's peace, recruit
people of all
nationality to establish a strong army.
8) The Bank, Post Service, Telephone and Telegraph, Forestry
and all
underground wealth belong to the nation.
9) Eliminate individualism, bureaucratic idea, nationalism
and
corruption among the government officials.
Since the formation of ETR until early 1950 when Communist
Chinese
government gain control over the three districts, ETR had
effectively
existed for about 6 years and was a de facto independent
nation.
ETR covered more then 20 percent of the region and consisted
about 25
percent of the region's population, it strongly challenged
the Chinese
sovereignty not only in Ghulja, Altay, Chochek three
districts, but also
throughout all region of UAR.
During its administration, ETR government formed an army
with about 25,000
members, the army completely wiped out the Chinese
Nationalist Army forces
from the three districts and greatly weakened the control of
Nationalist
over the whole region, which according to Chinese communist
sources:" Three
region revolution contributed a great deal for the peaceful
liberation of
Xinjiang and for the victory of people's democratic
revolution in whole
China."
In August, 1949, in a letter addressed to one of the leaders
of ETR, Mr.
Akhmetjan Khasim, Mao Zedong wrote:
"Many years of your struggle is one of the component of
whole Chinese
people's democratic revolutionary movement." This statement
imply the
importance of Three Regions Revolution toward the
establishment of the
People's Republic of China in 1949.
It is a historical fact that Eastern Turkistan was
peacefully handed over to
the communist Chinese state. One of the main reasons is that
the Chinese
government promised to give local Turkic people self-ruling
power.
After about a half century later, however, the reality for
the indigenous
people is that, instead of gaining self -determination, they
were eventually
deprived of everything achieved through the Three District
Revolution.
The tragic and mysterious death of the leaders of the ETR
government on
August 27, 1949, signaled a decline of the ETR. 11 members
of the ETR's
highest officials were reported dead as a result of an
airplane crash in the
mountains around the Soviet lake Baikal on their way to
Beijing to attend
the "Political Consultant Conference".
Shortly after this event, the Chinese government started to
"clean up" the
ETR, by, first, "promoting" higher ranking ETR officials to
Urumqi and other
regions where ETR had less influence, and second, dismissing
the ETR
National Army by transforming it to agricultural units.
Most of the ETR officials who had been assigned to work in
the provincial
government were eventually prosecuted or displaced in 1950's
during the
so-called "Against Right-Wing" campaign, and in 1960's
during the "Great
Cultural Revolution".
Nowadays, the few "lucky" minority cadres, who have an
administrative power,
are constantly under danger of being labeled as "splittist"
if they dare to
speak up for the local people. Basically, every, more or
less key, position
in XUAR is held by a Chinese.
The ET revolution, which is described by the official
Chinese historians as
an "important component of the Chinese revolution", is only
slightly
mentioned in the Chinese history textbooks. There is no
single history book
in China that talks in detail about the Eastern Turkistan
Republic,
although, the country had existed for 6 years.
The Chinese government wants to erase the history of Eastern
Turkistan
Revolution, and makes everything possible to the Uighur
youth to forget
about the great event. It is up to us whether the Chinese
communists
succeeded in this. Let us try to learn and remember every
single moment of
our history. People without history is a people without
future.
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