World Uyghur Congress

World Uyghur Congress logo

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is a purported non-governmental organisation based in Munich, Germany, that claims to be "active in raising Uyghur-related issues on a number of ways in many different national and international fora."

In actuality, the WUC is an organisation funded by the United States government to promote the fall of the People's Republic of China. Notably, their political line includes promoting the province of Xinjiang as a sovereign state named "East Turkistan [sic]", a point of view shared by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)—a terrorist organisation recognized as such by the United Nations and European Union as well as individual countries.

The WUC represents diaspora, bourgeois and even, originally, fascist interests that are inherently at odds with the interests of Uyghurs currently living in their native region of Xinjiang, where a desire for separatism is much less popular. Yet the WUC claims to "represent the collective interest" of Uyghur people and be "the sole legitimate organisation of the Uyghur people both in East Turkistan and abroad".

History

The WUC was founded in Munich in 2004 with Erkin Alptekin as its first president.

Notable members

Portrait of Isa Alptekin, date unknown (likely around the mid-mark of the 20th century)

Isa Yusuf Alptekin

The Uyghur separatist movement emerged from elements in Xinjiang which view socialism as the "enemy of Islam". The founding father of this movement was Isa Yusuf Alptekin and his son, Erkin Alptekin, founded the World Uyghur Congress himself.

Alptekin Sr. is referred to as "our late leader" by the WUC and current President Dolkun Isa. Born at the turn of the 20th century, he received a largely Islamic education as a youth and during the Chinese civil war, Alptekin served under the Kuomintang (KMT), the nationalist party governing China which received massive military backing from the United States during the war (including billions of dollars in cash). Alptekin opposed the Second East Turkestan Republic due to its Soviet support.

In his memoirs, Alptekin Sr. revealed that he "sought to eliminate all Russians and leftists in the government", and that "schools were also encouraged to include religious instruction in their curriculum". During his life, he also worked to prevent intermarriage between Han Chinese and Uyghur Muslims. In The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, authors note that religious fundamentalists attacked the houses of Han Chinese and abducted their Muslim wives, and forced them to marry Muslim men. Alptekin, though representing the government in Xinjiang at this time, did not investigate or prosecute the criminals.

Near the end of the war, Alptekin met with US and British consuls in Xinjiang, hoping they would deepen their intervention in China and Xinjiang. He ultimately went into exile in 1949 after the war but carried on his work from abroad.

Erkin Alptekin

Erkin Alptekin was named the inaugural president of the WUC in 2004. From 1971 to 1995, he worked for the CIA-funded Radio Free Europe (later Radio Liberty). It is worth noting that Radio Free Europe was based in Munich, Germany, as is the World Uyghur Congress. At his father's funeral, Erkin Alptekin outlined his anti-communist and separatist views as well as his desire to destroy China:

Ten years ago no one believed that the USSR would fall apart now you can see that. Many Turkic countries have their freedom now. Today the same situation applies to China. We believed in the not too distant future we will see the fall of China and the independence of East Turkestan

Erkin Alptekin also is described as a close friend of the Dalai Lama, a US-backed figurehead of Tibetan separatism and former feudal lord of Tibet, and violently opposes marriage between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

Rebiya Kadeer

In 2006, Erkin Alptekin was succeeded as president of the WUC by Rebiya Kadeer, a self-decribed multi-millionaire who profited off China's economic reforms under President Deng Xiaoping. Her husband, Sidik Rouzi, worked for US government media outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Kadeer was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2000 for providing state information to foreign entities.

Dolkun Isa receiving the 2019 Democracy Award from the NED

Dolkun Isa

Dolkun Isa is the current president of the WUC, as well as the winner of the 2019 Democracy Award from the NED. In 2016, Isa received a "human rights award" the from far-right Victims of communism memorial foundation. In his acceptance speech, Isa emphasised the "Uyghur's resistance to communism" and that "we will not stop our work until we consign this destructive ideology, in the words of Ronald Reagan, to 'the ash heap of history.'"

In November 2019, Isa attended the Halifax International Security Forum, a gathering convened by NATO and the Canadian Department of National Defence. There, he met with leading Western political and military figures.

Omer Kanat

Omer Kanat is the WUC's chairman of the Executive committee. Kanat helped found the WUC and, from 1999 to 2009, was Radio Free Asia's senior editor.

Political line

The political line of the World Uyghur Congress is that the province of Xinjiang, China is called East Turkestan, is rightfully an independent state, and Uyghurs are not Chinese citizens but members of a pan-Turkic nation stretching from Central Asia to Turkey.

This contradicts the White paper the Communist Party of China (CPC) published in 2019 in which they explain the long history of the Uyghur people and the region of Xinjiang -- pointing out, for example, that the Xinjiang region has been home to many multi-ethnic migrant groups and the Uyghurs themselves came about from many such integrations and migrations.

Likewise, the paper contradicts the East Turkestan line, stating that Xinjiang has never been solely Muslim or populated solely by the Uyghur people until about the 10th century. While there are still minorities in Xinjiang today, their influence has diminished after the Karahan Kanate conquered the the region; it is only today, with support from the CPC, that other minorities in Xinjiang are also able to thrive in their native home. The paper also notes that only two short-lived attempts have been made by warlords trying to create a country named East Turkestan, who exploited general unrest and civil wars at the time to seize power and establish their own fiefdom.

The World Uyghur Congress thus aims to achieve a colour revolution with a home inside the province of Xinjiang. In this regard, it should be linked to other projects such as Tibetan separatism, the 2019 Hong Kong Protests and Taiwanese independence (or takeover), all of which aim to overthrow the government of China to replace it with a United States comprador government.

Funding and network

A 2020 investigation by the Grayzone revealed that the World Uyghur Congress is funded by the United States government specifically to promote separatist sentiments in Xinjiang, and the organisation has forged alliances with far-right and ethno-nationalist groups in Turkey.

Author Aijhat Singh notes that the "WUC is not a grassroots movement", but indeed a large network for "several Washing-based outfits that also rely heavily on US funding and direction".

United States funding

Since its inception in 2004, the WUC has been backed several times by the National Endowment for Democracy, to the tune of 1.28 million United States dollars since 2016, and this is only the amount that was made public. It is also worth noting that the NED funds other Uyghur separatist groups, to which they admitted funds totaling 8.75 million United States dollars since 2004.

The NED has also organised leadership training seminars for the WUC since 2007. The WUC also regularly meets with and lobbies politicians to increase economic sanctions on China.

Alliances to far-right group

Alparslan Türkeş and Isa Yusuf Alptekin

While in exile in Turkey, Isa Yusuf Alptekin started courting far-right neo-Ottomanist ideologues to continue his work. He also wrote to US President Richard Nixon for support and, in 1969, declared full support for the war on Vietnam.

In another letter to Nixon, Alptekin also advised Nixon to "speed up the process of the dismemberment of the Chinese empire".

Alptekin met several times with Alparslan Türkeş, a fascist who ardently believed in Turkish ethnic superiority. Türkeş was also a long-term leader of the far-right Nationalist Action Party and its paramilitary arm, the Grey Wolves, an anticommunist and outright fascist party that is still active in Turkey to this day, claiming the lives of many comrades.

Alptekin appears to have shared the hateful politics of Türkeş and the Turkish far-right, often expressing anti-Armenian views including denial of the Armenian genocide and claims that Armenians were murderers of innocent Turks.

Activities

In October 2021, employees from the International Tibet Network, World Uyghur Congress and Students for a Free Tibet -- all of which are diaspora bourgeois organisations funded by the US government -- held a press conference in Athens, Greece following their protest in a part under renovation of the Acropolis. Subsequently, the protesters were arrested for trespassing into a construction site.