Yilamjan Duolait, Education Bureau, Kashgar Prefecture

Recently Mike Pompeo and Adrian Zenz made up a series of lies and rumors on Xinjiang, falsely claiming that “Chinese government has carried out random custody and committed genocide and crimes against humanity towards Uygur and other ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang”. These are just sensational and ridiculous political lies! What they said is a brutal interference in China’s internal affairs, a total confounding of facts and a complete confusion of right and wrong.

In the following I would like to resolutely refute Pompeo and Zenz’s political lies with my own growing experience and facts. My family has been living in Kashgar for generations and in 1979 I was born in Yopurga County in Kashgar Prefecture. I had been living and working in Yopurga County for some years and in 2007 I have transferred to Kashgar to work in the Education Bureau. Over the 40 years and since my childhood, I clearly remember the situation of my home town years ago and the earth-shaking changes happening. Yopurga County once had a nickname of “Small Shanghai”, but actually its urban area was quite small, with only two gravel streets that crossed each other. Near to the crossroad, at night and on those bazaar days it was quite prosperous. At that time there was only one movie theater, one post office, one shopping mall and a few scattered shops near to the crossroad. As one can say the urban area in Yopurga at that time was even smaller than a town bazaar today. There was almost no modern transportation and on roads there were only horse carts or donkey wagons running by. It was very difficult to travel to Kashgar. There were only two primary schools, two junior high schools and one senior high school in the urban area. The school campus was quite shabby, the teaching building, the office building and the sports ground were shabby and worn, and in winter we had to set up a stove in every classroom because inside the classroom there was no heating facilities. The infrastructure for teaching was also in poor condition. More than forty years ago, in the villages the condition was more undesirable. We lived in earth-made houses, with not much food, clothing, electricity, and running water. Roads, medical care and sanitary condition were poor and the life expectancy was not so long.

Although at that time our living condition was quite poor, we held together as seeds of a pomegranate. The society was peaceful and harmonious and we firmly believed that compared with conditions before 1949 our conditions had improved to a great extent. We did things with our own will and we held abundant confidence for a bright life and future. We firmly believed that with the strong leadership of the Party and government our life would be better and better each day. I often heard from senior relatives saying outstanding praises to the Party and government. In 1998 I began to work and since then I witnessed more personally about the changes happening in the whole Kashgar, especially the huge changes happening in rural areas. I had been working in various counties as Yopurga, Yengisar, Shache and Shule, and most of the time I worked in villages and towns, serving villagers and witnessing the implementation of various beneficiary policies from the Party with excellent results and achievements. Villagers are living in spacious and bright preferential houses now, every family is equipped with running water and electricity system. Asphalt road, broadcasting, television, broad band and communication are covered to every family. All children enjoy 15 years of free compulsory education, every citizen has once-a-year free physical medical examination, there are various subsidies on farming, animal raising and housing building and there are medical insurance to make sure one only pays very little or does not have pay at all when one is ill and various financial support for those poverty-stricken families. As one can see: the beneficiary policies from the Party are covering every aspect of our life and every step of our life. In 2020, as other places in our nation, Kashgar has formally shaken off poverty: no one is in poor situation and no family is living under average standard. The goal of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-around way is realized step by step. At present, the society is harmonious and stable, the economy is steadily and healthily developing, and the living has been improving greatly. Every part of Kashgar is undergoing huge changes and you can see bright and happy smiles of people everywhere. There is never such a stage as today in Xinjiang, where people are living in harmony, welfare, happiness and contentment. All these are results of Party’s strong leadership, of excellent policies from the Central Committee of the Party, of the constant generous help and support of inland provinces and of the hardworking of all Xinjiang people with unity and solidarity.

We will never allow our enemies to sabotage Xinjiang’s prosperity and development, we will never allow our enemies to hamper China’s development and we will never be tricked and deceived by our enemies. The more that people as Pompeo and Zenz try to sabotage our unity, the more united we will be! Our happy life proves: only with the leadership of the Party can we have such a happy life!