The United States on Thursday backed up its decision to sanction an obscure Uyghur organization called East Turkestan Islamic Movement with some “obscure evidence”. According to The Washington Post (August 29 edition), a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said this group had been planning a terrorist attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. The spokesman said he had no further details about the alleged plans to attack the embassy in Bishkek, but said two suspected ETIM members deported to China from Kyrgyzstan in May were planning terrorist attacks.

When interviewed by The Washington Post, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Askar Aitmatov said, “There were some suspicions that they might have been planning an attack against the U.S. Embassy” because one of them was found with a map showing embassies in Bishkek. Apparently, the minister’s statement shows it is more likely that the suspects were not planning an attack against the U.S. Embassy than it is likely.

Let’s get straight to the point with facts: According to Kabar, Kyrgyz National New Agency, May 23 report, Kyrgyzstan detained Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sadik, on May 8th. They were found with a map of embassies. They possessed no guns and no bombs. Besides the U.S. Embassy, their map showed many other embassies as well. There was nothing specific on the map to indicate that the suspects were planning a “terrorist” attack against any embassy. If they were actually planning a “terrorist” attack against a certain embassy, it should have been the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek. For the Uyghurs never consider the U.S. an enemy. In fact, they consider the U.S., a potential enemy of China, a great friend.

Simply possessing a map showing embassies don’t give any authority the luxury to speculate that the detained Uyghurs were going to use it for a “terrorist” act. Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sadik might have possessed the map for seeking political asylum if they had legitimate fear of being repatriated to China in case of arrest by the Kyrgyz authorities, and which became the case, indeed. Many Uyghur dissidents who have been repatriated in the past by Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan against the international law either faced life-sentence or immediate execution in China. With the cruel methods China tortures the Uyghur dissidents as documented by Amnesty International, Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sidik would have “confessed” every alleged terrorist attack.

Let’s now assume: If Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sidik were actually planning a “terrorist” strike against the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek in May, why didn’t the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek make the threat public in May after Kyrgyz authorities detained these suspects? Why now, instead of the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing made this “evidence” public? Doesn’t the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek have the same authority to make it public since Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sadik allegedly threatened it? Why Beijing, not Bishkek?

According to Omurbek Egemberdiev, chairman of the department on public relations of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sidik were returned to China within the framework of bilateral agreement on extradition. The Kyrgyz authorities simply repatriated them to China in two weeks and without trial. Then, the question follows: Did the U.S. Embassy officials in Bishkek question Mamet Yasin and Mamet Sidik about the alleged terrorist attack? Apparently, they did not.

According to Agence France Presse August 29 report, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the evidence was mainly supplied by the Kyrgyzstan government. It is clear earlier, from the words of Kyrgyzstan Foreign Minister Askar Aitmatov, that Kyrgyzstan authorities supplied the U.S. government with questionable “evidence” with regard to the “terrorist” attack.

Besides making this serious allegation without substantial evidence, the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing quoted straight from a Chinese report issued in January, said the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is believed to be responsible for more than 200 acts of terrorism in China, including bombings, assassinations and arson, resulting in at least 162 deaths and 440 injuries. This statement sounds more like Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kong Quan making the allegation about ETIM.

According to The Washington Post, the State Department declined to comment on the discrepancy or explain how the U.S. government had corroborated the Chinese report. The fact is the U.S. Embassies in Beijing and Bishkek didn’t do their own homework of investigation but simply repeated the “evidences” fed by the Chinese and Kyrgyz authorities. Another important questions to ask is, why did Richard L. Armitage, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, announced that ETIM was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in Beijing, not in Washington or Bishkek? Obviously, here are a lot of confusion and inconsistencies.

After everything is said and done, we still don’t have all the answers we need. Maybe, it is better to leave it like this. Some issues are probably better left without a conclusion. In this way everybody can draw his or her own conclusion with the facts. In this case, no party is a winner or loser. Every party involved-China, the U.S. and ETIM-can probably save some face, if not credibility. May be the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is a terrorist organization. Maybe it is not, as the “evidences” don’t quite seem to support the allegation. However, the victim of this claim is definitely the Uyghur people.

(*) Erkin Dolat is Editor-in-Chief for UIA