Beijing, Jan 31 (IANS) China condemned the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduroas by US forces as a “hegemonic act undermining global norms”, but for those familiar with Beijing’s abuses against Uyghurs, the reaction was not just “hypocritical — it was grotesque”, a report said on Saturday.

“To capture Maduro, the Trump administration deployed a limited number of personnel by air, land, and sea. The operation lasted two hours and twenty-eight minutes. China, by contrast, mobilised tens of thousands of police officers and hundreds of thousands of government cadres to detain more than three million Uyghurs. Trump’s soldiers arrived at the gates of a presidential palace. Chinese police jumped over courtyard walls in the middle of the night, broke into homes, smashed doors, and deliberately terrorised families by entering without warning,” Shohret Hoshur, an Uyghur American journalist, wrote for online magazine ‘Bitter Winter’

“Trump’s forces stormed the palace of a president protected by soldiers and security forces. Chinese armed police stormed the homes of defenceless civilians — men, women, and the elderly — whose only protection might have been a dog in the yard. Maduro was bound and taken away by helicopter. Uyghurs were often hooded; when hoods were unavailable, officers pulled their own coats over detainees’ heads and dragged them away,” he added

Hoshur pointed out that in Maduro’s case, detention was almost immediately followed by legal procedures — within three days of his arrival in New York, he was brought before a court. Also, within a week, Maduro was allowed to meet his son, while the world was aware of the reason for his arrest.

But for Uyghurs sent to camps, Hoshur said, there were no legal procedures at all — no warrants, no charges, no trials.

“Families were left in the dark. Detainees themselves often did not know why they had been taken — except that they were Uyghur, the owners of the resource-rich region known historically as East Turkestan,” he added.

According to the report, following Maduro’s arrest, the Trump administration openly admitted its interest in Venezuelan oil, saying that both nations could mutually benefit.

China, meanwhile, it said, has discreetly exploited the oil, gas, and natural resources of East Turkestan while claiming it is merely “supporting Xinjiang economically”, offering no explanations where the profits go.

“If global outrage is reserved for presidents while millions of civilians can be taken hostage in silence, then the problem is not only political hypocrisy—it is the hollowing out of international law itself,” the report mentioned.

–IANS

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