Hurling stones, Molotov cocktails and burning Chinese national flags, supporters of the East Turkestan separatists started well-orchestrated and sometimes violent attacks on Chinese embassies and consulates in several countries soon after the riots occurred last Sunday in China's northwest city of Urumqi that killed 184 people.
Only hours after the riots started in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a group of nearly 30 people stirred up trouble at China's Consulate General in Los Angeles by throwing eggs at the consulate building.
On Monday, two unidentified men tossed home-made gasoline bombs on the Chinese Consulate General in Munich, Germany.
Attackers in both cases swiftly disappeared before the police arrived on the scene.
A series of protests, some far more violent, were staged simultaneously in a number of cities across the world in the wake of the Urumqi riots.
Waving flags and banners, and shouting separatist slogans, the crowd led by Rebiya Kadeer marched from DuPont Circle in Washington D.C. to the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday afternoon.
They tried to break the cordon into the embassy, but was stopped by US police. During Tuesday's gathering, Kadeer, head of the separatist World Uygur Congress (WUC), made a speech, urging foreign governments to support their separatist movement.
Kadeer has long made it clear that the WUC would plot sabotage activities this year, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
In Munich, where the WUC was based, hundreds of protestors gathered Tuesday afternoon to attack the Chinese consulate general. When their attempt was foiled by police, they went to the Marienplatz, a square in central Munich and harassed the passing Chinese tourists there.
Violent demonstrations continued for days in the Chinese Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. Rioters hurled stones and eggs at the embassy buildings and smashed windowpanes of the ambassador's residence. Only heavy police presence prevented them from further storming the embassy.
In the Netherlands, mobs threw bricks and stones on the Chinese Embassy building on Monday, destroying almost all of its windows facing the street.
On Tuesday, about 100 violent protestors tried to storm the Chinese Embassy and a Chinese restaurant in Oslo, Norway, before police stopped them.
Violent attacks also ocurred in Chinese consulates and embassies in Australia, Japan and Sweden.
The attacks against China's diplomatic missions and the Urumqi riots seemed to be well-organized.
Russia's RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev noted, "I cannot imagine anyone setting fire to a shop with a lighter. You need at least a canister of gasoline to do that ... there were trained provocateurs inciting the public."
Almost all the participants in the attacks and riots declared their affiliation with either the WUC or its subordinate groups. A report by German-Foreign-Policy.com said that the Munich-based WUC "is escalating tensions and most likely is also behind the calls for last weekend's ethnic pogroms."
The report also said that during the WUC's general assembly last May in Washington, the organization planned its next steps and "the WUC had called for anti-Beijing demonstrations preceding these riots."
(Xinhua News Agency?July 13, 2009)
