Today, we mark 81 years since the founding of the East Turkistan National Army, an army reborn to defend our sovereign republic, liberate our people, and secure the future of our nation.

On April 8, 1945, in the capital of Ghulja, the East Turkistan Republic proclaimed the formation of the East Turkistan National Army. A force of national salvation tasked with defending our restored independence, preserving our territorial integrity, and protecting the freedom and dignity of our people. At its height it fielded 40,000 active troops and 20,000 reserves. Organized, disciplined, and resolute. It fought courageously, liberating vast territories from the Chinese invaders and carrying the hopes of a free and independent future for our nation.

Tragically, that future was stolen. On December 22, 1949, the Chinese Communists, supported by the Soviet Union, invaded East Turkistan, overthrew our Republic, and disbanded our army, imposing a brutal occupation that has now lasted 76 years. The loss of our National Army did not merely mark the fall of our government. It marked the collapse of our national defense, the theft of our sovereignty, and the beginning of the darkest chapter in our nation’s history.

For seventy-six years the Chinese invaders have occupied and colonized our homeland. Stealing our land, suppressing our language, criminalizing our identity, and killing our people. For twelve years the world has watched wholesale genocide unfold in real time. Millions imprisoned in concentration camps. Millions enslaved through forced labor. Millions of babies murdered through forced abortion. Hundreds of thousands of women sterilized and raped. Over a million children torn from their families. The world shamelessly continues to embolden China by choosing economic and political deals over action, giving lip service to “Never Again” and the principles of human rights, self-determination, and decolonization as our ancient civilization is being annihilated.

Disarmed, we became defenseless. Occupied, we became voiceless. History has taught us this lesson in blood: a people without the means to defend themselves is a people at the mercy of their oppressors, no matter the false promises of the international community.

The re-establishment of the East Turkistan National Army is not optional. It is vital to the survival of our nation. It is a sacred obligation to every child torn from their family, to every East Turkistani soul enslaved, to every woman raped and sterilized, to every generation that has known nothing but occupation. We do not seek to build something new. We seek to restore what was always ours. We owe them liberation. We owe them the restoration of our independence, our state, and our sovereignty.

To our martyrs, to all soldiers of the East Turkistan Republic, to every forefather who built states in our homeland and defended them with their lives: we remember you. We honor you. We will not rest until the nation you lived and died for is free and independent again.

We call upon the international community to recognize East Turkistan as an occupied nation and to act to stop this 21st century Holocaust-like genocide. As the international community continues to fail our people, we call upon freedom loving nations and democratic governments to fulfill their moral and legal obligations under the UN Genocide Convention and UNGA Resolutions 1514, 2105, and 37/43, by providing East Turkistan the necessary resources and support to rebuild its national institutions, including the East Turkistan National Army, so that our people may defend themselves, end China’s campaign of colonization and genocide, and restore our national independence.

Sons and daughters of East Turkistan, you are the heirs of an ancient civilization that no occupation has ever extinguished and no invader has ever truly conquered. East Turkistan endures and it will rise again as a free and independent nation. The restoration of East Turkistan is the sacred duty of every East Turkistani and the moral obligation of every nation that claims to stand for justice and human dignity.

Long live East Turkistan.

— Dr. Mamtimin Ala,
President of the Republic of East Turkistan Government in Exile