Elihan Tore

Elihan Tore Saghuny was an Uzbek political and religious leader who served as the president of the Second [East Turkestan Republic]. He was born in Tokmok, in present-day Kyrgyzstan, and moved to Kashgar, Xinjiang, in 1920. In April 1944, Elihan and eleven other Turkic leaders formed the East Turkestan Liberation Organization in Ghulja to end Chinese Nationalist rule and establish an independent East Turkestan. On 11 November 1944, they launched the Ili Rebellion with the support of the Soviet Union.

Biography

Elihan was elected as president of the Second East Turkestan Republic the day after a successful rebellion in Ghulja on 12 November 1944. He held the military rank of marshal in the East Turkestan National Army, formed on 8 April 1945.
Elihan was the only person in the ETR leadership who opposed Joseph Stalin's order to terminate hostilities with the Chinese Nationalists and start negotiations in October 1945.
On 16 June 1946, six days after signing a peace agreement between the ETR and Chinese Nationalists, Elihan was forcibly returned to the Soviet Union by the KGB and confined there. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest in Tashkent, where he wrote a book about Xinjiang titled Türkistan kaygısı.

Türkistan kaygısı, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, East Publishing House, 2003Tarihiy Muhammadiy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Publisher: Kutlukkhan Shakirov