Saleh becomining increasingly desperate in Yemen

Embattled Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh has sacked one of his ministers as the month-long protests against his 32-year rule shows no sign of ending. Hamoud al-Hattar is the scapegoat for failing to find a way to deal with opponents who are demanding Saleh step down. Protesters in the capital Sana’a are fed up with a lack of democratic reform, widespread corruption and human rights abuses by Saleh, his family and allies. Saleh refuses to step down until his term of office expires in 2013. (photo:STR/ AFP/ Getty Images)

Yemeni authorities have deported four western journalists over their coverage of the protests. Security forces raided an apartment and arrested two British and two American journalists and kicked them out of the country. They follow the deporting of an American journalist and Italian photographer a day earlier. Briton Oliver Holmes said that said that one of the agents told him they were all being kicked out because of their coverage of the protests. “We have all been reporting on the use of violence by the police,” Holmes told Al Jazeera.

The flashpoint has moved to the north eastern Marib province where the governor was stabbed, police have opened fire on protesters, and rebels have blown up an important oil pipeline. Marib is a predominantly tribal area implacably opposed to Saleh’s regime. Saleh’s man in the province Governor Naji al-Zaidi was caught up in a large demonstration outside the local government building yesterday. Security troops fired live ammunition and tear gas, injuring around 37 people. In the melee, a group of men stabbed al-Zaidi and four bodyguards with daggers before he was flown by helicopter to a military hospital in the capital.

Meanwhil tribal fighters sabotaged an oil pipeline this morning and cut the road between the Marib’s gas fields and the capital. Local police said the pipeline connecting Marib's oil fields to the Red Sea was ablaze and the main road between Sanaa and Safer was cut off disrupting tanker traffic and jeopardising gas supplies to the capital.
There have been grumblings in the Arab world’s poorest country for several years over Saleh’s autocratic regime and the likelihood of an eventual transfer of power to his son Ahmed Saleh. His troubles are compounded by an insurgency by Houthi rebels in the north, a separatist movement in the south and a large Al Qaeda threat. But it took January’s Tunisian revolution to galvanise the opposition into action. Large street protests flooded the capital and Saleh offered reforms including presidential term limits and voter registration. The opposition and protesters rejected the proposals saying the reforms did not ensure that Saleh could not run again.

Emboldened by success in Tunisia and the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, protesters held a “day of rage” in early February. Unlike events in Egypt, the 20,000 strong Yemeni protest ended peacefully, though Saleh did make efforts to stifle them and his forces shot dead protesters in Aden. Protests continued through the month, gradually increasing in size and scope. Yemeni soldiers fired artillery at anti-government protesters in the northern village of Semla in Amran, killing two and wounding seven.

After his offer to form a national unity government was rejected, Saleh imposed a tight security cordon around Sana’a. His objective now is to stop more protesters joining 150,000 in the main square. They include tribesmen from Hamdan tribe who were angered when police killed one of their kinsmen. The Hamdan are not Saleh’s only headache. Sheikh Ameen al-Okaimi, chieftain of northern largest powerful tribe Bakil, staged a sit-in in Sana’a with a sign emblazoned "Welcome to the Liberation Land."

Where the protests have been most successful is in bringing Yemen’s deeply fractured opposition movements together. In the last election in 2006, Saleh’s ruling General People’s Congress took 76 percent of the vote with the umbrella group Joint Meeting Parties taking 21 percent. Now the JMP has united with the tribal and Islamist Islah party bringing most of the anti-Saleh forces under one banner. But the Hashid tribal confederation and Houthi rebellion forces remain outside the tent and it would be unclear what role if any they would have in any post-Saleh government. Indeed it is likely secessionist movements will continue to agitate regardless of who reigns in Sana’a.

Yemenis throng to another Tahrir

The world has gotten used to hearing about democracy protests in Tahrir Square, Cairo in the last few weeks. But a square of the same name (Tahrir is Arabic for liberation) is also the focus of protests in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. But in this Tahrir Square the protesters are demonstrating in favour of the current government not against it. They were there to profess their support to President Ali Abdullah Saleh who announced last week he would not be seeking re-election in 2013. The protesters came from pro-Government parts of the country in a move the opposition has labelled political manoeuvring to make it appear as if pro-Saleh regime sentiment is still strong. (photo:EPA)

The pro-Government protests are a backlash to a major opposition demonstration widely known as the Day of Wrath. Inspired by events across the Red Sea in Egypt and Tunisia, 20,000 demonstrators came out last week to Sanaa University to protest Saleh’s regime which has ruled Yemen for over three decades. People of all ages chanted and held signs with messages against poverty and the government. Many expressed solidarity with the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and demanded Saleh step down.

The regime insists it is not in trouble. Prime Minister Ali Mujawar defended the government yesterday saying there was no reason Egypt-style protests should take off in the country. Mujawar accused opposition parties trying to duplicate what happened in Tunisia and Egypt and acting “as if it should be imposed on the people here in Yemen." "Yemen is not Tunisia or Egypt," Mujawar said. "Yemen has its own different situation... Yemen is a democratic country. Through all the stages, elections took place. And therefore this is a democratic regime."

However one person’s democratic regime is another’s dictatorship. Army strongman Saleh took power in a coup in what was then North Yemen in 1978. When the North and South united in 1990 the South accepted Saleh as Head of State of the unified country. He first stood for presidential election in 1999 but the candidate list was whittled down from 31 to 2 by virtue of the strict approvals needed to run. Saleh won with 96.3 percent of the vote. Saleh initially said he would not run in the second election in 2006 but changed his mind. The EU declared the election valid though with “significant shortcomings”. Saleh was re-elected for seven years with 77.2 percent of the vote.

The next election is scheduled for 2013 and Saleh is barred under the Yemeni constitution from seeking a third term of office. However, discussions on prolonging his time in power started last year. Congress, which is dominated by Saleh’s General People's Congress party, is discussing a proposed constitutional amendment to cancel the limit of two consecutive terms for which a president can be elected. The proposed amendment will be submitted to a referendum which will be held simultaneously with parliamentary elections on 27 April.

But after the Day of Rage protest last Wednesday, Saleh apparently had second thoughts. He announced on state TV that April elections would be cancelled along with the constitutional amendment. "I will not extend my mandate and I am against hereditary rule," Saleh said. The hereditary rule comment was a response to suspicion he was grooming his eldest son, Ahmed Saleh, who commands an elite unit of the Yemeni army, to succeed him as president.

Given that Saleh made similar comments prior to the 2006 election, there is widespread doubt he is now serious. The current problems in Yemeni politics started when the mandate of the current parliament was extended by two years to April 2011 following the February 2009 agreement between the GPC and opposition parties to allow dialogue on political reform. There is also need for structural reform. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab region. Poverty is widespread with 45 per cent of its 21.1 million people living on less than $2 a day, according to the UN Development Programme.

Political analysts in Yemen feel that tension will only rise in the next 10 years, fearing that Saleh will never bow down from rule. One Opposition leader said Saleh will eventually be brushed aside. “For the same reason Yemenis revolted against the Imamate regime nearly 50 years ago,” he said. “Saleh will push Yemenis to the extent that they feel the only option left for them is a new revolution, therefore, forcing Yemen to start again from scratch.”

Yemen grapples with Al Qaeda

Yemeni forces have arrested three Al Qaeda militants it claims were behind the threats that closed several foreign embassies. Those arrested include local Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Ahmed al-Hanaq. Al-Hanaq and the others were ambushed on Monday in a security force raid in Arhab, 40 kilometres north of the capital Sanaa. Two of his relatives were killed and three other people wounded in the attack but al-Hanq escaped. However he was captured in a hospital with two others in the town of Reedah, Amran province, north of Sanaa.

The men were arrested in connection with the threats to the US and other embassies in the capital. The attack on Al Qaeda came just days after General David Petraeus, the US regional military commander, travelled to Sanaa for talks with the Yemeni president. The US embassy re-opened yesterday after being closed for two days. They cited a “successful security operation in the north” as the reason for the re-opening. The British and French embassies also resumed operation but were still closed to the public.

Yemen has been in the international spotlight since Yemeni Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day bomb plot in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam with 278 passengers as it landed in Detroit. The 23-year-old son of a prominent Nigerian banker had hidden a fistful of high explosive in a package sewed into the crotch of his underwear. As the flight prepared to land, Abdulmutallab covered himself with a blanket and injected a chemical to detonate the explosive. He succeeded only in starting a fire which passengers and crew put out as they wrestled him down.

Yemeni Al Qaeda hailed Abdulmutallab as a “brother hero” for evading security screening and intelligence monitoring. It was another boost for the local branch of Al Qaeda whose numbers had been swelled by several veterans of Guantánamo Bay and who are preaching global jihad. The problem for the Obama administration is that 91 of the 198 detainees still at Guantanamo are Yemeni nations. Yesterday, Obama announced he was halting the transfer of prisoners back to their homeland. “There's an ongoing security situation which we have been confronting for some time, along with our Yemeni partner,” he said. “Given the unsettled situation, I've spoken to the Attorney General and we've agreed that we will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time.” In the same speech Obama also admitted not only the US had intelligence Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had traveled to Yemen and joined up with extremists there but also Al Qaeda were targetting American interests there and in the US itself.

While Al Qaeda's brother heroes are a threat to Yemen, they are not an existential threat. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has two bigger issues to worry about; a war in the north with Shia rebels and separatist unrest in the south (the two halves of Yemen came together in 1990). Christopher Boucek, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the 7.30 Report says Yemen’s problems are rooted in a failing economy, falling oil reserves, and massive population growth leading to corruption and 35 per cent unemployment. “Basically the Central Government is not in control of all of territory of Yemen, and the Central Government's authority and legitimacy is receding as it deals with all of these problems,” said Boucek. “So it's in those ungoverned places where you see Al Qaeda affiliated and directed organisations seeking refuge.”

Until recently the Government shied away from direct conflict. Al Qaeda had been bolstered by members of the group’s Saudi branch which fled to safety in Yemen and formally accepted Yemeni leadership under a new name "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula". But under US pressure, the government made some headway against Al Qaeda in the week before Christmas. Yemen claims that five air attacks on training camps between 17 and 24 December killed 60 fighters and there are another 29 in custody. But several women and children were also killed in the raids causing anger among a disenfranchised public. The danger for Yemen, as The Economist points out is that “further fighting against Al Qaeda could provoke a wider civil conflict, which in turn could undermine a regime that has rattled many of its own people by throwing in its lot with the West.”

Yemen continues its war with Houthi minority

A ceasefire between government forces and rebels in Yemen has been interrupted by sporadic clashes barely a day after it was called to allow humanitarian aid to reach stranded civilians. Fighting between Yemeni government forces and the rebel Houthi group in the north of the country has caused a growing humanitarian situation as civilians become increasingly caught up in military activities. There has been no water or electricity in Saada City since mid August and food reserves are running low. According to the UN, over 100,000 people have become refugees in the Saada region which borders Saudi Arabia (pic of Yemeni capital Saana by Ahron de Leeuw).

The Saudis are particularly worried the conflict between the mainly Sunni Yemenis and the Shia Houthis will spill across the border and inflame that country’s own Shia minority. Houthis in the guise of a shadowy group called “The Believing Youth” have been fighting since 2004 are seeking independence from a corrupt government which is too reliant on Saudi Arabia. Yemen claims they are supported by Iran and says its leader Husayn al-Huthi sought refuge in Iran in 2004 during the initial stages of the conflict. Though the two sides signed a peace deal in Qatar in 2007, there have been repeated violations. Unverifiable estimates of casualties vary widely but likely run into a thousand or more dead.

While the government gained control of Saada City, the rebels continued to operate with impunity from the nearby rugged mountains. In the latest action, the government had waged a "Scorched Earth" operation for three weeks. The campaign targeted mountain rebel hide outs and they also subjected major cities such as Dhayan to repeated and intense bombing. With food, water and medicine at critical levels, the government agreed to observe a ceasefire on Friday in response to requests from aid agencies. But fighting broke out again just hours later.

The humanitarian community organised a Flash Appeal which was due to be launched last Wednesday. The UN refugee agency UNHCR planned to address humanitarian needs of approximately 150,000 refugees and tens of thousands of others indirectly affected by the conflict. The plan involves moving camps out of the direct line of fire, ensuring all refugees are unarmed when they arrive at camps, and providing shelter, food and non-food items to displaced people. But the precarious ceasefire has left UNHCR unable to mobilise and its top priority now is to open humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave the conflict zone and humanitarian workers to deliver aid.

The ongoing Sadaa war is not the nation’s only challenge. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. Disappearing oil reserves, refugees flooding in from nearby Somalia and a weak government give it the potential to be a failed state. Its most pressing challenges are high unemployment, high population growth, and an uneasy security environment with four troublesome regions (including Sadaa). But the country has plenty of opportunities for growth: Yemen has a complex culture befitting its 3,000 year history and was known as "Felix (Happy) Arabia" to the Romans for the fertility of its lands. It is mineral-rich, there is great potential for tourism development and its strategically placed ports connect the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean.

Yemen’s sub-governor for foreign banking operations, Ibrahim al-Nahari told Reuters that gas exports is their big hope. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments from the $5 billion Yemen LNG project should come online later this month which will make up for oil revenues which are declining due to lower prices and declining production. "Hopefully the price of oil will increase so that we don't have to spend more or sacrifice more reserves," he said, adding that current reserves covered 8 or 9 months of imports. "Whether we like it or not, we depend too much on oil." A genuine willingness to talk peace with Huthis would help too, whether they like it or not.

Yemen cracks down on Zahdi insurgency

Yemeni government sources are reporting the army has pushed rebel fighters out of several key strongholds in the mountainous north of the country. The army has re-captured the town of Qalaa from a Shia rebel movement known as the Believing Youth. 40 soldiers and 20 rebels were killed in the re-taking of the town after the rebels took control in April.

The Believing Youth (Arabic: al-Shabab al-Mum’en) is an Islamic extremist organisation of Zaydi tribesmen. Zaydi is an offshoot of Shia, founded a thousand years ago, and is unique to Yemen. Zaydism is practiced by a quarter of Yemen’s 20 million population while the are Shafa'i order of Sunni. The focus of the revolt is the town of Saada, close to the border with Saudi Arabia and 230km north of the capital Sana’a. The Shia rebels oppose Yemen's close alliance with the US and model themselves on Lebanese Hezbollah. The government accuses the rebels of wanting to reinstall the Islamic Imamate that was overthrown in 1962.

While the central government appears to have taken back Qalaa, intense fighting has also broken out south of Saada. Government forces launched air raids and mortar bombardments of rebel-held areas surrounding the city. Thousands of people have fled their homes in the latest bout of the conflict, which has been raging on and off since 2004.

The initial conflict began when Hussain Badr al-din al-Houthi founded the Believing Youth in 2004 and led them in armed uprising against the government. Their slogan was "Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on Jews and victory to Islam.” The government put a price of $US50,000 on his head after months of battles between rebels and Yemeni security forces. Yemeni warplanes and artillery pounded his hideouts in the Jabal Maraan mountains. Government troops finally killed Al-Houthi in September 2004. Skirmishes died out but resumed again early this year led by Al-Huthi’s brother, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. A third brother Yahya al-Houthi now says the group is willing to negotiate a peace settlement. Yahya is living in exile in Libya and Yemen has been demanding his extradition through Interpol.

Yemen has now recalled ambassadors from Libya and Iran in protest at their support of the rebels. Yemen alleges they provided financial aid and weapons to the Zaydis. President Ali Abdullah Saleh approved a summoning of the ambassadors from Tripoli and Tehran for consultation. Party officials have publicly accused Libya and Iran of providing the Shiite rebels with financial aid that helped them buy weapons. In response Libya said it was trying to mediate between the parties while Iran denounced the accusations as 'irresponsible allegations.'

Islam first came to Yemen during the lifetime of Mohammed. The Persian Governor of Yemen was converted around 630 AD (around the same time as the conquest of Mecca). The Egyptian Mamelukes ruled the kingdom until the Ottoman Empire took over in the mid fifteenth century. Britain took in an interest in the 19th century, particularly in the strategically vital seaport of Aden. It negotiated a series of treaties which declared the south Arabian Protectorate of Great Britain. The Turks finally withdrew from North Yemen with their defeat at the end of World War I. In 1918 Imam Yahya (a Zaydi Imam) established the Kingdom of Yemen. His eldest son Imam Ahmed succeeded him and stayed in power until his death in September 1962. Ahmed’s son was overthrown by the military who founded the Yemen Arab Republic.

In the British controlled south, an independence movement became more active in the 1960s. In 1967, Aden got its independence and was the capital of the newly formed People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. As the South imposed a Marxist order, it caused massive immigration to the north contributing to ill-will between the two Yemens. It didn’t help that the south was socialist and secular; the north a traditional and tribal Arab society. To the surprise of many, the two Yemens united in 1990 as the Republic of Yemen with the capital in the North’s Sana'a. Equally surprising was the promise of multi-party democracy which was unheard of among the Arabian peninsula states.

Despite this apparent harmony, mutual distrust continued between the north and south. Both sides kept their own armies which led to inevitable conflict. A southern secessionist movement emerged in 1994 but was subdued by the vastly more populated North. Sporadic violence remained a threat through the decade that followed. In 2000 a visiting US naval vessel, the USS Cole, was anchored in Aden harbour for a fuel stop when it was attacked by two suicide bombers in a small inflatable boat. The attack killed 17 US sailors and injured 39 others. In October 2002 extremists attacked the French oil supertanker Limburg off Yemen. Meanwhile tribal violence was escalating between the Sunni Government and the Zaydi northern tribes.

The latest battles with the Zaydi separatists began in January this year. The rebels evicted 45 Yemeni Jews from their houses in Saada province and attacked a Saudi company repairing roads near the Saudi border. Officials estimate there are less than 3,000 rebels but the 30,000 Yemeni strong army has not been able to contain them. While the Young Believers’ Anti-Zionism is well known, their ultimate motive remains unclear.

Yemeni editor jailed for printing Danish cartoons

A Yemeni newspaper editor has begun serving a year in prison for reprinting the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The publication violated Article 103 of the 1990 Yemen Press and Publications Law. The court also ordered the Al-Ra'i al-Am independent weekly be closed for six months and forbade the editor Kamal al-Aalafi from writing for the same period. Al-Aalafi was sentenced on Friday. He declared he had published the cartoons in order to raise awareness and did not mean to insult the Muslim prophet. The editor told reporters the verdict "takes Yemen back to totalitarian rule, contradicts freedom of expression, and represents a real violation of democracy and freedom of the press."

The Yemeni decision was announced on the same day as Time Magazine announcements of its top ten cartoons of 2006. As well as obvious entries about the Plame enquiry, Mark Foley and a strange one about Zidane and Superman, one of the chosen ten is a cartoon about Danish cartoons which attempts to describe what happens when you mix cartoonists ink with Islamic religious beliefs.

Also this week, Scandinavian dairy group Arla Foods said the boycott of its products in the Middle East sparked by the Mohammed cartoons had cost the company about €53.6m this year. The boycott started in Saudi Arabia in January and spread through the Middle East and North Africa before a partial recovery in recent months. Arla is Europe’s second-largest dairy company and owned by about 10,000 Danish and Swedish co-operative members. Arla now believes most supermarkets in Muslim countries have ended the boycott after the company distanced itself from the cartoons.

The cartoons were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (Jutlands Post) on 30 September 2005. It is an influential publication. Selling 150,000 copies, Jyllands-Posten is the largest-selling daily newspaper in Denmark The editor announced the item as part of a deliberate campaign to encourage debate on censorship and criticism of Islam. The newspaper invited 40 cartoonists to draw Mohammed as they saw fit. 12 responded with their drawings. However these cartoons encouraged more debate than the editor bargained for. The Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was burnt in effigy in dozens of cities across the world after the crisis escalated. He described the situation as Denmark’s worst international relations incident since the Second World War.

Muslim countries were immediately doubly outraged by the drawings. As well as not respecting the tradition of drawing Mohammed faceless or with a face veiled, they were angered by the sentiments of the cartoons that linked their faith’s holiest prophet with terrorism. Eleven ambassadors from Muslim counties asked for a meeting with Rasmussen in October to discuss the cartoons and other smears it felt Denmark was responsible for. The government refused to intervene. A Muslim organisation tried to take Jyllands-Posten to court but they were found to have committed no criminal offence. The court’s decision encouraged a group of Danish imams to issue a document decrying the cartoons. They followed this up with a tour of the Middle East outlining their position. Reaction was swift. The 57 nation-strong Organisation of the Islamic Conference, issued an official communiqué demanding that the United Nations impose international sanctions upon Denmark.

The situation escalated as several other European nations reprinted the cartoons. Islamic countries organised protests, burned Danish flags and boycotted Danish produce. At least 139 people were killed in demonstrations, mainly in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several of the cartoonists received death threats forcing them to go into hiding. An unintended side effect was the increase of Danish exports to the US with many Americans buying Danish products in response to the boycott. Sales of Bang & Olufsen stereos and Lego have helped Denmark’s exports to the US improve by 17% in early 2006.

The cartoons redrew the line of free speech and ripped open the fault line between Western and Muslim values. The issue of press freedom versus the responsibility to treat a religion with respect came sharply into focus. Most newspapers sat on the fence, deploring constraints on free speech a la Voltaire, but refusing to publish the cartoons for fear of creating a storm of opposition a la Allah.

Jyllands-Posten itself posted an apology on its website in January, saying it regretted offending Muslims, but stood by its decision to carry the cartoons. Danish Muslims demand a clearer apology, saying the one posted was "ambiguous." Finally in October this year a Danish court dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by a group of Muslim organisations. But Danish law doesn’t apply to Yemeni publications. There, the show isn’t over until the fatwa loses its sting.