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By Adam Baron — McClatchy Newspapers
March 17, 2012
SANAA, Yemen — Nearly a month after a
referendum-like election formally ended former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's
three decades in power, attention is focusing on how to remake the nation's
military, which was the backbone of the former president's rule.
Restructuring the military has been a key
demand of the anti-government demonstrators who began rallying for Saleh's
ouster more than a year ago. They characterized the military as a disorderly
cesspool of corruption organized primarily to safeguard Saleh's hold on power
rather than to secure Yemen.
The issue has gained greater urgency during the
months since, as a number of military leaders, including the powerful Gen. Ali
Mohsen, a former Saleh ally, broke with the government. Since then, the Yemeni
army has been divided into often combative halves.
Opposition leaders are watching warily as
Saleh's replacement, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, takes the first tentative steps
to reform an institution in which Saleh's relatives still lead key units.
The deal that set up Saleh's departure from the
presidency gave Hadi the responsibility of revamping the military, and he's
already made some changes, most notably appointing a new commander in Yemen's
southern region, where government forces have battled al Qaida-linked militants
for months.
Still, many Yemenis openly question whether
Hadi, a longtime Saleh ally with little power base of his own, will be able to
assert his authority over the heavily armed military leaders.
Others, including some opposition politicians,
have raised the question of foreign interference, citing a widespread rumor
that the U.S. government, once a staunch Saleh backer, will be asked to aid the
restructuring process.
The French newspaper Le Monde reported two
weeks ago that European nations and the United States had split up
responsibilities for assisting Yemen's transition, with the United States
drawing the military portfolio. Some top opposition politicians accept that as
fact, saying they've heard from well-connected diplomats, though the British
ambassador has denied that any such division of responsibility has taken place.
Despite the perception that Hadi is weak, he
has some advantages that may help him revamp the military, analysts say.
For one, he's seen as a consensus figure, with
support from the international community, Yemen's major political parties and
the country's top military leaders. With that kind of backing, resistance to
Hadi's efforts — or an effort to overthrow him — almost certainly will be seen
as an attack on Yemen itself, drawing a harsh response.
But Hadi must move to establish that he's
firmly in control.
"Reform of the military requires certain
prerequisites: Chiefly, Hadi needs to assert his authority as commander in
chief," said Abdulghani al Iryani, a political analyst who heads the
Democratic Awakening Movement, a pro-democracy Yemeni political action
committee. "If he does so and prudently deals with the military, he can
get them to disengage from the political situation."
And while balancing the competing military and
political factions may take time, Hadi must move quickly, analysts said. The
nation, which has lived through 12 months of political turmoil, is impatient
for results. Leading youth activists and some opposition politicians already
have said they'll refuse to engage in political dialogue unless military reform
takes place.
The military itself is showing signs of stress.
A mutiny has wracked the air force for nearly three months, and there have been
demonstrations demanding change among members of other military branches as
well.
Even if many Yemenis say they understand the
reasoning behind a more gradual transition, they're quick to note that, absent
substantive military reform, any changes are likely to be rendered aesthetic at
best.
"From the beginning, our focus has been
changing the military," said Khaled al Dhubhani, a middle-aged mechanical
engineer and politically independent activist. "If the military doesn't
change, its hard to imagine that much else will."
