Tom Finn
December 20, 2011
SAADA, Yemen (Reuters) - Their faces bruised and limbs scarred by bullet wounds, scores of young men writhed in agony on shabby mattresses at a Yemeni hospital in Saada, victims of a conflict largely hidden from the world.
Shi'ite Muslim rebels in Yemen's northern mountains near Saudi Arabia had fought government forces for years until an uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh this year gave them a free hand in the lawless frontier province of Saada.
In recent months the conflict, next door to the world's top oil exporter, has taken on a dangerous sectarian twist.
The Houthis, as the rebels are known after the clan of their leaders, have been fighting Salafis, a hardline Sunni Islamic group whose creed is similar to that of Saudi Arabia.
Each side offers conflicting accounts on everything from air strikes to motives.
The Houthis accuse the Salafis of receiving funds and arms from Saudi Arabia, while the Salafis say their religious schools have been shelled by the Shi'ite rebels.
The Houthis deny charges by the Yemeni government and some of its regional allies that they have ties to non-Arab, mostly Shi'ite Iran. The Houthis adhere to the Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam, doctrinally distinct from that practiced in Iran.
In the Saudi-funded hospital, Salafi and Houthi fighters lay side by side, nursing wounds from renewed clashes in the Salafi stronghold Damaj that coincided with a visit to Houthi leaders this month by U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar.
Some muttered prayers to themselves and stared vacantly at the ceiling. Most were unwilling or unable to talk. A man named Ali, with a pale face and a thick black beard who identified himself as a "supporter" of the Salafis in Damaj, accused the Houthis of trying to "exterminate Sunnis from Saada."
Although Saleh has signed a deal to hand power to his deputy after 10 months of protests, Yemen is still roiled by a southern separatist movement and al Qaeda-linked militants who have seized territory in the south, as well as the Houthi revolt.
While Saudi Arabia was worried by the potential breakup of Yemen, it was particularly alarmed by the prospect of a Shi'ite mini-state springing up on its border, said Hasan Zaid of Yemen's Shi'ite-dominated al-Haq party.
"They hope by funding the Salafis they can weaken the growing strength and popularity of the Houthi movement," he said.
Saudi Arabia intervened militarily against the Houthis in 2009 before a ceasefire took hold last year.
ANTI-U.S., ANTI-ISRAELI SLOGANS
Residents said the latest bout of sectarian violence erupted in early October when a boy walked into a Salafi-controlled medical center brandishing a Houthi protest sign.
The boy was assaulted by the Salafis, residents said, triggering an armed conflict, which has continued sporadically in spite of nearly a dozen mediation attempts.
"Negotiations have reached a dead end," said Mohammed Abdul-Azizi, a youth activist who accompanied an eight-person delegation from Sana'a to mediate.
"Too many people have interests in this conflict."
With the government distracted by months of mass protests demanding an end to Saleh's 33 years in office, the Houthis have been able to extend their grip over most of Saada province.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Gulf countries set up $5b fund for Jordan, Morocco
Tuesday, 20 Dec 2011
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Gulf Arab countries say they have created a $5 billion development fund to support projects in Jordan and Morocco.
Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, the general secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council, says the $5 billion will be divided equally between the two countries. The GCC wrapped up a summit meeting in Riyadh on Tuesday.
In May, al-Zayani said the six-member GCC accepted the two countries' request to join, but some procedures had to be completed before final approval. Unlike the other GCC members, Jordan and Morocco are not oil exporters.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the GCC will also help Yemen during its transitional period. Yemen's president has agreed to transfer power by Friday.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Gulf Arab countries say they have created a $5 billion development fund to support projects in Jordan and Morocco.
Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, the general secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council, says the $5 billion will be divided equally between the two countries. The GCC wrapped up a summit meeting in Riyadh on Tuesday.
In May, al-Zayani said the six-member GCC accepted the two countries' request to join, but some procedures had to be completed before final approval. Unlike the other GCC members, Jordan and Morocco are not oil exporters.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the GCC will also help Yemen during its transitional period. Yemen's president has agreed to transfer power by Friday.
Yemen mobile firm Sabafon alleges govt vendetta
Tue Dec 20, 2011
* Sabafon says a quarter of sites attacked by govt-allied forces
* Sabafon subscribers cannot phone abroad
* Calls to and from landlines also barred
* Ruling party denies deliberately targeting Sabafon
By Matt Smith
DUBAI, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Yemeni mobile operator Sabafon said on Tuesday that its facilities had come under repeated attack by state forces because of its chairman's support for protests aiming to end the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
A spokesman for Sabafon, which is 27-percent owned by Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco), told Reuters from Sanaa the company's headquarters had been hit three times by rocket-propelled grenades this year.
He said more than 250 transmission towers and other sites -- about a quarter of its facilities -- had been subject to shelling, gunfire and looting, killing one employee.
Sabafon subscribers cannot receive or make calls to Yemen landlines or phone abroad, illustrating the toll nearly a year of strife in the impoverished Gulf nation has taken on basic services.
"The damage continues ... employees were afraid to attend the headquarters and many sites were shut down, which dramatically affected operations and the company's ability to provide services," said the spokesman.
"These led to an exodus of subscribers to other providers. These unlawful measures are part of a punishment by the authorities on Sabafon because of the position of its chairman, who supports the peaceful popular revolution in Yemen."
An official of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) denied Sabafon was deliberately targeted, and that whatever damages it may have suffered came in the context of hostilities instigated by gunmen allied to Sabafon chairman and major shareholder Hamid al-Ahmar.
Al-Ahmar is the brother of Sadeq al-Ahmar, a leader of the powerful Hashed tribal confederation and a rival of the outgoing Saleh. This month, Yemen's new unity government met for the first time and a presidential election is due in February.
The government claims the Ahmar family was behind a June assassination attempt that left Saleh seriously injured.
The bomb attack capped weeks of fighting between forces loyal to him and those allied to the al-Ahmar family. Skirmishes between the two sides have erupted periodically since then.
GOVT RESPONSE
Abdulhafeedh al-Nahari, vice-spokesman of the ruling GPC, said fighting in the capital had damaged infrastructure.
"He (Hamid al-Ahmar) attacked government buildings in the capital, the government responded in self-defence ... this created bad relations with the government," Nahari said. "All the telecommunication companies in Yemen have suffered as a result of this crisis."
As well as restrictions on making phone calls, Sabafon subscribers are also barred from mobile Internet access.
Sabafon lost has lost "hundreds of thousands" of subscribers as a result of this disruption, the company spokesman said. It had 3.6 million customers at the end of 2010, according to Batelco's annual report.
"The tribal and political fractures in Yemen are also seen in the country's telecoms sector -- Ahmar controls Sabafon, while the government controls the landline infrastructure and the international gateway," said a telecoms analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"This shows Yemen really needs the rule of law and democracy, because vital sectors such as telecoms shouldn't be left to the whims of individuals. Disruption will likely continue until the political situation is resolved."
Sabafon competes against MTN Yemen, a unit of South Africa's MTN, and state-run Yemen Mobile.
* Sabafon says a quarter of sites attacked by govt-allied forces
* Sabafon subscribers cannot phone abroad
* Calls to and from landlines also barred
* Ruling party denies deliberately targeting Sabafon
By Matt Smith
DUBAI, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Yemeni mobile operator Sabafon said on Tuesday that its facilities had come under repeated attack by state forces because of its chairman's support for protests aiming to end the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
A spokesman for Sabafon, which is 27-percent owned by Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco), told Reuters from Sanaa the company's headquarters had been hit three times by rocket-propelled grenades this year.
He said more than 250 transmission towers and other sites -- about a quarter of its facilities -- had been subject to shelling, gunfire and looting, killing one employee.
Sabafon subscribers cannot receive or make calls to Yemen landlines or phone abroad, illustrating the toll nearly a year of strife in the impoverished Gulf nation has taken on basic services.
"The damage continues ... employees were afraid to attend the headquarters and many sites were shut down, which dramatically affected operations and the company's ability to provide services," said the spokesman.
"These led to an exodus of subscribers to other providers. These unlawful measures are part of a punishment by the authorities on Sabafon because of the position of its chairman, who supports the peaceful popular revolution in Yemen."
An official of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) denied Sabafon was deliberately targeted, and that whatever damages it may have suffered came in the context of hostilities instigated by gunmen allied to Sabafon chairman and major shareholder Hamid al-Ahmar.
Al-Ahmar is the brother of Sadeq al-Ahmar, a leader of the powerful Hashed tribal confederation and a rival of the outgoing Saleh. This month, Yemen's new unity government met for the first time and a presidential election is due in February.
The government claims the Ahmar family was behind a June assassination attempt that left Saleh seriously injured.
The bomb attack capped weeks of fighting between forces loyal to him and those allied to the al-Ahmar family. Skirmishes between the two sides have erupted periodically since then.
GOVT RESPONSE
Abdulhafeedh al-Nahari, vice-spokesman of the ruling GPC, said fighting in the capital had damaged infrastructure.
"He (Hamid al-Ahmar) attacked government buildings in the capital, the government responded in self-defence ... this created bad relations with the government," Nahari said. "All the telecommunication companies in Yemen have suffered as a result of this crisis."
As well as restrictions on making phone calls, Sabafon subscribers are also barred from mobile Internet access.
Sabafon lost has lost "hundreds of thousands" of subscribers as a result of this disruption, the company spokesman said. It had 3.6 million customers at the end of 2010, according to Batelco's annual report.
"The tribal and political fractures in Yemen are also seen in the country's telecoms sector -- Ahmar controls Sabafon, while the government controls the landline infrastructure and the international gateway," said a telecoms analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"This shows Yemen really needs the rule of law and democracy, because vital sectors such as telecoms shouldn't be left to the whims of individuals. Disruption will likely continue until the political situation is resolved."
Sabafon competes against MTN Yemen, a unit of South Africa's MTN, and state-run Yemen Mobile.
Yemeni general backs peace deal, 10 militants killed – msnbc.com
20 December 2011
SANAA — A dissident army general said on Sunday he backed a peace accord signed last month, lending support to efforts to pull Yemen from the brink of civil war, as officials said ten Islamist militants died in attacks by government forces in the south.
General Ali Mohsen’s announcement came one day after both his forces, and troops loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, began withdrawing from the capital Sanaa as part of the Gulf-brokered peace deal.
“We are ready to support the Gulf initiative, which was bolstered by Security Council resolution 2014,” Mohsen told reporters at a news conference in Sanaa, referring to the resolution adopted by the U.N. body in October endorsing the Gulf peace proposal.
He was speaking before a meeting with representatives of the European Union, the Gulf Cooperative Council and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, as part of efforts to win support from factions excluded from the peace accord signed in Saudi Arabia last month.
The diplomats had earlier met separatist leaders in Aden and U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar visited Shi’ite rebels in Saada province in northern Yemen.
Last month, Saleh signed the accord to transfer his powers to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, ushering in an opposition-led Yemeni government to lead the country to early presidential elections in February 2012.
If the deal goes according to plan, Saleh will become the fourth Arab ruler brought down by mass demonstrations that have reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East.
Mohsen’s troops had been among the opposition forces controlling the Yemeni capital’s northern half, where they had battled the pro-Saleh army for control over Sanaa.
Under supervision of a military committee set up by the Gulf peace deal, Mohsen’s troops had pulled back on Saturday.
The new government faces challenges from a southern separatist movement that wants to revive the Yemeni socialist state that existed before Saleh united it with the capitalist north under his rule in 1990.
Months of protests against Saleh’s rule have alarmed Saudi Arabia and the United States, which had seen Saleh as a bulwark against al Qaeda in the region.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia shares U.S. fears that more instability in Yemen could embolden the country’s al Qaeda wing — against which Washington has waged a campaign of drone strikes — in a country sitting next to oil shipping routes.
MILITANTS MOURN
In the country’s south, ten fighters from the Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist militant group linked to al Qaeda, were killed when government forces shelled their positions in Zinjibar, capital of the southern province of Abyan, a local official said. Fighters also clashed with the army, he said.
The clashes followed fighting on Saturday in which two government soldiers were killed and six were wounded.
Residents in the town of Jaar, located some 15 km (10 miles)north of Zinjibar and which is under the control of the Islamist militants, said they saw fighters bury fallen comrades.
“In the last three days, we saw the militants bury the bodies of several dead fighters,” said Abdul Khaleq, a local resident. “They were weeping bitterly for their dead as they read (verses from) the Koran.”
SANAA — A dissident army general said on Sunday he backed a peace accord signed last month, lending support to efforts to pull Yemen from the brink of civil war, as officials said ten Islamist militants died in attacks by government forces in the south.
General Ali Mohsen’s announcement came one day after both his forces, and troops loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, began withdrawing from the capital Sanaa as part of the Gulf-brokered peace deal.
“We are ready to support the Gulf initiative, which was bolstered by Security Council resolution 2014,” Mohsen told reporters at a news conference in Sanaa, referring to the resolution adopted by the U.N. body in October endorsing the Gulf peace proposal.
He was speaking before a meeting with representatives of the European Union, the Gulf Cooperative Council and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, as part of efforts to win support from factions excluded from the peace accord signed in Saudi Arabia last month.
The diplomats had earlier met separatist leaders in Aden and U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar visited Shi’ite rebels in Saada province in northern Yemen.
Last month, Saleh signed the accord to transfer his powers to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, ushering in an opposition-led Yemeni government to lead the country to early presidential elections in February 2012.
If the deal goes according to plan, Saleh will become the fourth Arab ruler brought down by mass demonstrations that have reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East.
Mohsen’s troops had been among the opposition forces controlling the Yemeni capital’s northern half, where they had battled the pro-Saleh army for control over Sanaa.
Under supervision of a military committee set up by the Gulf peace deal, Mohsen’s troops had pulled back on Saturday.
The new government faces challenges from a southern separatist movement that wants to revive the Yemeni socialist state that existed before Saleh united it with the capitalist north under his rule in 1990.
Months of protests against Saleh’s rule have alarmed Saudi Arabia and the United States, which had seen Saleh as a bulwark against al Qaeda in the region.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia shares U.S. fears that more instability in Yemen could embolden the country’s al Qaeda wing — against which Washington has waged a campaign of drone strikes — in a country sitting next to oil shipping routes.
MILITANTS MOURN
In the country’s south, ten fighters from the Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist militant group linked to al Qaeda, were killed when government forces shelled their positions in Zinjibar, capital of the southern province of Abyan, a local official said. Fighters also clashed with the army, he said.
The clashes followed fighting on Saturday in which two government soldiers were killed and six were wounded.
Residents in the town of Jaar, located some 15 km (10 miles)north of Zinjibar and which is under the control of the Islamist militants, said they saw fighters bury fallen comrades.
“In the last three days, we saw the militants bury the bodies of several dead fighters,” said Abdul Khaleq, a local resident. “They were weeping bitterly for their dead as they read (verses from) the Koran.”
Monday, December 19, 2011
Bahrain - Foreign Minister takes part at the joint meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the GCC States
December 19, 2011
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, took part at the joint meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Gulf Cooperation Council Committee on Financial and Economic Cooperation convenes in Riyadh at the GCC general secretariat Sunday (Dec. 18) ahead of the 32nd GCC Summit, scheduled to be held tomorrow Monday.
The Foreign Ministers agreed on the completion of GCC Customs Union establishment requirements and to build up on what have been agreed upon such as the common customs law, the common customs tariff, the one entry point, and the resolution of outstanding issues, in addition, they decided to establish a customs Union Commission and unification of Customs procedures.
On the other hand, Conferees met with the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yemen who presented a briefing on the political and security developments in Yemen, and the formation of the national unity government, where the GCC Foreign Ministers welcomed this step and reiterated the GCC States’ support to the Republic of Yemen to ensure the prevalence of security and stability there.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, took part at the joint meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Gulf Cooperation Council Committee on Financial and Economic Cooperation convenes in Riyadh at the GCC general secretariat Sunday (Dec. 18) ahead of the 32nd GCC Summit, scheduled to be held tomorrow Monday.
The Foreign Ministers agreed on the completion of GCC Customs Union establishment requirements and to build up on what have been agreed upon such as the common customs law, the common customs tariff, the one entry point, and the resolution of outstanding issues, in addition, they decided to establish a customs Union Commission and unification of Customs procedures.
On the other hand, Conferees met with the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yemen who presented a briefing on the political and security developments in Yemen, and the formation of the national unity government, where the GCC Foreign Ministers welcomed this step and reiterated the GCC States’ support to the Republic of Yemen to ensure the prevalence of security and stability there.
Yemen’s new Government taking steps to restore peace and stability – UN envoy
December 19, 2011
Yemen’s new Government has taken steps to restore peace and stability in the country, the United Nations special envoy for the country said today, explaining that the new measures include instructions that roadblocks be removed, soldiers return to their barracks and militias go back to their villages.
Warring factions in Yemen on 23 November reached agreement on a transitional settlement under which President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to hand over power to Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi. A new Government of National Unity was sworn in on Sunday and presidential elections have been scheduled for 21 February.
“Serious commitment from all sides will be required to make these inroads to stability a success and the UN will continue its close engagement and monitor its progress,” said Jamal Benomar, the Secretary General's Special Adviser for Yemen on a visit to the country, his seventh this year in that capacity.
“We want to see a Yemen where the streets belong to the people, not the militia. We want to see Yemenis able to go about their daily lives and grow their communities – where civic leaders are the ones shaping the future of the country, not those with arms,” he said in a statement, noting that he had consulted with a broad array of political leaders, and for the first time travelled outside the capital, Sana’a.
He travelled to the south-western cities of Taiz and Aden and Sa’ada in the north-west to gain first-hand impressions of the spectrum of Yemen’s challenges and how they are interlinked.
“The situation in Yemen remains highly fragile and the political agreement will be impossible to implement without the continuous commitment and cooperation of political and other leaders throughout the country,” said Mr. Benomar.
“The international community has pressed hard for the sides to reach a political settlement and these calls have been heeded. Now, donors have to back up their calls for reform by providing the support that is needed to implement the agreement and see the country through this transition period.
“Only with their immediate assistance and commitment can the building blocks of the peace process maintain a strong foundation,” he added.
Yemen’s new Government has taken steps to restore peace and stability in the country, the United Nations special envoy for the country said today, explaining that the new measures include instructions that roadblocks be removed, soldiers return to their barracks and militias go back to their villages.
Warring factions in Yemen on 23 November reached agreement on a transitional settlement under which President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to hand over power to Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi. A new Government of National Unity was sworn in on Sunday and presidential elections have been scheduled for 21 February.
“Serious commitment from all sides will be required to make these inroads to stability a success and the UN will continue its close engagement and monitor its progress,” said Jamal Benomar, the Secretary General's Special Adviser for Yemen on a visit to the country, his seventh this year in that capacity.
“We want to see a Yemen where the streets belong to the people, not the militia. We want to see Yemenis able to go about their daily lives and grow their communities – where civic leaders are the ones shaping the future of the country, not those with arms,” he said in a statement, noting that he had consulted with a broad array of political leaders, and for the first time travelled outside the capital, Sana’a.
He travelled to the south-western cities of Taiz and Aden and Sa’ada in the north-west to gain first-hand impressions of the spectrum of Yemen’s challenges and how they are interlinked.
“The situation in Yemen remains highly fragile and the political agreement will be impossible to implement without the continuous commitment and cooperation of political and other leaders throughout the country,” said Mr. Benomar.
“The international community has pressed hard for the sides to reach a political settlement and these calls have been heeded. Now, donors have to back up their calls for reform by providing the support that is needed to implement the agreement and see the country through this transition period.
“Only with their immediate assistance and commitment can the building blocks of the peace process maintain a strong foundation,” he added.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Yemen crisis to hit 4 mn people in 2012: UN
(AFP
DUBAI —December 18, 2011- Nearly four million people will be affected by Yemen's crisis in 2012, UN agencies said in Dubai on Sunday, warning that the restive Arabian Peninsula country is on its way to becoming another Somalia.
"About four million people will be affected by the crisis in Yemen in 2012 and will require immediate humanitarian support," said the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee.
"While there have been significant political developments in Yemen, humanitarian needs are forecast by all actors to deteriorate still further over the next 12 months," UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, Jens Toyberg-Frandzen, told reporters.
Kelly Gilbride, policy adviser of Oxfam, said UNICEF assessments of the cities of Hudaydah in the west and Haja in the north put malnutrition rates at above 30 percent.
"These (figures) are comparable to Somalia. We are talking about severe malnutrition rates," she said on the sidelines of a photographic exhibition in Yemen's oil-rich regional Emirati neighbour.
"Basic food prices have skyrocketed almost 50 percent (while) prices in fuel have peaked at five times the average amount" in the already poor nation, Gilbride said, adding that the crisis affects all of Yemen.
"This is why it's staggering at this point. We're not just talking about conflict affected areas any more. Men, women and children across Yemen are not able to find enough food every day."
Yemen has been rocked by months of deadly anti-government protests that destabilised the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has agreed to step down in February 2012 after 33 years in power.
A transitional unity government was sworn in on December 10, and on Saturday a military commission began removing checkpoints and barricades erected during the protests, raising hopes that Yemen might begin to see an end to nearly a year of unrest.
"One of the biggest problems we've been facing is that there is no access to all areas," Toyberg-Frandzen told AFP.
"There's also been security concerns: how do you get out to the people you're supposed to reach when you have internal strife and when you have a country that has been torn from within?"
Already impoverished Yemenis may also be paying a price because of the world economic downturn.
"There are many fears. One is that because of the economic crisis across the world we won't be able to mobilise the resources that are necessary," Toyberg-Frandzen added.
"What I really hope wouldn't happen is that Yemen would go into more strife and conflict."
DUBAI —December 18, 2011- Nearly four million people will be affected by Yemen's crisis in 2012, UN agencies said in Dubai on Sunday, warning that the restive Arabian Peninsula country is on its way to becoming another Somalia.
"About four million people will be affected by the crisis in Yemen in 2012 and will require immediate humanitarian support," said the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee.
"While there have been significant political developments in Yemen, humanitarian needs are forecast by all actors to deteriorate still further over the next 12 months," UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, Jens Toyberg-Frandzen, told reporters.
Kelly Gilbride, policy adviser of Oxfam, said UNICEF assessments of the cities of Hudaydah in the west and Haja in the north put malnutrition rates at above 30 percent.
"These (figures) are comparable to Somalia. We are talking about severe malnutrition rates," she said on the sidelines of a photographic exhibition in Yemen's oil-rich regional Emirati neighbour.
"Basic food prices have skyrocketed almost 50 percent (while) prices in fuel have peaked at five times the average amount" in the already poor nation, Gilbride said, adding that the crisis affects all of Yemen.
"This is why it's staggering at this point. We're not just talking about conflict affected areas any more. Men, women and children across Yemen are not able to find enough food every day."
Yemen has been rocked by months of deadly anti-government protests that destabilised the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has agreed to step down in February 2012 after 33 years in power.
A transitional unity government was sworn in on December 10, and on Saturday a military commission began removing checkpoints and barricades erected during the protests, raising hopes that Yemen might begin to see an end to nearly a year of unrest.
"One of the biggest problems we've been facing is that there is no access to all areas," Toyberg-Frandzen told AFP.
"There's also been security concerns: how do you get out to the people you're supposed to reach when you have internal strife and when you have a country that has been torn from within?"
Already impoverished Yemenis may also be paying a price because of the world economic downturn.
"There are many fears. One is that because of the economic crisis across the world we won't be able to mobilise the resources that are necessary," Toyberg-Frandzen added.
"What I really hope wouldn't happen is that Yemen would go into more strife and conflict."
4 Yemeni soldiers killed in fighting with al-Qaida-linked militants
By Associated Press, December 18
SANAA, Yemen — Four Yemeni soldiers and two al-Qaida-linked militants were killed in clashes in the country’s south, military and medical officials said Sunday.
The fighting took place overnight outside the city of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province that Islamic militants seized earlier this year, a military official said. A medical official said six soldiers were wounded in the fighting.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
Al-Qaida-linked militants have overrun swaths of territory in Abyan, taking advantage of a security vacuum that has developed as a result of Yemen’s ongoing political unrest amid nine months of massive protests demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Fighting with the militants has continued as Yemen tries to emerge from its crisis. Saleh is due to step down by the end of the month in return for immunity from prosecution under a deal he signed last month. Under the U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal, a national unity government has already been formed, bringing in opposition parties.
Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has also formed a military committee joining both pro-regime forces and military units that defected to the opposition. On Saturday, the committee had succeeded in removing fighters, weapons and equipment of both sides from two main streets of the capital, Sanaa. But armed pockets of the rival forces could still be seen in side streets nearby.
The U.N. secretary-general’s envoy to Yemen, Jamal bin Omar, told reporters before he left Yemen Saturday that the military committee should end its work next Saturday in separating the rival sides, which at times engaged in heavy battles in the capital.
Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division who defected and joined the protesters in March, expressed his backing for the military committee after meeting Sunday with ambassadors supervising enforcement of the deal.
SANAA, Yemen — Four Yemeni soldiers and two al-Qaida-linked militants were killed in clashes in the country’s south, military and medical officials said Sunday.
The fighting took place overnight outside the city of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province that Islamic militants seized earlier this year, a military official said. A medical official said six soldiers were wounded in the fighting.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
Al-Qaida-linked militants have overrun swaths of territory in Abyan, taking advantage of a security vacuum that has developed as a result of Yemen’s ongoing political unrest amid nine months of massive protests demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Fighting with the militants has continued as Yemen tries to emerge from its crisis. Saleh is due to step down by the end of the month in return for immunity from prosecution under a deal he signed last month. Under the U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal, a national unity government has already been formed, bringing in opposition parties.
Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has also formed a military committee joining both pro-regime forces and military units that defected to the opposition. On Saturday, the committee had succeeded in removing fighters, weapons and equipment of both sides from two main streets of the capital, Sanaa. But armed pockets of the rival forces could still be seen in side streets nearby.
The U.N. secretary-general’s envoy to Yemen, Jamal bin Omar, told reporters before he left Yemen Saturday that the military committee should end its work next Saturday in separating the rival sides, which at times engaged in heavy battles in the capital.
Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division who defected and joined the protesters in March, expressed his backing for the military committee after meeting Sunday with ambassadors supervising enforcement of the deal.
UN seeks $447 mln for Yemen, Gulf Arabs urged to help more
Sun Dec 18, 2011
* Money to be targeted at 4 million vulnerable people
* Political turmoil worsens humanitarian conditions
* Over 30 pct of Yemeni children acutely malnourished
By Martina Fuchs
DUBAI, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Sunday for nearly $450 million in humanitarian aid for conflict-torn Yemen to save it from becoming what one U.N. official called "another Somalia".
Yemen will need substantial humanitarian assistance over the next three to five years, especially for food, health care, sanitation and clean water, U.N. agencies and other relief groups working in Yemen said at a conference in Dubai.
"The Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan 2012 is seeking $447 million. This represents an increase of 95 percent compared to one year ago," they said, adding the money would be targeted to help around 4 million vulnerable people.
Almost a year of protests against outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh has brought Yemen's economy close to collapse, worsening already dire living conditions for many people who face acute shortages of fuel, food, water and electricity.
"The situation is dramatic. If we don't act now, we hit a humanitarian disaster soon," said Geert Cappelaere, representative of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen.
"If we don't act now, Yemen will become another Somalia from a humanitarian perspective."
Cappelaere said more than 30 percent of Yemeni children were acutely malnourished.
"In general, when you have 15 percent of under-five-year-olds that are acutely malnourished, we call that a nutrition emergency. In Yemen, you have twice the emergency level."
COMPLEX CRISIS
Aside from its political and economic crisis, Yemen must also cope with a growing influx of refugees from the Horn of Africa to its southern coast and a host of Yemenis forced to flee their homes by fighting in the south and the north.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that at the end of November around 214,000 refugees and almost half a million internally displaced persons were in Yemen.
Arrivals from Somalia had increased, with 3,292 reaching Yemen in September and 3,689 in October, compared to a monthly average of 1,648 in the first half of the year, UNHCR said.
This year's turmoil in Yemen had posed many challenges, the country's health and population minister, Ahmed al-Ansi, said.
"The humanitarian situation in Yemen is very precarious at the moment," he told Reuters. "It affects all parts of life of citizens, not just health, but their economic activity, the environment, social life."
Saleh last month signed a pact brokered by Yemen's wealthy Gulf Arab neighbours to hand power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Under the deal, Saleh's General People's Congress and opposition parties agreed to divide cabinet posts between them, forming a unity government to lead Yemen to a presidential election in February.
"What has happened in the last 10 months has put the clock in Yemen back 15 to 20 years when it comes to the development and basic services, which were already not that widespread throughout the country," UNICEF's Cappelaere said.
"What is now needed is a government that will make it a top priority not only to get the political side of things right, but also to give top priority for its development and the children."
The International Monetary Fund approved a $370 million loan for Yemen in August 2010, but only one disbursement of around $50 million has been made so far.
Aid officials urged Gulf countries to chip in more.
"The bulk of donor money comes from Western countries. It's time that Gulf countries deliver as well," said Naveed Hussain, UNHCR's representative in Yemen.
* Money to be targeted at 4 million vulnerable people
* Political turmoil worsens humanitarian conditions
* Over 30 pct of Yemeni children acutely malnourished
By Martina Fuchs
DUBAI, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Sunday for nearly $450 million in humanitarian aid for conflict-torn Yemen to save it from becoming what one U.N. official called "another Somalia".
Yemen will need substantial humanitarian assistance over the next three to five years, especially for food, health care, sanitation and clean water, U.N. agencies and other relief groups working in Yemen said at a conference in Dubai.
"The Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan 2012 is seeking $447 million. This represents an increase of 95 percent compared to one year ago," they said, adding the money would be targeted to help around 4 million vulnerable people.
Almost a year of protests against outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh has brought Yemen's economy close to collapse, worsening already dire living conditions for many people who face acute shortages of fuel, food, water and electricity.
"The situation is dramatic. If we don't act now, we hit a humanitarian disaster soon," said Geert Cappelaere, representative of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen.
"If we don't act now, Yemen will become another Somalia from a humanitarian perspective."
Cappelaere said more than 30 percent of Yemeni children were acutely malnourished.
"In general, when you have 15 percent of under-five-year-olds that are acutely malnourished, we call that a nutrition emergency. In Yemen, you have twice the emergency level."
COMPLEX CRISIS
Aside from its political and economic crisis, Yemen must also cope with a growing influx of refugees from the Horn of Africa to its southern coast and a host of Yemenis forced to flee their homes by fighting in the south and the north.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that at the end of November around 214,000 refugees and almost half a million internally displaced persons were in Yemen.
Arrivals from Somalia had increased, with 3,292 reaching Yemen in September and 3,689 in October, compared to a monthly average of 1,648 in the first half of the year, UNHCR said.
This year's turmoil in Yemen had posed many challenges, the country's health and population minister, Ahmed al-Ansi, said.
"The humanitarian situation in Yemen is very precarious at the moment," he told Reuters. "It affects all parts of life of citizens, not just health, but their economic activity, the environment, social life."
Saleh last month signed a pact brokered by Yemen's wealthy Gulf Arab neighbours to hand power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Under the deal, Saleh's General People's Congress and opposition parties agreed to divide cabinet posts between them, forming a unity government to lead Yemen to a presidential election in February.
"What has happened in the last 10 months has put the clock in Yemen back 15 to 20 years when it comes to the development and basic services, which were already not that widespread throughout the country," UNICEF's Cappelaere said.
"What is now needed is a government that will make it a top priority not only to get the political side of things right, but also to give top priority for its development and the children."
The International Monetary Fund approved a $370 million loan for Yemen in August 2010, but only one disbursement of around $50 million has been made so far.
Aid officials urged Gulf countries to chip in more.
"The bulk of donor money comes from Western countries. It's time that Gulf countries deliver as well," said Naveed Hussain, UNHCR's representative in Yemen.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Warring Yemen forces quit Sanaa, 2 troops die in south
Sat Dec 17, 2011
SANAA (Reuters) - Forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents withdrew from their positions in the capital Sanaa on Saturday, witnesses and officials said, in a further sign a peace deal signed last month was being implemented. In southern Yemen, two government soldiers were killed in a clash with Islamist militants, medical sources said, as insurgents linked to al Qaeda challenged the peace accord aimed at pulling the country away from civil war.
Witnesses said a military committee set up under the Gulf peace deal signed in Saudi Arabia last month oversaw the dismantling of military positions that have divided the capital since protests against Saleh's 33-year rule began in January.
They said armoured bulldozers removed barricades from Sixty Street which split the capital into a dissident-controlled north and Saleh-ruled south under the military's supervision.
Military trucks were seen carrying armoured vehicles from the base of a brigade led by dissident General Ali Mohsen outside Sanaa.
A spokesman for the committee told the state news agency Saba that the first day of dismantling military positions had gone smoothly.
On the eastern side of the city, Republican Guard troops led by Saleh's son Ahmed also abandoned their positions.
"But tribal fighters from the al-Ahmar tribe, are still there, surrounded by paramilitary Central Security Forces," one resident said.
Saleh's forces had fought pitched battles with fighters loyal to tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar in the al-Hasaba and Soufan districts of Sanaa, where fresh explosions were heard early on Saturday. There were no reports of casualties.
Since Saleh handed over his powers to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, under the Gulf peace accord, a new Yemeni government headed by an opposition leader has been formed and a early presidential election is set to be held in February.
Hadi has also formed a military committee which oversaw a ceasefire in the flashpoint city of Taiz and supervised the withdrawl of rebel fighters and government forces.
CONTINUED FIGHTING IN SOUTH
In the southern city of Aden, sources at a military hospital said two soldiers were killed and six wounded near Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, where Islamist militants have exploited the chaos caused by nearly 11 months of protests to seize swathes of territory.
Apart from Islamist militants, the new government is facing challenges from a southern separatist movement and a Shi'ite Muslim rebellion in the north.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia shares U.S. fears that more instability in Yemen could embolden the country's al Qaeda wing - seen by Washington as the group's most dangerous branch - in a country sitting next to oil shipping routes.
European Union diplomats urged separatist leaders in Aden on Saturday to try to resolve their grievances in a national dialogue with the unity government in Sanaa.
The EU ambassador in Sanaa said after talks with southern Yemeni separatist leaders in Aden that the bloc encourages all Yemenis to join a national dialogue to determine the future of the country.
Separately, Abyan's governor said in a statement the fighting had made it impossible to open the main road to Aden, which has been closed for five months.
SANAA (Reuters) - Forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents withdrew from their positions in the capital Sanaa on Saturday, witnesses and officials said, in a further sign a peace deal signed last month was being implemented. In southern Yemen, two government soldiers were killed in a clash with Islamist militants, medical sources said, as insurgents linked to al Qaeda challenged the peace accord aimed at pulling the country away from civil war.
Witnesses said a military committee set up under the Gulf peace deal signed in Saudi Arabia last month oversaw the dismantling of military positions that have divided the capital since protests against Saleh's 33-year rule began in January.
They said armoured bulldozers removed barricades from Sixty Street which split the capital into a dissident-controlled north and Saleh-ruled south under the military's supervision.
Military trucks were seen carrying armoured vehicles from the base of a brigade led by dissident General Ali Mohsen outside Sanaa.
A spokesman for the committee told the state news agency Saba that the first day of dismantling military positions had gone smoothly.
On the eastern side of the city, Republican Guard troops led by Saleh's son Ahmed also abandoned their positions.
"But tribal fighters from the al-Ahmar tribe, are still there, surrounded by paramilitary Central Security Forces," one resident said.
Saleh's forces had fought pitched battles with fighters loyal to tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar in the al-Hasaba and Soufan districts of Sanaa, where fresh explosions were heard early on Saturday. There were no reports of casualties.
Since Saleh handed over his powers to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, under the Gulf peace accord, a new Yemeni government headed by an opposition leader has been formed and a early presidential election is set to be held in February.
Hadi has also formed a military committee which oversaw a ceasefire in the flashpoint city of Taiz and supervised the withdrawl of rebel fighters and government forces.
CONTINUED FIGHTING IN SOUTH
In the southern city of Aden, sources at a military hospital said two soldiers were killed and six wounded near Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, where Islamist militants have exploited the chaos caused by nearly 11 months of protests to seize swathes of territory.
Apart from Islamist militants, the new government is facing challenges from a southern separatist movement and a Shi'ite Muslim rebellion in the north.
Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia shares U.S. fears that more instability in Yemen could embolden the country's al Qaeda wing - seen by Washington as the group's most dangerous branch - in a country sitting next to oil shipping routes.
European Union diplomats urged separatist leaders in Aden on Saturday to try to resolve their grievances in a national dialogue with the unity government in Sanaa.
The EU ambassador in Sanaa said after talks with southern Yemeni separatist leaders in Aden that the bloc encourages all Yemenis to join a national dialogue to determine the future of the country.
Separately, Abyan's governor said in a statement the fighting had made it impossible to open the main road to Aden, which has been closed for five months.
Fresh clashes in Yemeni capital
Dec 17, 2011
Sana'a,(dpa) - Clashes again erupted Saturday between government troops and opposition tribal forces in the Yemeni capital Sana'a.
The fighting started when the government forces shelled the district of Hasbah in northern Sana'a, which is the stronghold of the dissident tribal chief Sadiq al-Ahmar, according to local residents.
There were no immediate details of casualties.
The violence comes hours before a security committee, formed under a United Nations-sponsored power transfer deal, was to meet on Saturday to plan the removal of barricades and gunmen from the streets.
Meanwhile, the UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, has warned against hampering the implementation of the Gulf-brokered power transfer deal signed last month in Saudi Arabia.
Under the deal, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 33 years, agreed to step down in return for immunity from prosecution.
'The UN Security Council is closely monitoring the ... process in Yemen,' Benomar told reporters in Sana'a on Friday.
'The UN looks forward to seeing Yemen with its streets belonging to the people, not to militias and military groups,' he added.
The impoverished Arabian Peninsula country has been gripped by anti-government protests since February.
Sana'a,(dpa) - Clashes again erupted Saturday between government troops and opposition tribal forces in the Yemeni capital Sana'a.
The fighting started when the government forces shelled the district of Hasbah in northern Sana'a, which is the stronghold of the dissident tribal chief Sadiq al-Ahmar, according to local residents.
There were no immediate details of casualties.
The violence comes hours before a security committee, formed under a United Nations-sponsored power transfer deal, was to meet on Saturday to plan the removal of barricades and gunmen from the streets.
Meanwhile, the UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, has warned against hampering the implementation of the Gulf-brokered power transfer deal signed last month in Saudi Arabia.
Under the deal, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 33 years, agreed to step down in return for immunity from prosecution.
'The UN Security Council is closely monitoring the ... process in Yemen,' Benomar told reporters in Sana'a on Friday.
'The UN looks forward to seeing Yemen with its streets belonging to the people, not to militias and military groups,' he added.
The impoverished Arabian Peninsula country has been gripped by anti-government protests since February.
Three defected officers killed in Yemen
Sana'a, December 17, 2011- In Yemen, three defected army officers have been gunned down after attending an anti-regime demonstration in the southern city of Taizz, medics and witnesses say.
"The officers, Abdullah Ali, Ali bin Ali and Kayed Abdulrahman, were gunned down and another soldier was seriously wounded by unidentified gunmen in Jamal Street near the protesters' Liberation Square," Sadiq al-Shuga'a, head of a field hospital in Taizz, told Xinhua.
Witnesses said that masked gunmen opened fire on the officers on Friday when they were heading home after taking part in the rally calling for prosecution of the country's dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Some sources say the attackers, who fled the scene after the firing, were "thugs hired by loyalists of Saleh.”
Yemenis took to the streets in the capital, Sana'a, Taizz and other main cities following the Friday prayers, stressing that Saleh and his top lieutenants should face justice over the killing of hundreds of demonstrators.
The demonstrators also rejected the newly formed national unity government over the presence of Saleh's elements in the new Yemeni cabinet. Yemenis say they want their country to be cleansed of the ruling regime.
Saleh, who has been in power for 33 years, signed the power transition deal brokered by Persian Gulf Arab states in Saudi Arabia on November 23 and resigned as president and handed authority to his vice Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in return for amnesty.
Saleh currently serves as an honorary president until polls are held in February to elect his successor.
Hundreds of Yemenis have been killed and thousands more wounded in clashes between Saleh forces and revolutionaries since the start of the popular uprising in the impoverished Arab nation in late January.
"The officers, Abdullah Ali, Ali bin Ali and Kayed Abdulrahman, were gunned down and another soldier was seriously wounded by unidentified gunmen in Jamal Street near the protesters' Liberation Square," Sadiq al-Shuga'a, head of a field hospital in Taizz, told Xinhua.
Witnesses said that masked gunmen opened fire on the officers on Friday when they were heading home after taking part in the rally calling for prosecution of the country's dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Some sources say the attackers, who fled the scene after the firing, were "thugs hired by loyalists of Saleh.”
Yemenis took to the streets in the capital, Sana'a, Taizz and other main cities following the Friday prayers, stressing that Saleh and his top lieutenants should face justice over the killing of hundreds of demonstrators.
The demonstrators also rejected the newly formed national unity government over the presence of Saleh's elements in the new Yemeni cabinet. Yemenis say they want their country to be cleansed of the ruling regime.
Saleh, who has been in power for 33 years, signed the power transition deal brokered by Persian Gulf Arab states in Saudi Arabia on November 23 and resigned as president and handed authority to his vice Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in return for amnesty.
Saleh currently serves as an honorary president until polls are held in February to elect his successor.
Hundreds of Yemenis have been killed and thousands more wounded in clashes between Saleh forces and revolutionaries since the start of the popular uprising in the impoverished Arab nation in late January.
UN envoy leaves Yemen as power transfer process moves forward
SANAA, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- UN envoy Jamal bin Omar left Yemen on Saturday after his seventh visit to Sanaa to follow up implementation of a UN resolution and a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal, state media reported.
"There is important development in the political situation in Yemen, where preparations are underway for early presidential elections on Feb. 21 next year and the joint military committee began its process to restore normality to the country," official SABA news agency quoted bin Omar as saying upon his departure.
"The obstacles must be overcome through dialogue and consensual understanding," said bin Omar, who is scheduled to present his report on Yemen to the UN Security Council on Dec. 19.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Military Affairs Committee headed by Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi began on Saturday morning to remove barricades and checkpoints of forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the defected First Armored Division from the western part of Sanaa in line with the UN-backed initiative.
The initiative was signed by Saleh and opposition leaders in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 23, which was designed to end the 11-month- long turmoil that brought the impoverished Arab state on the verge of a civil war and economic collapse.
Under the deal, early presidential elections in Yemen are set to be held on Feb. 21, 2012, while Saleh retains the title of honorary president for 90 days before his resignation and enjoys immunity from prosecution afterwards.
"There is important development in the political situation in Yemen, where preparations are underway for early presidential elections on Feb. 21 next year and the joint military committee began its process to restore normality to the country," official SABA news agency quoted bin Omar as saying upon his departure.
"The obstacles must be overcome through dialogue and consensual understanding," said bin Omar, who is scheduled to present his report on Yemen to the UN Security Council on Dec. 19.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Military Affairs Committee headed by Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi began on Saturday morning to remove barricades and checkpoints of forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the defected First Armored Division from the western part of Sanaa in line with the UN-backed initiative.
The initiative was signed by Saleh and opposition leaders in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 23, which was designed to end the 11-month- long turmoil that brought the impoverished Arab state on the verge of a civil war and economic collapse.
Under the deal, early presidential elections in Yemen are set to be held on Feb. 21, 2012, while Saleh retains the title of honorary president for 90 days before his resignation and enjoys immunity from prosecution afterwards.
Yemen's military committee begins to remove roadblocks, checkpoints in capital
SANAA, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Yemeni national military committee, which was assigned to end clashes and restore order to the cities after months-long unrest in line with a power transfer deal, began Saturday to remove the roadblocks and checkpoints in the capital Sanaa, officials said.
"The Military Affairs Committee headed by Vice President Abd- Rabbu Mansour Hadi began this morning to remove barricades and checkpoints of forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the defected First Armored Division in 60th Street in western Sanaa," a security official told Xinhua.
The rival forces were ordered to return to their barracks within the next few hours, the official said on condition of anonymity. He added that "the process is running smoothly until now."
The removal process came hours after heavy clashes took place in Hassaba district in downtown Sanaa between forces loyal to Saleh and the defected army-backed opposition militia, which left two policemen guarding the headquarters of the Interior ministry dead.
On Wednesday, Vice President Hadi ordered the government forces and the opposition militants to withdraw from Sanaa's streets as of Saturday and to restore order in a week, according to Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered power-transfer initiative, official SABA news agency reported.
On Nov. 23, Saleh's party General People's Congress and the opposition Joint Meeting Parties signed the GCC deal in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in an attempt to end the crisis.
Under the deal, early presidential elections in Yemen are slated for Feb. 21, 2012, while Saleh retains the title of honorary president for 90 days before his resignation and is granted immunity from prosecution.
"The Military Affairs Committee headed by Vice President Abd- Rabbu Mansour Hadi began this morning to remove barricades and checkpoints of forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the defected First Armored Division in 60th Street in western Sanaa," a security official told Xinhua.
The rival forces were ordered to return to their barracks within the next few hours, the official said on condition of anonymity. He added that "the process is running smoothly until now."
The removal process came hours after heavy clashes took place in Hassaba district in downtown Sanaa between forces loyal to Saleh and the defected army-backed opposition militia, which left two policemen guarding the headquarters of the Interior ministry dead.
On Wednesday, Vice President Hadi ordered the government forces and the opposition militants to withdraw from Sanaa's streets as of Saturday and to restore order in a week, according to Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered power-transfer initiative, official SABA news agency reported.
On Nov. 23, Saleh's party General People's Congress and the opposition Joint Meeting Parties signed the GCC deal in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in an attempt to end the crisis.
Under the deal, early presidential elections in Yemen are slated for Feb. 21, 2012, while Saleh retains the title of honorary president for 90 days before his resignation and is granted immunity from prosecution.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Yemenis protest against amnesty for Saleh
December 16, 2011- (AFP)
SANAA — Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated Friday across the country rejecting an amnesty given to President Ali Abdullah Saleh against prosecution in a deal that eases him out of office.
"A trial is a must and amnesty is rejected," chanted demonstrators in Sanaa's Sitin Street, close to Change Square -- the focal point of protests that broke out in January demanding Saleh's departure after 33 years in power.
Similar demonstrations were staged in 18 cities and towns across Yemen in response to a call by the central organising committee of protests, as protesters insisted Saleh and his top lieutenants should face justice over the killing of demonstrators.
"There should be punishment for shedding the blood of the youth," said cleric Waheeb al-Sharabi in his Friday sermon in Taez, the second largest city of Yemen and a major flashpoint in the conflict with forces loyal to Saleh.
Last month, Saleh signed a Gulf-brokered deal aimed to end the political crisis in the impoverished country. Under the deal, he handed authority to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, and the opposition formed a national unity government.
Saleh serves now as an honorary president until polls are held in February to elect his successor.
A bloody crackdown on anti-Saleh demonstrations since January has claimed hundreds of lives.
SANAA — Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated Friday across the country rejecting an amnesty given to President Ali Abdullah Saleh against prosecution in a deal that eases him out of office.
"A trial is a must and amnesty is rejected," chanted demonstrators in Sanaa's Sitin Street, close to Change Square -- the focal point of protests that broke out in January demanding Saleh's departure after 33 years in power.
Similar demonstrations were staged in 18 cities and towns across Yemen in response to a call by the central organising committee of protests, as protesters insisted Saleh and his top lieutenants should face justice over the killing of demonstrators.
"There should be punishment for shedding the blood of the youth," said cleric Waheeb al-Sharabi in his Friday sermon in Taez, the second largest city of Yemen and a major flashpoint in the conflict with forces loyal to Saleh.
Last month, Saleh signed a Gulf-brokered deal aimed to end the political crisis in the impoverished country. Under the deal, he handed authority to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, and the opposition formed a national unity government.
Saleh serves now as an honorary president until polls are held in February to elect his successor.
A bloody crackdown on anti-Saleh demonstrations since January has claimed hundreds of lives.
2 killed after huge rally in Yemen, medical official says
December 16, 2011
SANAA, Yemen (CNN) -- Two youth activists were killed in Taiz, in southern Yemen, after participating in a massive march Friday in opposition to the ruling family, a medical official said.
Dr. Sadeq al-Shujah, lead medic in Freedom Square Taiz, said the two youth activists were killed by central security soldiers dressed in civilian clothes as they were heading home after the march.
"The attacks did not happen during the march. The youth were heading home and were (a) target of the ruling family forces. The two dead bodies are now at the medical facility in the square," al-Shujah said.
He said they were shot on Jamal Street, near the square, and a Red Crescent ambulance brought them to the medical facility.
Al-Shujah told CNN that witnesses saw the shooter flee the scene of the attack in a government security vehicle.
Protests were reported Friday in 15 of the country's 21 provinces.
The largest was Taiz. Organizers told CNN that nearly a million people showed up in Freedom Square Taiz. The actual number on hand could not be confirmed.
The anti-government protesters named the protest the "Friday of Trialing," vowing to hold President Ali Abdullah Saleh accountable for the killing of what is alleged to be more than 1,000 youth activists since January.
Banners portraying Saleh as a criminal were raised, as well as some portraying him hanged.
"The criminal must be tried," youth activists repeatedly said in Sanaa and Taiz.
Saleh has agreed to transfer power into the hands of a new coalition government within 90 days. But that accord has not appeared to ease tensions.
"It's nowhere close to being over," said Abdul Haleem al-Magashi, the media officer in Freedom Square Taiz. "We have not achieved 10 percent of our goals. Yemen must be free, democratic and for the people before we consider ending our protests."
Other chants included "no immunity to the bloodthirsty Saleh," and "people want the the butcher behind bars."
Friday's protests were called for a day earlier by the organizing committee for the Yemen revolution, which also called for continuous escalation until the demands of the revolution are met in total.
"Saleh and his family still control the army and wealth of the country," said Khaled Anesi, a leading member of the revolutionary youth council. "Why is everyone thinking our revolution is over? When Saleh stands in front of a revolutionary court, then we can consider our revolution somewhat fruitful."
SANAA, Yemen (CNN) -- Two youth activists were killed in Taiz, in southern Yemen, after participating in a massive march Friday in opposition to the ruling family, a medical official said.
Dr. Sadeq al-Shujah, lead medic in Freedom Square Taiz, said the two youth activists were killed by central security soldiers dressed in civilian clothes as they were heading home after the march.
"The attacks did not happen during the march. The youth were heading home and were (a) target of the ruling family forces. The two dead bodies are now at the medical facility in the square," al-Shujah said.
He said they were shot on Jamal Street, near the square, and a Red Crescent ambulance brought them to the medical facility.
Al-Shujah told CNN that witnesses saw the shooter flee the scene of the attack in a government security vehicle.
Protests were reported Friday in 15 of the country's 21 provinces.
The largest was Taiz. Organizers told CNN that nearly a million people showed up in Freedom Square Taiz. The actual number on hand could not be confirmed.
The anti-government protesters named the protest the "Friday of Trialing," vowing to hold President Ali Abdullah Saleh accountable for the killing of what is alleged to be more than 1,000 youth activists since January.
Banners portraying Saleh as a criminal were raised, as well as some portraying him hanged.
"The criminal must be tried," youth activists repeatedly said in Sanaa and Taiz.
Saleh has agreed to transfer power into the hands of a new coalition government within 90 days. But that accord has not appeared to ease tensions.
"It's nowhere close to being over," said Abdul Haleem al-Magashi, the media officer in Freedom Square Taiz. "We have not achieved 10 percent of our goals. Yemen must be free, democratic and for the people before we consider ending our protests."
Other chants included "no immunity to the bloodthirsty Saleh," and "people want the the butcher behind bars."
Friday's protests were called for a day earlier by the organizing committee for the Yemen revolution, which also called for continuous escalation until the demands of the revolution are met in total.
"Saleh and his family still control the army and wealth of the country," said Khaled Anesi, a leading member of the revolutionary youth council. "Why is everyone thinking our revolution is over? When Saleh stands in front of a revolutionary court, then we can consider our revolution somewhat fruitful."
Yemeni Uprising Opens a Door to Besieged Rebels in the North
Samuel Aranda for The New York Times
All over the city of Saada, the ruins of centuries-old buildings blown apart by artillery stand as reminders of the conflict between Houthis and the government.
By KAREEM FAHIM
December 16, 2011
SAADA, Yemen — In the streets of this city’s medieval quarter, the toll of Yemen’s hidden wars became clear.
Boys and men maimed by fighting, missing hands, eyes or legs, arrived by bus to greet a visiting dignitary. All around them, mud buildings that stood for centuries had been blown apart by artillery fire, crumbling to the earth. Shrapnel pierced the white walls of a mosque, exposing the red brick underneath. In the mosque’s garden, headstones marked the graves of two of the war dead, representing untold numbers of other victims: locals say thousands were killed during the six separate wars in recent years that swept through Yemen’s northern provinces. There is no official tally.
Beginning in 2004, in fighting that was largely invisible to the outside world, President Ali Abdullah Saleh sent his armies to vanquish a group of rebels known as the Houthis, after the clan of their leader. The government bombed villages and shelled cities as it accused the Houthis of kidnappings and assassinations. Hundreds of thousands of civilians took shelter in camps.
It was just one of many conflicts that have destabilized Yemen. Separatists continue to press their claims on the south, and a resurgent offshoot of Al Qaeda has seized territory from a government distracted by a popular uprising and a deal for Mr. Saleh to leave power.
The regional overtones of the northern wars raised the stakes. The government, offering scant proof, accused Iran of interfering as Saudi Arabia, coaxed into the fight, attacked the Houthis with overwhelming force. Mr. Saleh diverted resources from the pursuit of Al Qaeda, sending counterterrorism forces financed by the United States to fight the rebels.
Now in Saada city, the seat of Houthi power, the guns have gone quiet. The calm and recent statements by the Houthis have raised tentative hopes that the rebels may be trying to come in from the cold.
Reporters accompanying a United Nations diplomat on a rare visit to the area last week saw neighborhoods badly damaged in the last round of fighting — hundreds of homes in the city were destroyed — and a threadbare camp for people displaced by the wars. But there were also plans to rebuild, as well as bustling shops and gas stations without the lines that have formed in other Yemeni cities during the current political crisis.
The diplomat, Jamal Benomar, who is the United Nations envoy to Yemen, said the Houthi leader expressed a willingness to participate in a new political process that started last month. The Houthis were not part of an internationally backed agreement to remove Mr. Saleh from power, but the statements by the leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, raised the prospect of an end to their armed struggle. “They need to do politics,” Mr. Benomar said after a meeting with Mr. Houthi. “The sooner, the better.”
The 11-month Yemeni uprising may have given the movement an opening. The Houthis supported the popular uprising and forged new alliances in protest squares around the country. At the same time, they seized on the political crisis to expand the territory under their control, as their rivals allied with the country’s Islamist opposition tried to do the same.
Analysts say that the Houthis are now trying to build on a base of support they have cultivated over years, finding allies among people angered by the government’s indiscriminate attacks during the wars, or impressed with their organizational skills.
Majid el-Fahed, a senior project manager with the Finnish conflict resolution organization Crisis Management Initiative, who travels to Saada often, said that despite the relative youth and inexperience of the movement’s leaders, they had been smart administrators, dividing fuel rations so that a quarter was kept for electric generators and some of the rest was distributed to farmers.
“I think they want to be part of Yemeni politics so they can be socially effective,” he said.
The antigovernment protests that swept through Yemen brought thousands to the streets in Saada for weekly marches from a gate in the old city to a security barracks. In March, as Houthi fighters advanced on the city, the old governor fled.
Now the city is administered by an unlikely coalition that includes government troops and defected soldiers, the Houthis and the new governor, a prominent arms dealer who receives a salary from the state. Many people here said that the Houthis were the most powerful members of that coalition and that there was still plenty of confusion — and concern — about their goals.
At the same time, the troubles in the north are far from over. Scores of people have been killed in recent weeks during fierce clashes in Damaj, a town on Saada’s outskirts, between Houthi fighters and ultraconservative Islamists called Salafis, one of the many layers of a conflict that has festered over time and could derail any political progress. The Houthis are Zaydi Muslims, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. On one level, the fight is between hard-line religious groups with competing agendas. But analysts say it may also represent a proxy war stoked by unseen hands. At various times, the Salafis have been supported by the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia or Yemen’s Islamist opposition, they said.
Houthis in Saada complain that many of the Salafis are foreigners. At a hospital in Saada city there were several wounded Salafis, some of whom said they were afraid to leave for fear of being attacked by the Houthis. A hospital administrator said it was a Saudi-financed hospital, with a mission to provide care and stay out of politics.
In the wards, patients insisted on being heard. They included two Algerians and a student from the United Arab Emirates, who said he had just come to study.
“Then, the fighting started,” he said.
Some viewed the fighting as a trap for the Houthis, orchestrated to plunge them into a new conflict and keep them out of politics. In a statement released after Mr. Benomar’s visit, Mr. Houthi was looking ahead, saying that “in the context of a fair system,” the movement would consider forming a political party. “This is a step forward,” Mr. Benomar said, after his plane had lifted off from an airstrip in Saada. “It’s a step forward in a long road.”
All over the city of Saada, the ruins of centuries-old buildings blown apart by artillery stand as reminders of the conflict between Houthis and the government.
By KAREEM FAHIM
December 16, 2011
SAADA, Yemen — In the streets of this city’s medieval quarter, the toll of Yemen’s hidden wars became clear.
Boys and men maimed by fighting, missing hands, eyes or legs, arrived by bus to greet a visiting dignitary. All around them, mud buildings that stood for centuries had been blown apart by artillery fire, crumbling to the earth. Shrapnel pierced the white walls of a mosque, exposing the red brick underneath. In the mosque’s garden, headstones marked the graves of two of the war dead, representing untold numbers of other victims: locals say thousands were killed during the six separate wars in recent years that swept through Yemen’s northern provinces. There is no official tally.
Beginning in 2004, in fighting that was largely invisible to the outside world, President Ali Abdullah Saleh sent his armies to vanquish a group of rebels known as the Houthis, after the clan of their leader. The government bombed villages and shelled cities as it accused the Houthis of kidnappings and assassinations. Hundreds of thousands of civilians took shelter in camps.
It was just one of many conflicts that have destabilized Yemen. Separatists continue to press their claims on the south, and a resurgent offshoot of Al Qaeda has seized territory from a government distracted by a popular uprising and a deal for Mr. Saleh to leave power.
The regional overtones of the northern wars raised the stakes. The government, offering scant proof, accused Iran of interfering as Saudi Arabia, coaxed into the fight, attacked the Houthis with overwhelming force. Mr. Saleh diverted resources from the pursuit of Al Qaeda, sending counterterrorism forces financed by the United States to fight the rebels.
Now in Saada city, the seat of Houthi power, the guns have gone quiet. The calm and recent statements by the Houthis have raised tentative hopes that the rebels may be trying to come in from the cold.
Reporters accompanying a United Nations diplomat on a rare visit to the area last week saw neighborhoods badly damaged in the last round of fighting — hundreds of homes in the city were destroyed — and a threadbare camp for people displaced by the wars. But there were also plans to rebuild, as well as bustling shops and gas stations without the lines that have formed in other Yemeni cities during the current political crisis.
The diplomat, Jamal Benomar, who is the United Nations envoy to Yemen, said the Houthi leader expressed a willingness to participate in a new political process that started last month. The Houthis were not part of an internationally backed agreement to remove Mr. Saleh from power, but the statements by the leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, raised the prospect of an end to their armed struggle. “They need to do politics,” Mr. Benomar said after a meeting with Mr. Houthi. “The sooner, the better.”
The 11-month Yemeni uprising may have given the movement an opening. The Houthis supported the popular uprising and forged new alliances in protest squares around the country. At the same time, they seized on the political crisis to expand the territory under their control, as their rivals allied with the country’s Islamist opposition tried to do the same.
Analysts say that the Houthis are now trying to build on a base of support they have cultivated over years, finding allies among people angered by the government’s indiscriminate attacks during the wars, or impressed with their organizational skills.
Majid el-Fahed, a senior project manager with the Finnish conflict resolution organization Crisis Management Initiative, who travels to Saada often, said that despite the relative youth and inexperience of the movement’s leaders, they had been smart administrators, dividing fuel rations so that a quarter was kept for electric generators and some of the rest was distributed to farmers.
“I think they want to be part of Yemeni politics so they can be socially effective,” he said.
The antigovernment protests that swept through Yemen brought thousands to the streets in Saada for weekly marches from a gate in the old city to a security barracks. In March, as Houthi fighters advanced on the city, the old governor fled.
Now the city is administered by an unlikely coalition that includes government troops and defected soldiers, the Houthis and the new governor, a prominent arms dealer who receives a salary from the state. Many people here said that the Houthis were the most powerful members of that coalition and that there was still plenty of confusion — and concern — about their goals.
At the same time, the troubles in the north are far from over. Scores of people have been killed in recent weeks during fierce clashes in Damaj, a town on Saada’s outskirts, between Houthi fighters and ultraconservative Islamists called Salafis, one of the many layers of a conflict that has festered over time and could derail any political progress. The Houthis are Zaydi Muslims, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. On one level, the fight is between hard-line religious groups with competing agendas. But analysts say it may also represent a proxy war stoked by unseen hands. At various times, the Salafis have been supported by the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia or Yemen’s Islamist opposition, they said.
Houthis in Saada complain that many of the Salafis are foreigners. At a hospital in Saada city there were several wounded Salafis, some of whom said they were afraid to leave for fear of being attacked by the Houthis. A hospital administrator said it was a Saudi-financed hospital, with a mission to provide care and stay out of politics.
In the wards, patients insisted on being heard. They included two Algerians and a student from the United Arab Emirates, who said he had just come to study.
“Then, the fighting started,” he said.
Some viewed the fighting as a trap for the Houthis, orchestrated to plunge them into a new conflict and keep them out of politics. In a statement released after Mr. Benomar’s visit, Mr. Houthi was looking ahead, saying that “in the context of a fair system,” the movement would consider forming a political party. “This is a step forward,” Mr. Benomar said, after his plane had lifted off from an airstrip in Saada. “It’s a step forward in a long road.”
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Analysis: Challenges aplenty for new Yemeni cabinet
SANA'A, 15 December 2011 (IRIN) - Yemen’s new coalition government, which came into being recently after the signing of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-brokered power transition deal and envisages President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepping down on 21 February, has numerous problems to tackle but few resources.
"The job before us is big and resources are scarce. We need to work together day and night to have the job done," newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Salim Basindwa, from the opposition, told the first cabinet meeting on 11 December.
Already weak, the country's economy has lost around US$17 billion since nationwide protests started in February 2011, according to Mohammed Mohammed Salah, deputy chairman of the chamber of trade and industry.
Mutahar al-Saeedi, an economist at Sana'a University, said international aid is urgently needed: "It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the new cabinet to make progress without the support of the international community," he told IRIN.
Restoring basic services such as water and electricity and resolving the ongoing fuel shortage top the new government’s priorities.
“The Ministry has gone bankrupt as the absolute majority of citizens have been refusing to pay electricity bills since the protests began. It is finding it increasingly difficult to fund operations for fixing the severely damaged national grid,” Ali Salim Alwan, a former adviser to the minister of electricity and energy, told IRIN.
According to Mohammed al-Maitami, another economist at Sana’a University, Yemen currently requires up to US$15 billion to fund the government budget for the coming year. "Without international aid, Yemen will not survive," al-Maitami said.
On 14 December, the UN appealed for US$447 million to help address the very serious and increasing developmental and humanitarian challenges in the country, which include malnutrition levels well in excess of the emergency threshold.
“In Yemen, the number of people suffering from severe food insecurity has climbed to more than 2 million in recent months,” the appeal document warned. “An estimated 466,000 children under 5 are acutely malnourished, and the number of [internally displaced people] has nearly doubled since 2010.”
Young protesters
Although the power transition deal has been signed and a new cabinet formed, young protesters are still camping out in several cities. They oppose any immunity from prosecution for Saleh and his relatives as set out in the power transition deal.
On 12 December, thousands marched in the flashpoint city of Taiz, demanding Saleh be put on trial, and chanting "No immunity to the killers".
"We will stay here until Saleh and his relatives are removed from power and tried before our eyes… They killed several hundred protesters… Women are widowed and children orphaned," Mohammed al-Emad, a protest leader in Sana’a, told IRIN.
According to the GCC-brokered deal, one of the new cabinet's jobs is to negotiate with protesters and persuade them to go home, something the young activists are not yet ready to do.
"Those [opposition] parties sold out… They made a deal with killers…We will not negotiate with them…We will continue protesting until all our demands are met," said Ahmad al-Faqeeh, a protest leader in Dhamar city, 100km south of Sana’a.
Observers say political parties made a mistake excluding young activists from the GGC deal.
Young people were a major driver of the power transition deal, said newspaper columnist Hadra Nasser al-Jahmaa, from the southern city of Aden. "The cabinet will not succeed unless it allows them to play a big role in the transition," he told IRIN.
Armed and security forces
One of the tasks facing the new cabinet is restructuring the divided army and security forces, the top echelons of which are still controlled by Saleh’s relatives.
A 14-member military committee, jointly formed from Saleh's supporters and the opposition, is supposed to undertake this task under cabinet supervision, but analysts believe Saleh will resist the dismissal of his son and three nephews from sensitive posts in the army and security forces.
“Saleh is planning to remain a key political leader in his party. It is unlikely that he will accept the removal of all his relatives from their posts,” Abdulhamid Amer, chairman of local NGO Brotherhood and Social Peace Association in the northern governorate of al-Jawf, told IRIN.
Political analyst Mohammed Ezzan, who is also a law lecturer at Hudeidah University, said the issue is one of the most sensitive: "Over the past three decades, it is the army that has been running the country and not the government… Restructuring the army is more likely to see the sharpest disagreement, if not a clash, between cabinet members from both sides [ruling and opposition parties]."
Work cut out
The new government will also have its work cut out to ease tensions in the south.
Improving living conditions in southern governorates and providing jobs in the near future is key, said Ahmad al-Zuqara, a member of local NGO the Yemen Election Monitoring Network (YEMN). "However, I think this is beyond the capacity of the new cabinet due to lack of funding."
Add to that the 100,000 people who have been displaced from their homes due to fighting between the government and Al-Qaeda affiliated militants.
The conflict in the north, where Houthi-led Shia rebels have been seeking autonomy and hundreds of thousands of civilians are still displaced and/or reliant on aid, will be a further problem for the government.
Houthis are opposed to the GCC-brokered deal since Saleh signed it in Saudi Arabia, and this would be “a hurdle for any potential negotiation between the government and hardliners”, said Abdurrahman al-Marwani, chairman of local NGO Dar al-Salam Organization.
"The job before us is big and resources are scarce. We need to work together day and night to have the job done," newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Salim Basindwa, from the opposition, told the first cabinet meeting on 11 December.
Already weak, the country's economy has lost around US$17 billion since nationwide protests started in February 2011, according to Mohammed Mohammed Salah, deputy chairman of the chamber of trade and industry.
Mutahar al-Saeedi, an economist at Sana'a University, said international aid is urgently needed: "It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the new cabinet to make progress without the support of the international community," he told IRIN.
Restoring basic services such as water and electricity and resolving the ongoing fuel shortage top the new government’s priorities.
“The Ministry has gone bankrupt as the absolute majority of citizens have been refusing to pay electricity bills since the protests began. It is finding it increasingly difficult to fund operations for fixing the severely damaged national grid,” Ali Salim Alwan, a former adviser to the minister of electricity and energy, told IRIN.
According to Mohammed al-Maitami, another economist at Sana’a University, Yemen currently requires up to US$15 billion to fund the government budget for the coming year. "Without international aid, Yemen will not survive," al-Maitami said.
On 14 December, the UN appealed for US$447 million to help address the very serious and increasing developmental and humanitarian challenges in the country, which include malnutrition levels well in excess of the emergency threshold.
“In Yemen, the number of people suffering from severe food insecurity has climbed to more than 2 million in recent months,” the appeal document warned. “An estimated 466,000 children under 5 are acutely malnourished, and the number of [internally displaced people] has nearly doubled since 2010.”
Young protesters
Although the power transition deal has been signed and a new cabinet formed, young protesters are still camping out in several cities. They oppose any immunity from prosecution for Saleh and his relatives as set out in the power transition deal.
On 12 December, thousands marched in the flashpoint city of Taiz, demanding Saleh be put on trial, and chanting "No immunity to the killers".
"We will stay here until Saleh and his relatives are removed from power and tried before our eyes… They killed several hundred protesters… Women are widowed and children orphaned," Mohammed al-Emad, a protest leader in Sana’a, told IRIN.
According to the GCC-brokered deal, one of the new cabinet's jobs is to negotiate with protesters and persuade them to go home, something the young activists are not yet ready to do.
"Those [opposition] parties sold out… They made a deal with killers…We will not negotiate with them…We will continue protesting until all our demands are met," said Ahmad al-Faqeeh, a protest leader in Dhamar city, 100km south of Sana’a.
Observers say political parties made a mistake excluding young activists from the GGC deal.
Young people were a major driver of the power transition deal, said newspaper columnist Hadra Nasser al-Jahmaa, from the southern city of Aden. "The cabinet will not succeed unless it allows them to play a big role in the transition," he told IRIN.
Armed and security forces
One of the tasks facing the new cabinet is restructuring the divided army and security forces, the top echelons of which are still controlled by Saleh’s relatives.
A 14-member military committee, jointly formed from Saleh's supporters and the opposition, is supposed to undertake this task under cabinet supervision, but analysts believe Saleh will resist the dismissal of his son and three nephews from sensitive posts in the army and security forces.
“Saleh is planning to remain a key political leader in his party. It is unlikely that he will accept the removal of all his relatives from their posts,” Abdulhamid Amer, chairman of local NGO Brotherhood and Social Peace Association in the northern governorate of al-Jawf, told IRIN.
Political analyst Mohammed Ezzan, who is also a law lecturer at Hudeidah University, said the issue is one of the most sensitive: "Over the past three decades, it is the army that has been running the country and not the government… Restructuring the army is more likely to see the sharpest disagreement, if not a clash, between cabinet members from both sides [ruling and opposition parties]."
Work cut out
The new government will also have its work cut out to ease tensions in the south.
Improving living conditions in southern governorates and providing jobs in the near future is key, said Ahmad al-Zuqara, a member of local NGO the Yemen Election Monitoring Network (YEMN). "However, I think this is beyond the capacity of the new cabinet due to lack of funding."
Add to that the 100,000 people who have been displaced from their homes due to fighting between the government and Al-Qaeda affiliated militants.
The conflict in the north, where Houthi-led Shia rebels have been seeking autonomy and hundreds of thousands of civilians are still displaced and/or reliant on aid, will be a further problem for the government.
Houthis are opposed to the GCC-brokered deal since Saleh signed it in Saudi Arabia, and this would be “a hurdle for any potential negotiation between the government and hardliners”, said Abdurrahman al-Marwani, chairman of local NGO Dar al-Salam Organization.
Report: Diplomats submit plan to reunite Yemen army
By REUTERS
12/15/2011
DUBAI - Six world powers and the United Nations have proposed a plan to reunite Yemen's fragmented military in a drive to reduce chaos in the impoverished nation after months of unrest, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Thursday.
A fragile ceasefire between troops loyal to nominal Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and fighters allied with the opposition is taking hold, but a planned military withdrawal from the capital Sanaa will put the truce to the test.
Saleh handed his powers last month to Yemeni Vice-President Abd-Rabou Mansour Hadi after signing a Gulf-brokered deal that led to the formation of a national unity government tasked with preparing for presidential election on Feb. 21.
12/15/2011
DUBAI - Six world powers and the United Nations have proposed a plan to reunite Yemen's fragmented military in a drive to reduce chaos in the impoverished nation after months of unrest, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Thursday.
A fragile ceasefire between troops loyal to nominal Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and fighters allied with the opposition is taking hold, but a planned military withdrawal from the capital Sanaa will put the truce to the test.
Saleh handed his powers last month to Yemeni Vice-President Abd-Rabou Mansour Hadi after signing a Gulf-brokered deal that led to the formation of a national unity government tasked with preparing for presidential election on Feb. 21.
Yemeni demonstrators demand trial for ex-president Saleh
Dec 15, 2011
Sana'a - Thousands of people in Yemen called on former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and other regime officials to be prosecuted for ordering violence against pro-democracy protests.
Demonstrators in the capital Sana'a and the southern city of Taiz chanted slogans against a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal last month that granted Saleh immunity from legal prosecution in return for stepping down.
The deal was signed by Saleh and opposition leaders in Saudi Arabia, which had pushed for the UN-backed deal to try to prevent its impoverished neighbour from sliding toward a civil war.
'What the political parties have agreed on falls short of our expectations,' said Masoud al-Harazi, a protester in Sana'a. 'We will continue our peaceful struggle to uproot all corrupt officials and criminals from our country.'
The protesters called on the United Nations Security Council to take immediate action to bring to justice those implicated in ordering a deadly crackdown on Saleh's opponents.
'Many women have been killed by Saleh's forces in the past months. This is a shame. We will not stop until the killer is jailed,' said Ilham Mohammed, a female protester from Sana'a.
Sana'a - Thousands of people in Yemen called on former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and other regime officials to be prosecuted for ordering violence against pro-democracy protests.
Demonstrators in the capital Sana'a and the southern city of Taiz chanted slogans against a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal last month that granted Saleh immunity from legal prosecution in return for stepping down.
The deal was signed by Saleh and opposition leaders in Saudi Arabia, which had pushed for the UN-backed deal to try to prevent its impoverished neighbour from sliding toward a civil war.
'What the political parties have agreed on falls short of our expectations,' said Masoud al-Harazi, a protester in Sana'a. 'We will continue our peaceful struggle to uproot all corrupt officials and criminals from our country.'
The protesters called on the United Nations Security Council to take immediate action to bring to justice those implicated in ordering a deadly crackdown on Saleh's opponents.
'Many women have been killed by Saleh's forces in the past months. This is a shame. We will not stop until the killer is jailed,' said Ilham Mohammed, a female protester from Sana'a.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Former Yemeni diplomat's gets new hearing on refugee claim
By Tom Godfrey ,Toronto Sun
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
TORONTO - A former Yemeni diplomat who was initially refused refugee status after claiming to be an opponent of his country’s president is being granted an appeal. This follows the allegation that he faces death if sent back home for converting to Christianity.
Abdulwahab Zabeba was a former well-paid Third Secretary of the Yemen Embassy in Washington, D.C., for about two years before refusing a posting to Poland since he was “perceived” as an enemy of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, court records show.
Zabeda and his son, Mahir, fled to Canada in 2009. They filed unsuccessful refugee claims citing the claim he faced a charge of treason at home for refusing the transfer.
He sought and won leave to appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Canada that on Dec. 5 ordered a new hearing.
Zabeda in a pre-removal assessment claimed “to fear a risk of mistreatment in Yemen ... because he had converted from Islam to Christianity while in Washington.”
An Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) had previously found Zabeda not to be a credible witness or a foe of President Saleh.
“He made a refugee claim in Canada instead of the U.S. because our health care programs are better,” the court ruling stated. “Mr. Zabeba was an economic migrant.”
The high court said his alleged risk based on apostasy was new information.
“Apostasy is a crime in Yemen, punishable by death,” the court was told. “However, the government does not actively enforce the law.”
Zabeda presented letters from an Ottawa church minister and a Washington friend who claimed the lives of he and his son would be in danger in Yemen.
Evidence presented in court show there are about 3,000 Christians living in Yemen and apostates from Islam can face “the annulment of marriage, termination of citizenship and the loss of social and economic rights.”
The U.S. State Dept. in 2009 reported “several converts from Islam to Christianity continued to be detained by authorities.”
There has been several apostasy busts in Yemen including the 2008 arrest of a Christian convert for promoting Christianity and distributing the Bible.
Court was told there is evidence that apostates are subjected to wrong doing in Yemen and a new hearing was granted.
Zabeda’s lawyer refused to comment, along with officials of the Yemeni embassies in Washington and Ottawa.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
TORONTO - A former Yemeni diplomat who was initially refused refugee status after claiming to be an opponent of his country’s president is being granted an appeal. This follows the allegation that he faces death if sent back home for converting to Christianity.
Abdulwahab Zabeba was a former well-paid Third Secretary of the Yemen Embassy in Washington, D.C., for about two years before refusing a posting to Poland since he was “perceived” as an enemy of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, court records show.
Zabeda and his son, Mahir, fled to Canada in 2009. They filed unsuccessful refugee claims citing the claim he faced a charge of treason at home for refusing the transfer.
He sought and won leave to appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Canada that on Dec. 5 ordered a new hearing.
Zabeda in a pre-removal assessment claimed “to fear a risk of mistreatment in Yemen ... because he had converted from Islam to Christianity while in Washington.”
An Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) had previously found Zabeda not to be a credible witness or a foe of President Saleh.
“He made a refugee claim in Canada instead of the U.S. because our health care programs are better,” the court ruling stated. “Mr. Zabeba was an economic migrant.”
The high court said his alleged risk based on apostasy was new information.
“Apostasy is a crime in Yemen, punishable by death,” the court was told. “However, the government does not actively enforce the law.”
Zabeda presented letters from an Ottawa church minister and a Washington friend who claimed the lives of he and his son would be in danger in Yemen.
Evidence presented in court show there are about 3,000 Christians living in Yemen and apostates from Islam can face “the annulment of marriage, termination of citizenship and the loss of social and economic rights.”
The U.S. State Dept. in 2009 reported “several converts from Islam to Christianity continued to be detained by authorities.”
There has been several apostasy busts in Yemen including the 2008 arrest of a Christian convert for promoting Christianity and distributing the Bible.
Court was told there is evidence that apostates are subjected to wrong doing in Yemen and a new hearing was granted.
Zabeda’s lawyer refused to comment, along with officials of the Yemeni embassies in Washington and Ottawa.
Refugee Board to take a month to decide fate of Yemeni woman
By Carol Sanders, Winnipeg Free Press December 14, 2011
WINNIPEG — After waiting 30 years for a reunion with her daughter, having to sit tight for another 30 days or so isn't what a Winnipeg mom wanted to hear in court Tuesday.
Housnia Ibrahim will have to wait to see if her daughter will ever be allowed to come to Canada. An Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator heard her appeal in a Winnipeg court Tuesday but reserved her decision.
Ibrahim, who fled fighting in Ethiopia in 1977, left her four-year-old daughter, Mouluka, with her mother in Djibouti, on the east coast of Africa, to work abroad to support them. She hasn't seen her daughter since then.
The refugee came to Canada in 1990 and has raised her youngest daughter, who's now 17 and in Grade 12 in Winnipeg.
Ibrahim, who works for a child welfare agency, has sent tens of thousands of dollars to support and educate Mouluka. She's spent thousands more on legal fees and DNA testing to bring her to Canada, hitting snags and red tape along the way.
When the Canadian High Commission in London gave her the green light to come five years ago, Mouluka's passport was lost by DHL Courier and her application was rejected.
Mouluka, who lives with her maternal grandma in Yemen, was offered $150 by the courier company but that didn't buy her any sympathy from the Canadian government.
Her mom is now trying to sponsor her through the family class. To be eligible, children older than 22 have to be dependants supported by parents and enrolled in full-time studies.
The federal government says Mouluka, now 34, hasn't been in school full time and is ineligible.
Mouluka's studies have been interrupted several times for good reasons, said the family's lawyer, David Matas. After high school, students in Yemen are required to wait one year before attending further studies and males must perform a year of military service, she testified by phone in Arabic from Yemen, through an interpreter.
Mouluka said she studied civil engineering at the University of Hadramout in Yemen and was sexually harassed by an instructor. She said she was one of three women in the class of 45 and he violated her personal boundaries and propositioned her to have sex. When she refused, she failed his design and drawing course that was mandatory for engineering students. She complained to the dean of engineering and nothing happened. She could no longer attend classes. It was the only public, affordable university in the province she could attend.
Her mom in Winnipeg convinced her and her grandmother to move from Hadramout to the capital city Sanaa where there are more educational opportunities. She passed an entrance exam at a private institute and was starting classes when civil unrest in Yemen made it unsafe for her to go to school.
When Matas asked her what she'd do in Canada, she said she would improve her English then resume studying engineering.
Immigration and Citizenship lawyer Brendan Friesen said she hasn't been enrolled as a full-time student and shouldn't be allowed to come to Canada. He questioned Mouluka's testimony about the sexual harassment.
"She said it's a terrible, shameful thing not to be talked about then went in a group setting to complain about the professor . . . that doesn't jibe," Friesan said.
He questioned how her mom, who was married when she first came to Canada, couldn't afford to sponsor her daughter then but can now as a divorced single parent.
"It's incongruent. It doesn't add up."
Ibrahim and her daughter struggled at times with some of the dates and years she started and finished classes over the last decade, he said.
Matas said Mouluka's intent was to be in school full time; that her mom supported her; and that there have been other cases where family class spondees' education is interrupted.
The federal government is fixated on dates and documents in and from a part of the world that is not, Matas said earlier. Denying her appeal to come to Canada to continue her studies goes against the spirit of the legislation and family class sponsorship, he said.
"If you look at the regulations and their purpose, what's the point of all this? They're still part of the family unit."
WINNIPEG — After waiting 30 years for a reunion with her daughter, having to sit tight for another 30 days or so isn't what a Winnipeg mom wanted to hear in court Tuesday.
Housnia Ibrahim will have to wait to see if her daughter will ever be allowed to come to Canada. An Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator heard her appeal in a Winnipeg court Tuesday but reserved her decision.
Ibrahim, who fled fighting in Ethiopia in 1977, left her four-year-old daughter, Mouluka, with her mother in Djibouti, on the east coast of Africa, to work abroad to support them. She hasn't seen her daughter since then.
The refugee came to Canada in 1990 and has raised her youngest daughter, who's now 17 and in Grade 12 in Winnipeg.
Ibrahim, who works for a child welfare agency, has sent tens of thousands of dollars to support and educate Mouluka. She's spent thousands more on legal fees and DNA testing to bring her to Canada, hitting snags and red tape along the way.
When the Canadian High Commission in London gave her the green light to come five years ago, Mouluka's passport was lost by DHL Courier and her application was rejected.
Mouluka, who lives with her maternal grandma in Yemen, was offered $150 by the courier company but that didn't buy her any sympathy from the Canadian government.
Her mom is now trying to sponsor her through the family class. To be eligible, children older than 22 have to be dependants supported by parents and enrolled in full-time studies.
The federal government says Mouluka, now 34, hasn't been in school full time and is ineligible.
Mouluka's studies have been interrupted several times for good reasons, said the family's lawyer, David Matas. After high school, students in Yemen are required to wait one year before attending further studies and males must perform a year of military service, she testified by phone in Arabic from Yemen, through an interpreter.
Mouluka said she studied civil engineering at the University of Hadramout in Yemen and was sexually harassed by an instructor. She said she was one of three women in the class of 45 and he violated her personal boundaries and propositioned her to have sex. When she refused, she failed his design and drawing course that was mandatory for engineering students. She complained to the dean of engineering and nothing happened. She could no longer attend classes. It was the only public, affordable university in the province she could attend.
Her mom in Winnipeg convinced her and her grandmother to move from Hadramout to the capital city Sanaa where there are more educational opportunities. She passed an entrance exam at a private institute and was starting classes when civil unrest in Yemen made it unsafe for her to go to school.
When Matas asked her what she'd do in Canada, she said she would improve her English then resume studying engineering.
Immigration and Citizenship lawyer Brendan Friesen said she hasn't been enrolled as a full-time student and shouldn't be allowed to come to Canada. He questioned Mouluka's testimony about the sexual harassment.
"She said it's a terrible, shameful thing not to be talked about then went in a group setting to complain about the professor . . . that doesn't jibe," Friesan said.
He questioned how her mom, who was married when she first came to Canada, couldn't afford to sponsor her daughter then but can now as a divorced single parent.
"It's incongruent. It doesn't add up."
Ibrahim and her daughter struggled at times with some of the dates and years she started and finished classes over the last decade, he said.
Matas said Mouluka's intent was to be in school full time; that her mom supported her; and that there have been other cases where family class spondees' education is interrupted.
The federal government is fixated on dates and documents in and from a part of the world that is not, Matas said earlier. Denying her appeal to come to Canada to continue her studies goes against the spirit of the legislation and family class sponsorship, he said.
"If you look at the regulations and their purpose, what's the point of all this? They're still part of the family unit."
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Yemeni National Consensus Government
Press Statement
Victoria Nuland
Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
December 13, 2011
The United States welcomes the formation of the Yemeni National Consensus Government and the holding of its first cabinet meeting on December 10. We commend Vice President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwah for their efforts in forming the National Consensus Government. This marks another significant step forward as the government and the opposition continue to enact a peaceful and orderly transition of power in Yemen, leading to presidential elections set to take place on February 21.
As the parties work to implement the remaining articles of the political agreement, we strongly encourage all sides to refrain from violence and to work together in good faith and with transparency. The United States is committed to strengthening our partnership with the Yemeni government and people as they implement the agreement and address their political, economic, and security challenges.
Victoria Nuland
Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
December 13, 2011
The United States welcomes the formation of the Yemeni National Consensus Government and the holding of its first cabinet meeting on December 10. We commend Vice President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwah for their efforts in forming the National Consensus Government. This marks another significant step forward as the government and the opposition continue to enact a peaceful and orderly transition of power in Yemen, leading to presidential elections set to take place on February 21.
As the parties work to implement the remaining articles of the political agreement, we strongly encourage all sides to refrain from violence and to work together in good faith and with transparency. The United States is committed to strengthening our partnership with the Yemeni government and people as they implement the agreement and address their political, economic, and security challenges.
The Zaydi manuscripts of Northern Yemen
Arie Amaya-Akkermans | 13 December 201
In recent articles on Bikyamasr.com, it was reported at length on the diversity of cultural sites, part of Yemen’s vast cultural heritage, that were threatened with neglect and destruction, partly because of the inability of the Yemeni authorities to preserve them and partly because of the state of unrest caused by the Yemeni uprising – namely the ancient cities of Sana’a, Shibam and Zabid, in which thousands of years of rich history are likely to become yet another casualty in Yemen’s struggle for freedom from the 33-years old dictatorial rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh.
It is fortunate however that these three ancient cities are considered UNESCO world heritage sites, due to the fact that they have received attention from international organizations – most prominently the government of Germany – and some degree of action has been taken in order to minimize the damage, or at least, that was the case until the beginning of the Yemeni uprising. The extent of the real damage done to the sites in the course of 2011 remains yet to be properly assessed in a post-revolutionary scenario.
More unfortunate is the fate not only of other sites but of something much more intangible but equally valuable: The rich intellectual Islamic heritage of the country embodied in over 50000 manuscripts held in many libraries and private holdings. The astounding numbers and the nature of the manuscripts make Yemen one of the most important archival collections in the world, easily rivaling similar holdings of Islamic manuscripts in the national libraries of Cairo, Istanbul and Teheran.
Since Islam was introduced in Yemen around 630, it has been a fertile region for the greatest diversity of Islamic scholarship as exemplified by the now neglected Zabid, where schools of Shafi, Hanafi, Hanabli and Ismaili Islam are known to have existed in different periods and sometimes next to each other.
The central and southern regions were dominated by Shafi Islam – and to a lesser extent by the distinctively Yemeni Tayibite Ismailism – and because of the relatively easy accessibility, many manuscripts and traditions survived the test of time.
The northern part of Yemen however presents a different story: The Zaydi school of Islam – a Shiite school of thought – settled in the inaccessible northern highlands and there developed lines of thought that were neglected in the rest of the Islamic world.
They are a branch of Islam that has survived only in Yemen because of great isolation and whose roots can be traced to the 2nd century when Zayd bin Ali – great-great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad – was killed in Kufa(Iraq) and they separated from other Shiite groups.
Later on they moved onto Iran around the Caspian Sea and the grandson of Al-Qasim, the greatest Zaydi scholar, al-Hadiila l-Haqq founded another imamate in the north of Yemen with capital in Sa’ada. This happened as early as the 3rd century. With time the seat of Zaydi Islam moved progressively from Iran to Yemen and a few centuries later it became an entirely Yemeni phenomenon.
The writings of Zaydi Islam committed themselves since then to the principles of Mutazilism, a school of thought based around Baghdad and Basra. It was one of the most important rational schools of thought in the history of Islamic theology, and provided an epistemological and philosophical basis to explain the nature of God and that later on influenced many other schools.
Because of their isolation in the Yemeni highland, they preserved very ancient materials drawn from other traditions, including works in nearly every field of knowledge. This rational tradition is now known to have published treatises on natural philosophy and sciences unparalleled in their outlook and unknown elsewhere in the Islamic world.
Zaydi scholarship in Yemen was characterized by a great degree of plurality and eclecticism that integrated many new and old schools of thought and that makes Zaydi the most rational school of Shiite Islam and brings it very close to Orthodox Sunni Islam. If anything, it could be called a ‘radically’ monotheistic philosophy that condemned anthropomorphism and derived the existence of God and the world from philosophical principles.
These precious manuscripts were little known in the Islamic world and had been unheard of in the Western world until the 17th century when different exploration missions set for Yemen – in such difficult geographic conditions that only very few explorers returned alive from these missions – and brought with them some information about them.
In the 19th century it captured the interests of the European Arabists and many manuscripts found their way to private collections in Europe. Many holdings from Sa’ada were transferred to Sana’a in the early 20th century and can be found even today in the library of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, what was followed by Egyptian missions that prepared inventories and microfilmed the most significant manuscripts – the first in 1951 headed by Taha Husayin, then Minister of Education and the second in 1964, by Muhammad Ahmad Husayin, then Vice-Minister of Culture.
Though the missions were fundamental in exposing the Yemeni treasures to the world, they were limited to Sana’a and Ta’izz and did not include manuscripts from either the north or the south of Yemen. In the 1970’s an interest arose in Yemen itself with many scholars, but in particular Ali Al-Akwa (for many years president of the Yemeni Antiquities Authority and who passed away in 2008) collected many of the manuscripts and wrote many works on the subject. With time many of the private holdings were also cataloged and partially digitalized.
A couple of local organizations and European governments took an active interest in this legacy that runs to tens of thousands of manuscripts, since the 1970’s until today. The German Foreign Office funded a very large project to train Yemenis in the assessment and conservation of manuscripts, in light of an amazing discovery made in 1972, when during the renovation of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, one of the earliest fragments of the Koran was discovered.
In the 2000’s major contributions were made in documenting, exploring and researching the Mutazili manuscripts from all over Yemen, and, in 2009 began an ambitious project called “Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Yemen Manuscript Digitalization Project” – that emulates dozens of successful cases carried out in other countries – sponsored by the German Foreign Office and the Free University of Berlin.
Encouraging as these projects are, the sad reality is that the vast majority of the manuscripts – tens of thousands – outside Sana’a are badly under threat, particularly in the restless northern governorate of Sa’ada. It is not limited to poor storage conditions and the constant sale – for very little money – of the manuscripts to collectors from the wealthy Gulf states – that later on end up in international auctions where they are sold for tens of thousands of dollars, such as a famous auction at Sotheby’s in 2008 that included dozens of Jewish and Islamic manuscripts from Yemen, usually torn off from folios still extant in Sana’a.
Religious strife in Yemen also plays a significant role in the on-going destruction: It was reported in 2010 that Salafi extremists opposed to Shiism, have targeted these manuscripts and collections for deliberate destruction. In some case they have even purchased entire collections from library owners facing great economic hardship around Sa’ada governorate, with the only purpose to burn and destroy them.
On the other hand, the Shiite insurgency in the north of the country has also put many of these manuscripts under risk, since the radical interpretation of Shiism – almost univocally imported from Iran – has targeted Zaydi cultural heritage for destruction no less than Sunni Salafists. Constantly the manuscripts are destroyed because of being considered unorthodox for Islam, and the obvious rational resemblance to mainstream Sunni schools of thought.
Lastly, the Yemeni uprising has also placed a strain on the conservation of the manuscripts: The state of unrest that has damaged many houses and public institutions has affected them significantly, and the constant electric black-outs have forced people to tear folios from precious books in order to start fires, for a variety of purposes, not all of them related to the basic functioning of the household.
It is unsurprising overall that radicals in any sect would be so bent on destroying a heritage, little known and little explored, that could offer the opening of radically new and innovative interpretations of Islam that have been dormant in the north of Yemen for hundreds of years – now ironically one of the most conflicted, poverty-stricken and violent parts of the world.
The conservation and study of the mostly unknown Zaydi literature preserved in Yemen, could provide the elements to find a purely rational Islamic epistemology and that would be of great relevance today when even Muslims themselves are so concerned about the use and abuse of their own tradition at the hands of fundamentalists that have little to do with the ancient tolerance of Abrahamic religions. Many Muslims seeking for a renovated vision of Islam, traditional and yet compatible with the modern world, will find themselves at home in the theological rationalism of Mutazilism and could easily find in it, an authoritative source for a long-deserved reform,embodying the words of Yemeni Nobel laureate Tawakkol Karman from her Nobel prize acceptance speech last week: “Mankind’s feeling of responsibility to create a decent life and make it worth living with dignity, has always been stronger than the will to kill life.”
In times of political transition when the question of Islamism takes to the center stage of all discussions about the future of the region and while the radical factions are making quick advances in clamping down the dreams of many revolutions for a tolerant and free Middle East, this great heritage will be key in defining the agenda of reform in Islam in the near future, however since we do not speak of great buildings or cities but of nothing but books, there is no international body or organization or law that can protect them from destruction.
The possibility of living in a decent world, so eloquently expressed by this curious and forgotten heritage, as much as by the Yemeni uprising, could be translated back in time to what Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote the year after the end of Second World War and the concentration camps, to her mentor Karl Jaspers:
“What I learnt from you and what helped me in the ensuing years to find my way around in reality without selling my soul to it the way people in earlier times sold their souls to the devil is that the only thing of importance is not philosophies but the truth, that one has to live and think in the open and not in one’s little shell, no matter how comfortably furnished it is, and that necessity in whatever form is only a will-o’-the-wisp that tries to lure us into playing a role instead of attempting to be a human being”.
In recent articles on Bikyamasr.com, it was reported at length on the diversity of cultural sites, part of Yemen’s vast cultural heritage, that were threatened with neglect and destruction, partly because of the inability of the Yemeni authorities to preserve them and partly because of the state of unrest caused by the Yemeni uprising – namely the ancient cities of Sana’a, Shibam and Zabid, in which thousands of years of rich history are likely to become yet another casualty in Yemen’s struggle for freedom from the 33-years old dictatorial rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh.
It is fortunate however that these three ancient cities are considered UNESCO world heritage sites, due to the fact that they have received attention from international organizations – most prominently the government of Germany – and some degree of action has been taken in order to minimize the damage, or at least, that was the case until the beginning of the Yemeni uprising. The extent of the real damage done to the sites in the course of 2011 remains yet to be properly assessed in a post-revolutionary scenario.
More unfortunate is the fate not only of other sites but of something much more intangible but equally valuable: The rich intellectual Islamic heritage of the country embodied in over 50000 manuscripts held in many libraries and private holdings. The astounding numbers and the nature of the manuscripts make Yemen one of the most important archival collections in the world, easily rivaling similar holdings of Islamic manuscripts in the national libraries of Cairo, Istanbul and Teheran.
Since Islam was introduced in Yemen around 630, it has been a fertile region for the greatest diversity of Islamic scholarship as exemplified by the now neglected Zabid, where schools of Shafi, Hanafi, Hanabli and Ismaili Islam are known to have existed in different periods and sometimes next to each other.
The central and southern regions were dominated by Shafi Islam – and to a lesser extent by the distinctively Yemeni Tayibite Ismailism – and because of the relatively easy accessibility, many manuscripts and traditions survived the test of time.
The northern part of Yemen however presents a different story: The Zaydi school of Islam – a Shiite school of thought – settled in the inaccessible northern highlands and there developed lines of thought that were neglected in the rest of the Islamic world.
They are a branch of Islam that has survived only in Yemen because of great isolation and whose roots can be traced to the 2nd century when Zayd bin Ali – great-great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad – was killed in Kufa(Iraq) and they separated from other Shiite groups.
Later on they moved onto Iran around the Caspian Sea and the grandson of Al-Qasim, the greatest Zaydi scholar, al-Hadiila l-Haqq founded another imamate in the north of Yemen with capital in Sa’ada. This happened as early as the 3rd century. With time the seat of Zaydi Islam moved progressively from Iran to Yemen and a few centuries later it became an entirely Yemeni phenomenon.
The writings of Zaydi Islam committed themselves since then to the principles of Mutazilism, a school of thought based around Baghdad and Basra. It was one of the most important rational schools of thought in the history of Islamic theology, and provided an epistemological and philosophical basis to explain the nature of God and that later on influenced many other schools.
Because of their isolation in the Yemeni highland, they preserved very ancient materials drawn from other traditions, including works in nearly every field of knowledge. This rational tradition is now known to have published treatises on natural philosophy and sciences unparalleled in their outlook and unknown elsewhere in the Islamic world.
Zaydi scholarship in Yemen was characterized by a great degree of plurality and eclecticism that integrated many new and old schools of thought and that makes Zaydi the most rational school of Shiite Islam and brings it very close to Orthodox Sunni Islam. If anything, it could be called a ‘radically’ monotheistic philosophy that condemned anthropomorphism and derived the existence of God and the world from philosophical principles.
These precious manuscripts were little known in the Islamic world and had been unheard of in the Western world until the 17th century when different exploration missions set for Yemen – in such difficult geographic conditions that only very few explorers returned alive from these missions – and brought with them some information about them.
In the 19th century it captured the interests of the European Arabists and many manuscripts found their way to private collections in Europe. Many holdings from Sa’ada were transferred to Sana’a in the early 20th century and can be found even today in the library of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, what was followed by Egyptian missions that prepared inventories and microfilmed the most significant manuscripts – the first in 1951 headed by Taha Husayin, then Minister of Education and the second in 1964, by Muhammad Ahmad Husayin, then Vice-Minister of Culture.
Though the missions were fundamental in exposing the Yemeni treasures to the world, they were limited to Sana’a and Ta’izz and did not include manuscripts from either the north or the south of Yemen. In the 1970’s an interest arose in Yemen itself with many scholars, but in particular Ali Al-Akwa (for many years president of the Yemeni Antiquities Authority and who passed away in 2008) collected many of the manuscripts and wrote many works on the subject. With time many of the private holdings were also cataloged and partially digitalized.
A couple of local organizations and European governments took an active interest in this legacy that runs to tens of thousands of manuscripts, since the 1970’s until today. The German Foreign Office funded a very large project to train Yemenis in the assessment and conservation of manuscripts, in light of an amazing discovery made in 1972, when during the renovation of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, one of the earliest fragments of the Koran was discovered.
In the 2000’s major contributions were made in documenting, exploring and researching the Mutazili manuscripts from all over Yemen, and, in 2009 began an ambitious project called “Yemen’s Cultural Heritage: The Yemen Manuscript Digitalization Project” – that emulates dozens of successful cases carried out in other countries – sponsored by the German Foreign Office and the Free University of Berlin.
Encouraging as these projects are, the sad reality is that the vast majority of the manuscripts – tens of thousands – outside Sana’a are badly under threat, particularly in the restless northern governorate of Sa’ada. It is not limited to poor storage conditions and the constant sale – for very little money – of the manuscripts to collectors from the wealthy Gulf states – that later on end up in international auctions where they are sold for tens of thousands of dollars, such as a famous auction at Sotheby’s in 2008 that included dozens of Jewish and Islamic manuscripts from Yemen, usually torn off from folios still extant in Sana’a.
Religious strife in Yemen also plays a significant role in the on-going destruction: It was reported in 2010 that Salafi extremists opposed to Shiism, have targeted these manuscripts and collections for deliberate destruction. In some case they have even purchased entire collections from library owners facing great economic hardship around Sa’ada governorate, with the only purpose to burn and destroy them.
On the other hand, the Shiite insurgency in the north of the country has also put many of these manuscripts under risk, since the radical interpretation of Shiism – almost univocally imported from Iran – has targeted Zaydi cultural heritage for destruction no less than Sunni Salafists. Constantly the manuscripts are destroyed because of being considered unorthodox for Islam, and the obvious rational resemblance to mainstream Sunni schools of thought.
Lastly, the Yemeni uprising has also placed a strain on the conservation of the manuscripts: The state of unrest that has damaged many houses and public institutions has affected them significantly, and the constant electric black-outs have forced people to tear folios from precious books in order to start fires, for a variety of purposes, not all of them related to the basic functioning of the household.
It is unsurprising overall that radicals in any sect would be so bent on destroying a heritage, little known and little explored, that could offer the opening of radically new and innovative interpretations of Islam that have been dormant in the north of Yemen for hundreds of years – now ironically one of the most conflicted, poverty-stricken and violent parts of the world.
The conservation and study of the mostly unknown Zaydi literature preserved in Yemen, could provide the elements to find a purely rational Islamic epistemology and that would be of great relevance today when even Muslims themselves are so concerned about the use and abuse of their own tradition at the hands of fundamentalists that have little to do with the ancient tolerance of Abrahamic religions. Many Muslims seeking for a renovated vision of Islam, traditional and yet compatible with the modern world, will find themselves at home in the theological rationalism of Mutazilism and could easily find in it, an authoritative source for a long-deserved reform,embodying the words of Yemeni Nobel laureate Tawakkol Karman from her Nobel prize acceptance speech last week: “Mankind’s feeling of responsibility to create a decent life and make it worth living with dignity, has always been stronger than the will to kill life.”
In times of political transition when the question of Islamism takes to the center stage of all discussions about the future of the region and while the radical factions are making quick advances in clamping down the dreams of many revolutions for a tolerant and free Middle East, this great heritage will be key in defining the agenda of reform in Islam in the near future, however since we do not speak of great buildings or cities but of nothing but books, there is no international body or organization or law that can protect them from destruction.
The possibility of living in a decent world, so eloquently expressed by this curious and forgotten heritage, as much as by the Yemeni uprising, could be translated back in time to what Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote the year after the end of Second World War and the concentration camps, to her mentor Karl Jaspers:
“What I learnt from you and what helped me in the ensuing years to find my way around in reality without selling my soul to it the way people in earlier times sold their souls to the devil is that the only thing of importance is not philosophies but the truth, that one has to live and think in the open and not in one’s little shell, no matter how comfortably furnished it is, and that necessity in whatever form is only a will-o’-the-wisp that tries to lure us into playing a role instead of attempting to be a human being”.
Yemen's al-Qaida Declares Jihad on Shiite Rebels as Sectarian Clash Kills 14
2011-12-13 Xinhua
The Yemen-based al-Qaida wing on Monday declared a holy war against Shiite Houthi rebels besieging a Sunni-held town in the country's northern restive province of Saada, where recent battles left at least 14 people dead.
"We were saddened by the Shiite rebels' months-long siege on our people in Damaj in Saada," Ibrahim al-Rubaish, a leader of al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said in an audio statement posted on Islamic Jihadi forums on Monday.
"Therefore, we declare a Jihad to eliminate such malignant germs from the surface of the region," he said in the statement that distributed by AQAP's official media Al-Malahim Foundation.
Meanwhile, at least eight Houthi rebels and six Sunni tribesmen were killed and dozens were wounded in sectarian battles that flared on Sunday and lasted until Monday morning in the Kutaf area, some 10 km west of Damaj, a provincial security official said.
"The battles erupted after mediation to convince the Houthi rebels to allow an aid convoy by the Sunni tribesmen to reach Damaj failed," the official told Xinhua by telephone on condition of anonymity.
The Houthi Shiite rebels, a powerful group controls almost all parts of Saada province, have been laying a two-month-long siege on the small Sunni-held town of Damaj over religious-related dispute, according to local officials.
Since the protests erupted in Yemen in late January, Houthi rebels are trying to expand their control over the northern provinces of Saada, Amran and Hajja.
On Aug. 26 this year, the Yemeni government and the Shiite group signed an agreement in Doha to cement a fragile cease-fire to end the sporadic battles since 2004, but the rebels' clashes with local tribesmen and Sunni supporters are still rocking the region.
The Yemen-based al-Qaida wing on Monday declared a holy war against Shiite Houthi rebels besieging a Sunni-held town in the country's northern restive province of Saada, where recent battles left at least 14 people dead.
"We were saddened by the Shiite rebels' months-long siege on our people in Damaj in Saada," Ibrahim al-Rubaish, a leader of al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said in an audio statement posted on Islamic Jihadi forums on Monday.
"Therefore, we declare a Jihad to eliminate such malignant germs from the surface of the region," he said in the statement that distributed by AQAP's official media Al-Malahim Foundation.
Meanwhile, at least eight Houthi rebels and six Sunni tribesmen were killed and dozens were wounded in sectarian battles that flared on Sunday and lasted until Monday morning in the Kutaf area, some 10 km west of Damaj, a provincial security official said.
"The battles erupted after mediation to convince the Houthi rebels to allow an aid convoy by the Sunni tribesmen to reach Damaj failed," the official told Xinhua by telephone on condition of anonymity.
The Houthi Shiite rebels, a powerful group controls almost all parts of Saada province, have been laying a two-month-long siege on the small Sunni-held town of Damaj over religious-related dispute, according to local officials.
Since the protests erupted in Yemen in late January, Houthi rebels are trying to expand their control over the northern provinces of Saada, Amran and Hajja.
On Aug. 26 this year, the Yemeni government and the Shiite group signed an agreement in Doha to cement a fragile cease-fire to end the sporadic battles since 2004, but the rebels' clashes with local tribesmen and Sunni supporters are still rocking the region.
Yemen orders release of detainees held over protests
SANAA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The Yemeni interior minister ordered the release on Tuesday of all detainees held in connection with nearly 11 months of protests in Sanaa to press President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years in office, state news agency Saba said.
Activists said the decision, which follows a peace deal that resulted in the establishment of a unity government headed by an opposition leader, could affect up to 1,400 people held in the capital since protests began in February.
"We are not certain yet that all have been released," said Mane' al-Mutairi, an activist, told Reuters, adding that most of those held in relation to the protests were in Sanaa.
Activists said the decision, which follows a peace deal that resulted in the establishment of a unity government headed by an opposition leader, could affect up to 1,400 people held in the capital since protests began in February.
"We are not certain yet that all have been released," said Mane' al-Mutairi, an activist, told Reuters, adding that most of those held in relation to the protests were in Sanaa.
US urges new Yemen government to show restraint
(AFP) 13 December 2011
WASHINGTON — The United States Tuesday welcomed Yemen’s new national unity government and called on all parties in the Arabian peninsula state to refrain from violence as a peace accord is implemented.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the Gulf-sponsored deal to resolve Yemen’s political crisis “marks another significant step forward as the government and the opposition continue to enact a peaceful and orderly transition of power in Yemen, leading to presidential elections set to take place on February 21.”
As the parties work to implement the political agreement, “we strongly encourage all sides to refrain from violence and to work together in good faith and with transparency,” she added.
Yemen’s national unity government, headed by the opposition, was sworn in Saturday to lead a three-month transition period until early polls are held and President Ali Abdullah Saleh formally steps down.
The deal came after 10 months of nationwide protests demanding an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule that culminated last month in his signing of the deal to leave power.
The new 34-member cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa, will carry out its duties until the February elections.
Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi will then take over the presidency for an interim two-year period as stipulated by the deal.
WASHINGTON — The United States Tuesday welcomed Yemen’s new national unity government and called on all parties in the Arabian peninsula state to refrain from violence as a peace accord is implemented.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the Gulf-sponsored deal to resolve Yemen’s political crisis “marks another significant step forward as the government and the opposition continue to enact a peaceful and orderly transition of power in Yemen, leading to presidential elections set to take place on February 21.”
As the parties work to implement the political agreement, “we strongly encourage all sides to refrain from violence and to work together in good faith and with transparency,” she added.
Yemen’s national unity government, headed by the opposition, was sworn in Saturday to lead a three-month transition period until early polls are held and President Ali Abdullah Saleh formally steps down.
The deal came after 10 months of nationwide protests demanding an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule that culminated last month in his signing of the deal to leave power.
The new 34-member cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa, will carry out its duties until the February elections.
Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi will then take over the presidency for an interim two-year period as stipulated by the deal.
Saudi promises aid to Yemen
(AFP) December 13, 2011
SANAA — Saudi Arabia has promised to provide the newly formed government of unrest-hit Yemen with urgently needed aid, mainly petroleum products, Saba state news agency said on Tuesday.
King Abdullah has given instructions to provide "all the urgent needs of Yemen, especially petroleum products," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal was quoted as saying in a phone call with Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa.
The decision comes after the formation of a unity government on December 7, as stipulated in a Gulf-brokered accord that paves the way for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave office following months of deadly protests.
Saleh has handed over his constitutional powers to his deputy who asked the opposition to form a government.
The veteran leader, who has ruled Yemen with an iron fist for the past 33 years, will continue to serve as an honorary president until polls are held to elect his successor in February.
Nationwide demonstrations raging since January, combined with confrontations between government forces and Al-Qaeda militants, have exacerbated the dire economic conditions in the impoverished nation.
The southern Arabian Peninsula country produces 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil, of which it exports 105,000 bpd. But supplies have repeatedly been interrupted due to sabotage attacks.
SANAA — Saudi Arabia has promised to provide the newly formed government of unrest-hit Yemen with urgently needed aid, mainly petroleum products, Saba state news agency said on Tuesday.
King Abdullah has given instructions to provide "all the urgent needs of Yemen, especially petroleum products," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal was quoted as saying in a phone call with Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa.
The decision comes after the formation of a unity government on December 7, as stipulated in a Gulf-brokered accord that paves the way for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave office following months of deadly protests.
Saleh has handed over his constitutional powers to his deputy who asked the opposition to form a government.
The veteran leader, who has ruled Yemen with an iron fist for the past 33 years, will continue to serve as an honorary president until polls are held to elect his successor in February.
Nationwide demonstrations raging since January, combined with confrontations between government forces and Al-Qaeda militants, have exacerbated the dire economic conditions in the impoverished nation.
The southern Arabian Peninsula country produces 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil, of which it exports 105,000 bpd. But supplies have repeatedly been interrupted due to sabotage attacks.
Yemeni police arrest 6 al-Qaida militants
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press
December 13, 2011
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Six al-Qaida militants have been arrested while allegedly planning attacks on senior government officials as well as Arab and other foreign diplomatic missions, Yemen's official news agency said Tuesday.
SABA quoted an unnamed security official as saying that the leader of the group in the eastern Yemeni province of al-Jawf, Musaed Mohammed Ahmed al-Barbari, was among the six arrested.
It said police seized explosives meant for the attacks.
A U.S. airstrike in al-Jawf province on September 30 killed two U.S.-born al-Qaida activists — cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, an activist who edited al-Qaida's Internet magazine.
Al-Qaida-linked militants have taken advantage of months of internal political turmoil to solidify their positions in Yemen's south.
Also Tuesday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said that the new minister, Abdul-Qader Qahtan, has ordered the release of all protesters who were arrested in demonstrations that called for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
The exact number of the detainees was not known, but opposition groups have put it in the hundreds.
A national unity government took office in Yemen on Saturday, a step toward restoring order in a nation torn by nine months of protests. After months of delays, last month Saleh signed a deal to hand over power by Dec. 23.
In the southern city of Taiz, a security official said two protesters were wounded by police fire when thousands of demonstrators tried to reach a hotel where ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council and European ambassadors were holding talks on the situation in Taiz.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with security rules.
The protesters wanted the ambassadors to inspect the places they say were bombed by the military, visit hospitals to talk to wounded people and meet with families of the victims.
The ambassadors earlier met with the Taiz governor and military commanders and are planning talks with opposition groups.
December 13, 2011
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Six al-Qaida militants have been arrested while allegedly planning attacks on senior government officials as well as Arab and other foreign diplomatic missions, Yemen's official news agency said Tuesday.
SABA quoted an unnamed security official as saying that the leader of the group in the eastern Yemeni province of al-Jawf, Musaed Mohammed Ahmed al-Barbari, was among the six arrested.
It said police seized explosives meant for the attacks.
A U.S. airstrike in al-Jawf province on September 30 killed two U.S.-born al-Qaida activists — cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, an activist who edited al-Qaida's Internet magazine.
Al-Qaida-linked militants have taken advantage of months of internal political turmoil to solidify their positions in Yemen's south.
Also Tuesday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said that the new minister, Abdul-Qader Qahtan, has ordered the release of all protesters who were arrested in demonstrations that called for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
The exact number of the detainees was not known, but opposition groups have put it in the hundreds.
A national unity government took office in Yemen on Saturday, a step toward restoring order in a nation torn by nine months of protests. After months of delays, last month Saleh signed a deal to hand over power by Dec. 23.
In the southern city of Taiz, a security official said two protesters were wounded by police fire when thousands of demonstrators tried to reach a hotel where ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council and European ambassadors were holding talks on the situation in Taiz.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with security rules.
The protesters wanted the ambassadors to inspect the places they say were bombed by the military, visit hospitals to talk to wounded people and meet with families of the victims.
The ambassadors earlier met with the Taiz governor and military commanders and are planning talks with opposition groups.
Monday, December 12, 2011
UK - MFA - Foreign Secretary welcomes formation of new Government of Yemen
December 12, 2011
Foreign Secretary William Hague has welcomed the formation of the new Government of Yemen under the leadership of Vice-President Hadi.
Speaking today, he said:
“I welcome the formation of the new Government of Yemen under the leadership of Vice-President Hadi. This is another significant step forward in the implementation of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative.
“All political and military leaders in Yemen must now allow the new Government to tackle the desperate security and economic needs of its people. Today’s announcement offers a crucial opportunity to address these priorities as well as the ongoing threat posed by Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula. It is vital that the new government continues to adhere to the Gulf Cooperation Council plan. Our Embassy in Sana’a will be meeting Yemeni Ministers next week to explore what practical support we can offer”.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has welcomed the formation of the new Government of Yemen under the leadership of Vice-President Hadi.
Speaking today, he said:
“I welcome the formation of the new Government of Yemen under the leadership of Vice-President Hadi. This is another significant step forward in the implementation of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative.
“All political and military leaders in Yemen must now allow the new Government to tackle the desperate security and economic needs of its people. Today’s announcement offers a crucial opportunity to address these priorities as well as the ongoing threat posed by Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula. It is vital that the new government continues to adhere to the Gulf Cooperation Council plan. Our Embassy in Sana’a will be meeting Yemeni Ministers next week to explore what practical support we can offer”.
EU to increase humanitarian aid to Yemen
BRUSSELS, Dec 12 (KUNA) -- The European Union (EU) announced Monday that it is increasing its humanitarian funding to Yemen with an additional 5 million euro due to the persistent instability, drought and poverty.
The decision brings the total EU humanitarian funding to Yemen to almost 60 million euro. Kristalina Georgieva, EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, said in press statements that when she visited Yemen 11 months ago, the country was already on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.
"Since then the situation has worsened and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes, have too little to eat and are victims of violence," she said.
"At a critical moment for the country and its people we are boosting our relief aid and we will continue our support to the most vulnerable Yemeni families notably through the provision of food and health care," she added.
The additional European funding will help to provide assistance and protection to people affected by armed clashes and political turmoil as well as victims of the ongoing food crisis and refugees from the Horn of Africa, mostly from Somalia.
The decision brings the total EU humanitarian funding to Yemen to almost 60 million euro. Kristalina Georgieva, EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, said in press statements that when she visited Yemen 11 months ago, the country was already on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.
"Since then the situation has worsened and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes, have too little to eat and are victims of violence," she said.
"At a critical moment for the country and its people we are boosting our relief aid and we will continue our support to the most vulnerable Yemeni families notably through the provision of food and health care," she added.
The additional European funding will help to provide assistance and protection to people affected by armed clashes and political turmoil as well as victims of the ongoing food crisis and refugees from the Horn of Africa, mostly from Somalia.
Al-Qaeda Militants Escape In Yemen Jail Break
12/12/2011
(RTTNews) - At least 16 inmates, including 12 al-Qaeda militants, broke out of a prison in Yemen's southern city of Aden on Monday, reports quoting officials said.
They believed to have escaped through a six-meter tunnel dug from the yard of the port city's central prison.
Dozens of prisoners had escaped when al-Qaeda fighters stormed the central jail in Mukalla, another southern city, in June last.
The impoverished country in the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula is in turmoil facing insurgency in the north, a separatist movement in the south besides nationwide protests calling for political reforms and free elections. The city of Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, has been witnessing fierce fightings between the Army and al-Qaeda militants.
Yielding to international pressure, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled the country for 32 years, had agreed last month to hand over powers to his deputy and quit office within 90 days.
(RTTNews) - At least 16 inmates, including 12 al-Qaeda militants, broke out of a prison in Yemen's southern city of Aden on Monday, reports quoting officials said.
They believed to have escaped through a six-meter tunnel dug from the yard of the port city's central prison.
Dozens of prisoners had escaped when al-Qaeda fighters stormed the central jail in Mukalla, another southern city, in June last.
The impoverished country in the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula is in turmoil facing insurgency in the north, a separatist movement in the south besides nationwide protests calling for political reforms and free elections. The city of Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, has been witnessing fierce fightings between the Army and al-Qaeda militants.
Yielding to international pressure, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled the country for 32 years, had agreed last month to hand over powers to his deputy and quit office within 90 days.
U.N. tries to bolster Yemen peace, Qaeda inmates in jail
December 12, 2011
ADEN (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy behind a Yemen power transfer deal to end months of protest called on Monday for southern separatists and northern Shi'ite rebels to be included as a fragile peace appeared to be holding in the capital Sanaa.
The comments came during a visit to the southern port city of Aden, where at least 16 prisoners, including al Qaeda members, tunneled out on Monday in a setback to efforts to rein in Islamist militants.
A new government set up last week after President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed over power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi under the Gulf peace plan faces multiple challenges.
These include a wrecked economy, a resurgent separatist sentiment in the south and a rebellion by Houthi Shi'ite tribesmen in the northern province of Saada.
U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar, in Yemen to oversee implementation of the Gulf accord he orchestrated last month between Saleh and opposition leaders, on Sunday night met with southern leaders demanding secession from the country formed by the merger of South Yemen with the Saleh-ruled north in 1990.
Benomar said more work was needed for the peace accord to succeed. "It's essential that the political process include constituencies who were not directly involved in the negotiations that led to the agreement," he said.
"These include the Houthis, the southern movement and the youth. Serious effort will have to be made to address their grievances," he added.
Hundreds of people were at the airport in Aden when Benomar arrived, carrying signs reading, "Revolt, revolt, oh South!"
"We informed Benomar that the southern movement has nothing to do with the conflict in the north, but we are insistent on the demand to liberate land and people in the south," Abdelhamid Shukri, a leader of the Southern Hirak movement, told Reuters after the talks with Benomar.
PRISON BREAK
Islamist militants exploited months of protests against Saleh's 33-year rule to seize control of swathes of land in southern Yemen. This fanned fears in Saudi Arabia and Washington that the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda may gain a foothold near key oil shipping routes.
On Monday, at least 16 inmates, including members of al Qaeda, escaped from Aden central prison, a facility dating back to British rule which ended in 1967, through a tunnel they had dug underneath the compound.
A local source said eight among them belonged to al Qaeda, including some who had been convicted of bombing and assassination attacks on Yemeni security officials.
It was the second major jailbreak involving al Qaeda members since June, when dozens of al Qaeda militants escaped from a jail in another city, Mukalla.
Saleh's foes have accused him of deliberately letting Islamists in the south grow stronger to reinforce his argument that his rule alone can prevent the country sliding into chaos that would empower al Qaeda, whose Yemeni wing has planned abortive attacks on U.S. and other targets.
UNIVERSITY REOPENS
Despite the jail break, Yemenis have begun to see some fruits of the peace accord. A fragile calm appeared to be returning to the capital, which has been divided into three parts between Saleh loyalists and his opponents.
Witnesses said the University of Sanaa opened its doors on Monday for the first time since February, although students said many professors did not appear after dissident soldiers left the campus. Among the few who did, tensions between supporters and opponents of Saleh were evident.
"Most of the students are back to study, now that the unity government has been established, but we have a shortage of professors because many of them got contracts in Saudi Arabia," said Amjad, a student in the media department.
On Riyadh Street, the main commercial district in western Sanaa, shops opened for the first time since clashes between Saleh's forces and those allied with his arch-enemy, Ali Muhsin, a dissident general, began three months ago.
Armed soldiers remained behind sand barricades they had built to protect themselves but did not attack one another.
Despite their relief at the uncertain peace, shop owners worried about the lack of business in the city.
"We opened our shops despite our fear that clashes will resume... but there are no customers because people do not have money to buy things," local merchant Ahmed al-Umari said on Monday while sitting on a street corner outside his shop.
"If violence starts again I will escape to my country," said Ali, a merchant originally from East Africa. "I saw death during these clashes, there is no real safety here."
ADEN (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy behind a Yemen power transfer deal to end months of protest called on Monday for southern separatists and northern Shi'ite rebels to be included as a fragile peace appeared to be holding in the capital Sanaa.
The comments came during a visit to the southern port city of Aden, where at least 16 prisoners, including al Qaeda members, tunneled out on Monday in a setback to efforts to rein in Islamist militants.
A new government set up last week after President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed over power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi under the Gulf peace plan faces multiple challenges.
These include a wrecked economy, a resurgent separatist sentiment in the south and a rebellion by Houthi Shi'ite tribesmen in the northern province of Saada.
U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar, in Yemen to oversee implementation of the Gulf accord he orchestrated last month between Saleh and opposition leaders, on Sunday night met with southern leaders demanding secession from the country formed by the merger of South Yemen with the Saleh-ruled north in 1990.
Benomar said more work was needed for the peace accord to succeed. "It's essential that the political process include constituencies who were not directly involved in the negotiations that led to the agreement," he said.
"These include the Houthis, the southern movement and the youth. Serious effort will have to be made to address their grievances," he added.
Hundreds of people were at the airport in Aden when Benomar arrived, carrying signs reading, "Revolt, revolt, oh South!"
"We informed Benomar that the southern movement has nothing to do with the conflict in the north, but we are insistent on the demand to liberate land and people in the south," Abdelhamid Shukri, a leader of the Southern Hirak movement, told Reuters after the talks with Benomar.
PRISON BREAK
Islamist militants exploited months of protests against Saleh's 33-year rule to seize control of swathes of land in southern Yemen. This fanned fears in Saudi Arabia and Washington that the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda may gain a foothold near key oil shipping routes.
On Monday, at least 16 inmates, including members of al Qaeda, escaped from Aden central prison, a facility dating back to British rule which ended in 1967, through a tunnel they had dug underneath the compound.
A local source said eight among them belonged to al Qaeda, including some who had been convicted of bombing and assassination attacks on Yemeni security officials.
It was the second major jailbreak involving al Qaeda members since June, when dozens of al Qaeda militants escaped from a jail in another city, Mukalla.
Saleh's foes have accused him of deliberately letting Islamists in the south grow stronger to reinforce his argument that his rule alone can prevent the country sliding into chaos that would empower al Qaeda, whose Yemeni wing has planned abortive attacks on U.S. and other targets.
UNIVERSITY REOPENS
Despite the jail break, Yemenis have begun to see some fruits of the peace accord. A fragile calm appeared to be returning to the capital, which has been divided into three parts between Saleh loyalists and his opponents.
Witnesses said the University of Sanaa opened its doors on Monday for the first time since February, although students said many professors did not appear after dissident soldiers left the campus. Among the few who did, tensions between supporters and opponents of Saleh were evident.
"Most of the students are back to study, now that the unity government has been established, but we have a shortage of professors because many of them got contracts in Saudi Arabia," said Amjad, a student in the media department.
On Riyadh Street, the main commercial district in western Sanaa, shops opened for the first time since clashes between Saleh's forces and those allied with his arch-enemy, Ali Muhsin, a dissident general, began three months ago.
Armed soldiers remained behind sand barricades they had built to protect themselves but did not attack one another.
Despite their relief at the uncertain peace, shop owners worried about the lack of business in the city.
"We opened our shops despite our fear that clashes will resume... but there are no customers because people do not have money to buy things," local merchant Ahmed al-Umari said on Monday while sitting on a street corner outside his shop.
"If violence starts again I will escape to my country," said Ali, a merchant originally from East Africa. "I saw death during these clashes, there is no real safety here."
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Yemen’s heritage under threat: Zabid
Arie Amaya-Akkermans | 11 December 2011
Heir to an ancient culture spanning through several millennia and that goes back to the 3rd millennium BC, time by which it is believed to have been inhabited by a Semitic tribe – the Qahtani, modern Yemen is home to innumerable treasures of history and archaeology, most of which, due to the slow and early modernization of the state, are available to the visitor in plain view, even if not properly taken care of and subject to constant looting, expropriation, demolition and above all, oblivion.
Closed to the Western world for centuries and vastly unexplored, not only because of its difficult topography but also because of a turbulent history, Yemen is today known to be the place where the Arabian Peninsula and Africa met, and the home of the Sabean civilization, a rich and powerful culture distinct from that of mainland Arabia and that rapidly vanished after the arrival of Islam, leaving much to be imagined and some traces in the language and culture of the place that diverse as it is, can still be seen today.
Known to Greek geographer Ptolemy as “Arabia Felix” (Happy Arabia) because of the fertile land, moister climate and great wealth, there seems to be something of irony today in the term: After gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1918, it was ruled by a monarchy and then followed a brief revolution in the aftermath of which we have witnessed continuous armed strife, civil wars, secession, reunification, and in more recent times two equally unfortunate phenomena: The long-claimed status of the country as the home-base of Al-Qaeda and the Shia insurgency in Sa’adah governorate since 2004. From its ancient status as a place of great wealth, Yemen remains today one of the world’s poorest countries.
In 2011 the Yemeni uprising – part of the Arab Spring – the people demanded the resignation of long-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh and after the signature of a power transfer deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, there seem to be some steps pointing in the direction of a possible democratic future for the country.
Yesterday, long-time activist Tawakkul Karman received the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni and the first Arab woman to receive the prestigious award. As little attention as the Yemeni uprising received from the international community, it is possible that Karman’s status as a Nobel laureate will bring her at the forefront of the international scene and help her promote some positive change in the country.
Among the many things that need to be built or re-built and protected in Yemen is its ancient heritage. Three places in the country have been declared UNESCO world heritage sites: The Old Walled City of Shibam – known as the Manhattan of the desert – in 1982, the Old City of Sana’a in 1986 and more recently the historic town of Zabid in 1993.
Other than that, there are dozens of places of archeological interest spread all over the country and the now famous Socotra Archipelago, added by UNESCO in 2008 to the World Heritage Marine Program. The archipelago lies in the northwest Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden and comprises four islands and two rocky islets which appear as a prolongation of the Horn of Africa; famous for its rich biodiversity and unique flora and fauna.
The iconic Shibam is a 16th century city surrounded by a fortified wall and seems to be the oldest example of vertical construction out of the cliff edge of Wadi Hadramaut, from which the governorate where it is located, takes its name. Shibam has been ensured protection through the General Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities in Yemen (GOPHCY), anchored in the Antiquities Law of 1997 and the Building Law of 2002. A joint-project run since 2000 with the German GTZ has improved the small city’s overall condition.
The Old City of Sana’a – inhabited for over two millennia –on the other hand, even though it has received substantial investment from public and private sector and international organizations is rapidly becoming more and more vulnerable because of social mobility and threatened by modern hotels and telecommunication towers in the surrounding landscape. Other than that it has also been the site of constant gunfire in the course of the Yemeni uprising and has been susceptible to significant damage. The case of Sana’a has received little attention but the UNESCO has requested from the Yemeni government to avoid further deterioration since a great deal of the structures are still intact, however they might be under threat.
The last case and most recent addition to the list – Zabid – remains largely forgotten and of almost impossible resolution: Located on Yemen’s western coastal plain – the Tihama – and named after Wadi Zabid, it was of great importance in the Arab and Muslim worlds for many centuries because of its Islamic university. It was the capital of Yemen during the Rasulid period and its unique and colorful architecture is a mixture of Arabian, East African and Indian styles, nowhere else to be found.
With the establishment of Ottoman rule, Zabid was neglected when the seat of government moved to the capital, Sana’a. In spite of everything, the city enjoyed a reputation among religious scholars of both the Shafi and Hanafi schools of Islam, what came to an abrupt end in 1962 after the republican revolution when many of the religious institutions moved to the regional capital, Hodaida. Similar has been the fate of local commerce, partly due to bad planning in urban and agricultural policies that has significantly impoverished a once more or less wealthy region.
Traditional houses in Zabid evolved around a small courtyard – qabal – and built more and more rooms as were needed, around the “qabal”. They were built with bricks made from local clays and the water used in the indigo tanneries of the city was mixed with the clay, giving it a characteristic bluish color, adorning the facades with different patterns of bricks imitating Cairo arches, Indian floral patterns, African animals and also Arabic calligraphy. The external surface of the facades was covered with layers of lime, adding more and more layers through the years, giving the impression that the houses were part of the local nature.
This unique and particular style changed ironically right after it was declared a world heritage site (1993) and the city suffered a great loss of its historical identity when many emigrants returned during the Gulf War, causing population growth that in turn led to increasing demand of more and more housing. Cheaper materials were sought for and in the total absence of strict protection of the heritage; the distortion of the city began unmolested.
Even though it is the second Yemeni city in number of mosques after Sana’a – some of which are over 14 centuries old – and has about 4000 houses ranging between 200 and 600 years, it was estimated in 2009 by the General Authority of Protecting Historical Cities (GAPHC) that over 40% of the houses had suffered distortions from their original form with the widespread usage of modern materials, and over 60% of the original houses were abandoned or ruined.
Already in 2000 the city was placed in the list of endangered heritage sites and in 2007 a Mission Report of UNESCO’s World Heritage stated that Zabid was then at a critical point of no longer having world heritage value: The degradation of the city was described as on-going and an initial survey revealed than over 50% of the original historic buildings were already completely destroyed. The permanence of Zabid in the list, at least temporarily, was based on the fact that there are still many monuments and areas of national and international value in terms of world heritage. Needless to say, UNESCO consultants became enervated by the inability of the Yemeni authorities to preserve the site.
At the alarming news, a German-sponsored mission – following from the success of Shibam – was established for Zabid in 2009, in order to avoid the removal of the city from the list that would indefinitely harm Yemen’s place in the cultural and touristic map of the world, with devastating effects for an already impoverished economy and that would set the mood for the ultimate destruction of the entire site. According to its director, Omar Hallaj, most of the damage done to the site was reversible and some conservation plans could be put into action.
Two years later, the city is still protected as a world heritage site by UNESCO even though it retains the endangered site status and unless action is taken, it is very probable that it will be removed from the list in the very near future. After several months of unrest in the course of the Yemeni uprising, the plight of the city remains unheard, unemployment and poverty are even more widespread than before and a collapsing state infrastructure has made it impossible to follow up on the different initiatives taken in 2007 and 2009.
There might be still some chance for Zabid not to fall into oblivion if the newly appointed Yemeni authorities and the prominent activists do not forget the great potential that historical sites in Yemen have in bringing revenues from tourism and in establishing the future Yemen as a destination for historical tourism.
There are still dozens of cities and hundreds of scattered sites all over the Yemen, deserving articles of their own, to tell their stories and to call for action in order to prevent further damage. It would be at the same time realistic to think, that Shibam will continue to receive funding from Germany in purview of its apparent success and that any new initiatives would look at the Old City of Sana’a rather than other places.
That goes not without saying that it would be a great loss to the Middle East if such an important – albeit forgotten – place like Zabid would ultimately succumb to terminal destruction and end up having no world heritage value at all, as it has been the case with many sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. The number of issues to be tackled in a post-revolutionary Yemen scenario are too long to be listed in one article or in a dozen, and probably culture and heritage is not even near the top of the list; nevertheless it is important not to forget that heritage is not only a question of tourism, but also one of the most elementary forms of nation-building.
Heir to an ancient culture spanning through several millennia and that goes back to the 3rd millennium BC, time by which it is believed to have been inhabited by a Semitic tribe – the Qahtani, modern Yemen is home to innumerable treasures of history and archaeology, most of which, due to the slow and early modernization of the state, are available to the visitor in plain view, even if not properly taken care of and subject to constant looting, expropriation, demolition and above all, oblivion.
Closed to the Western world for centuries and vastly unexplored, not only because of its difficult topography but also because of a turbulent history, Yemen is today known to be the place where the Arabian Peninsula and Africa met, and the home of the Sabean civilization, a rich and powerful culture distinct from that of mainland Arabia and that rapidly vanished after the arrival of Islam, leaving much to be imagined and some traces in the language and culture of the place that diverse as it is, can still be seen today.
Known to Greek geographer Ptolemy as “Arabia Felix” (Happy Arabia) because of the fertile land, moister climate and great wealth, there seems to be something of irony today in the term: After gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1918, it was ruled by a monarchy and then followed a brief revolution in the aftermath of which we have witnessed continuous armed strife, civil wars, secession, reunification, and in more recent times two equally unfortunate phenomena: The long-claimed status of the country as the home-base of Al-Qaeda and the Shia insurgency in Sa’adah governorate since 2004. From its ancient status as a place of great wealth, Yemen remains today one of the world’s poorest countries.
In 2011 the Yemeni uprising – part of the Arab Spring – the people demanded the resignation of long-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh and after the signature of a power transfer deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, there seem to be some steps pointing in the direction of a possible democratic future for the country.
Yesterday, long-time activist Tawakkul Karman received the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni and the first Arab woman to receive the prestigious award. As little attention as the Yemeni uprising received from the international community, it is possible that Karman’s status as a Nobel laureate will bring her at the forefront of the international scene and help her promote some positive change in the country.
Among the many things that need to be built or re-built and protected in Yemen is its ancient heritage. Three places in the country have been declared UNESCO world heritage sites: The Old Walled City of Shibam – known as the Manhattan of the desert – in 1982, the Old City of Sana’a in 1986 and more recently the historic town of Zabid in 1993.
Other than that, there are dozens of places of archeological interest spread all over the country and the now famous Socotra Archipelago, added by UNESCO in 2008 to the World Heritage Marine Program. The archipelago lies in the northwest Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden and comprises four islands and two rocky islets which appear as a prolongation of the Horn of Africa; famous for its rich biodiversity and unique flora and fauna.
The iconic Shibam is a 16th century city surrounded by a fortified wall and seems to be the oldest example of vertical construction out of the cliff edge of Wadi Hadramaut, from which the governorate where it is located, takes its name. Shibam has been ensured protection through the General Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities in Yemen (GOPHCY), anchored in the Antiquities Law of 1997 and the Building Law of 2002. A joint-project run since 2000 with the German GTZ has improved the small city’s overall condition.
The Old City of Sana’a – inhabited for over two millennia –on the other hand, even though it has received substantial investment from public and private sector and international organizations is rapidly becoming more and more vulnerable because of social mobility and threatened by modern hotels and telecommunication towers in the surrounding landscape. Other than that it has also been the site of constant gunfire in the course of the Yemeni uprising and has been susceptible to significant damage. The case of Sana’a has received little attention but the UNESCO has requested from the Yemeni government to avoid further deterioration since a great deal of the structures are still intact, however they might be under threat.
The last case and most recent addition to the list – Zabid – remains largely forgotten and of almost impossible resolution: Located on Yemen’s western coastal plain – the Tihama – and named after Wadi Zabid, it was of great importance in the Arab and Muslim worlds for many centuries because of its Islamic university. It was the capital of Yemen during the Rasulid period and its unique and colorful architecture is a mixture of Arabian, East African and Indian styles, nowhere else to be found.
With the establishment of Ottoman rule, Zabid was neglected when the seat of government moved to the capital, Sana’a. In spite of everything, the city enjoyed a reputation among religious scholars of both the Shafi and Hanafi schools of Islam, what came to an abrupt end in 1962 after the republican revolution when many of the religious institutions moved to the regional capital, Hodaida. Similar has been the fate of local commerce, partly due to bad planning in urban and agricultural policies that has significantly impoverished a once more or less wealthy region.
Traditional houses in Zabid evolved around a small courtyard – qabal – and built more and more rooms as were needed, around the “qabal”. They were built with bricks made from local clays and the water used in the indigo tanneries of the city was mixed with the clay, giving it a characteristic bluish color, adorning the facades with different patterns of bricks imitating Cairo arches, Indian floral patterns, African animals and also Arabic calligraphy. The external surface of the facades was covered with layers of lime, adding more and more layers through the years, giving the impression that the houses were part of the local nature.
This unique and particular style changed ironically right after it was declared a world heritage site (1993) and the city suffered a great loss of its historical identity when many emigrants returned during the Gulf War, causing population growth that in turn led to increasing demand of more and more housing. Cheaper materials were sought for and in the total absence of strict protection of the heritage; the distortion of the city began unmolested.
Even though it is the second Yemeni city in number of mosques after Sana’a – some of which are over 14 centuries old – and has about 4000 houses ranging between 200 and 600 years, it was estimated in 2009 by the General Authority of Protecting Historical Cities (GAPHC) that over 40% of the houses had suffered distortions from their original form with the widespread usage of modern materials, and over 60% of the original houses were abandoned or ruined.
Already in 2000 the city was placed in the list of endangered heritage sites and in 2007 a Mission Report of UNESCO’s World Heritage stated that Zabid was then at a critical point of no longer having world heritage value: The degradation of the city was described as on-going and an initial survey revealed than over 50% of the original historic buildings were already completely destroyed. The permanence of Zabid in the list, at least temporarily, was based on the fact that there are still many monuments and areas of national and international value in terms of world heritage. Needless to say, UNESCO consultants became enervated by the inability of the Yemeni authorities to preserve the site.
At the alarming news, a German-sponsored mission – following from the success of Shibam – was established for Zabid in 2009, in order to avoid the removal of the city from the list that would indefinitely harm Yemen’s place in the cultural and touristic map of the world, with devastating effects for an already impoverished economy and that would set the mood for the ultimate destruction of the entire site. According to its director, Omar Hallaj, most of the damage done to the site was reversible and some conservation plans could be put into action.
Two years later, the city is still protected as a world heritage site by UNESCO even though it retains the endangered site status and unless action is taken, it is very probable that it will be removed from the list in the very near future. After several months of unrest in the course of the Yemeni uprising, the plight of the city remains unheard, unemployment and poverty are even more widespread than before and a collapsing state infrastructure has made it impossible to follow up on the different initiatives taken in 2007 and 2009.
There might be still some chance for Zabid not to fall into oblivion if the newly appointed Yemeni authorities and the prominent activists do not forget the great potential that historical sites in Yemen have in bringing revenues from tourism and in establishing the future Yemen as a destination for historical tourism.
There are still dozens of cities and hundreds of scattered sites all over the Yemen, deserving articles of their own, to tell their stories and to call for action in order to prevent further damage. It would be at the same time realistic to think, that Shibam will continue to receive funding from Germany in purview of its apparent success and that any new initiatives would look at the Old City of Sana’a rather than other places.
That goes not without saying that it would be a great loss to the Middle East if such an important – albeit forgotten – place like Zabid would ultimately succumb to terminal destruction and end up having no world heritage value at all, as it has been the case with many sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. The number of issues to be tackled in a post-revolutionary Yemen scenario are too long to be listed in one article or in a dozen, and probably culture and heritage is not even near the top of the list; nevertheless it is important not to forget that heritage is not only a question of tourism, but also one of the most elementary forms of nation-building.
AL welcomes forming Yemeni government
CAIRO , Dec. 11 (Saba) - Arab League (AL) welcomed on Sunday the formation of the new Yemeni government under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwa.
In a press release, AL Secretary General Nabil al-Araby called on all Yemeni sides to unify their visions about the requirements of the current stage, stressing the League's readiness to continue its support for the efforts of the Yemen's government to bring back the national reconciliation on the transitional phase's objectives.
Al-Araby said that the new government may be a beginning of a new phase, in which the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanism would be carried out to ensure peaceful transition of power and stop all acts of violence.
In a press release, AL Secretary General Nabil al-Araby called on all Yemeni sides to unify their visions about the requirements of the current stage, stressing the League's readiness to continue its support for the efforts of the Yemen's government to bring back the national reconciliation on the transitional phase's objectives.
Al-Araby said that the new government may be a beginning of a new phase, in which the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanism would be carried out to ensure peaceful transition of power and stop all acts of violence.
3 Women Accept Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo
December 11, 2011
Two women from Liberia, and one from Yemen who fought injustice, dictatorship, and sexual violence against women were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
At the ceremony in Norway's capital Oslo Saturday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni women's rights advocate Tawakkul Karman, accepted their prize and called on repressed women worldwide to rise up against male supremacy.
Sirleaf, Africa's first democratically elected female president has been widely applauded with her efforts to help her country emerge from a brutal civil war.
A 39-year-old activist, Gbowee, has been credited with campaigning for women's rights and against rape.
And journalist and activist Karman, is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and is credited for fighting for democracy and peace in her country, which has been wracked by demonstrations and violence this year.
The three women will share an award of nearly 1-and-a-half million US dollars.
Two women from Liberia, and one from Yemen who fought injustice, dictatorship, and sexual violence against women were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
At the ceremony in Norway's capital Oslo Saturday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni women's rights advocate Tawakkul Karman, accepted their prize and called on repressed women worldwide to rise up against male supremacy.
Sirleaf, Africa's first democratically elected female president has been widely applauded with her efforts to help her country emerge from a brutal civil war.
A 39-year-old activist, Gbowee, has been credited with campaigning for women's rights and against rape.
And journalist and activist Karman, is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and is credited for fighting for democracy and peace in her country, which has been wracked by demonstrations and violence this year.
The three women will share an award of nearly 1-and-a-half million US dollars.
In chaos, Qaeda recovers: Partisans of Sharia extend influence in Yemen
December 11, 2011
Group linked to Qaeda extends its influence in restive south, hopes to create Islamic emirate that reaches into north.
By Wissam Keyrouz - SANAA
A group linked to Al-Qaeda has profited from Yemen's political turmoil, extending its influence in the restive south and hopes to create an Islamic emirate that reaches into the north, residents and analysts said.
Militants from the group known as Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law) are already imposing Islamist law in a string of southern towns which they control, residents said.
"The members of Al-Qaeda move freely between the four (adjoining) provinces," said analyst Zeid al-Sallami, referring to Abyan and Shabwa in the south, the oil-rich Marib in the east Al-Jawf in the north.
Strengthened by its recent successes against government forces, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a fusion of the group's Yemeni and Saudi branches "is getting ready to proclaim an Islamic emirate in southern Yemen," he said.
The group may then try to extend its influence north, Sallami added.
Residents said that during 11 months of protests against Yemen's veteran leader President Ali Abdullah Saleh, fighters from the Al-Qaeda affiliated group filled the vacuum left by retreating government troops.
"After the outbreak of the 'Youth Revolution' the state's presence started to weaken and we were surprised by the withdrawal of the security services," said a local official from the city of Azzan in Shabwa province.
"Al-Qaeda, which already had a clandestine presence in our region, has come out into the light and taken control of the city and two other neighbouring localities," the official, who requested anonymity, added.
"Today, the Partisans of Sharia have taken the place of the state: they control the traffic, are repairing the hospital, and are applying the law," he said.
According to residents, the group's emir, or leader, in Azzan operates out of the police station and judges local disputes.
Those found guilty of theft face punishments that include the amputation of a hand, while those whose behaviour is deemed immoral are flogged, witnesses said.
Although the group applies draconian justice, Abdel Wahed, who asked that his family name be withheld, said the Partisans of Sharia are "trying as much as possible to avoid clashes with the residents and the tribes."
"They are even trying to woo them over," he said.
In addition to Azzan, the Islamist militants have also spread their control over the districts of Huta and Rawda in Shabwa province.
In the neighbouring Abyan province, Islamist fighters have also taken advantage of a weakening central authority, seizing control of several towns, including the provincial capital Zinjibar.
Residents reported that government troops withdrew from parts of the region even before the Islamist fighters arrived.
Some of Saleh's opponents accused the president of deliberately letting the Islamists extend their influence, so that he could present himself as a desperately needed bulwark against the growing Al-Qaeda threat.
But Saleh has now signed a deal securing his exit from power, set for February after 33 years in power, and a transitional national unity government was due to be sworn in on Saturday.
As Yemen strives for political stability, government troops continue to clash with Islamist fighters, but have so far been unable to take back full control of southern towns and cities seized by Al-Qaeda-linked groups.
Group linked to Qaeda extends its influence in restive south, hopes to create Islamic emirate that reaches into north.
By Wissam Keyrouz - SANAA
A group linked to Al-Qaeda has profited from Yemen's political turmoil, extending its influence in the restive south and hopes to create an Islamic emirate that reaches into the north, residents and analysts said.
Militants from the group known as Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law) are already imposing Islamist law in a string of southern towns which they control, residents said.
"The members of Al-Qaeda move freely between the four (adjoining) provinces," said analyst Zeid al-Sallami, referring to Abyan and Shabwa in the south, the oil-rich Marib in the east Al-Jawf in the north.
Strengthened by its recent successes against government forces, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a fusion of the group's Yemeni and Saudi branches "is getting ready to proclaim an Islamic emirate in southern Yemen," he said.
The group may then try to extend its influence north, Sallami added.
Residents said that during 11 months of protests against Yemen's veteran leader President Ali Abdullah Saleh, fighters from the Al-Qaeda affiliated group filled the vacuum left by retreating government troops.
"After the outbreak of the 'Youth Revolution' the state's presence started to weaken and we were surprised by the withdrawal of the security services," said a local official from the city of Azzan in Shabwa province.
"Al-Qaeda, which already had a clandestine presence in our region, has come out into the light and taken control of the city and two other neighbouring localities," the official, who requested anonymity, added.
"Today, the Partisans of Sharia have taken the place of the state: they control the traffic, are repairing the hospital, and are applying the law," he said.
According to residents, the group's emir, or leader, in Azzan operates out of the police station and judges local disputes.
Those found guilty of theft face punishments that include the amputation of a hand, while those whose behaviour is deemed immoral are flogged, witnesses said.
Although the group applies draconian justice, Abdel Wahed, who asked that his family name be withheld, said the Partisans of Sharia are "trying as much as possible to avoid clashes with the residents and the tribes."
"They are even trying to woo them over," he said.
In addition to Azzan, the Islamist militants have also spread their control over the districts of Huta and Rawda in Shabwa province.
In the neighbouring Abyan province, Islamist fighters have also taken advantage of a weakening central authority, seizing control of several towns, including the provincial capital Zinjibar.
Residents reported that government troops withdrew from parts of the region even before the Islamist fighters arrived.
Some of Saleh's opponents accused the president of deliberately letting the Islamists extend their influence, so that he could present himself as a desperately needed bulwark against the growing Al-Qaeda threat.
But Saleh has now signed a deal securing his exit from power, set for February after 33 years in power, and a transitional national unity government was due to be sworn in on Saturday.
As Yemen strives for political stability, government troops continue to clash with Islamist fighters, but have so far been unable to take back full control of southern towns and cities seized by Al-Qaeda-linked groups.
Demonstrations in Yemen demand trial for president
By Ahmed Al-Haj
Associated Press / December 11, 2011
SANAA, Yemen—Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis are demonstrating to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for his regime's deadly crackdown on months of protests.
Sunday's rallies are taking place in the capital, Sanaa, and other cities.
After months of pressure, Saleh signed a deal last month to step down as president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. New presidential elections are set for Feb. 21.
The deal has failed to end the protests, which began last February with calls for his ouster. Protesters also rejected a unity government formed over the weekend that includes some ministers from Saleh's administration.
In part of the capital where armed tribesmen have battled Saleh's forces, five explosions were heard early Sunday. A medic said two people were injured.
Associated Press / December 11, 2011
SANAA, Yemen—Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis are demonstrating to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for his regime's deadly crackdown on months of protests.
Sunday's rallies are taking place in the capital, Sanaa, and other cities.
After months of pressure, Saleh signed a deal last month to step down as president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. New presidential elections are set for Feb. 21.
The deal has failed to end the protests, which began last February with calls for his ouster. Protesters also rejected a unity government formed over the weekend that includes some ministers from Saleh's administration.
In part of the capital where armed tribesmen have battled Saleh's forces, five explosions were heard early Sunday. A medic said two people were injured.
Protesters flood Yemen’s streets again
Sana'a, Dec 11, 2011
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Yemen’s large cities demanding trial for the ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh who stepped down and scheduled new elections for February 21.
However, the protesters want him to face punishment for violent crackdowns on the opposition.
On December 10, Yemen’s new government of national unity led by Muhammd Bassandava was sworn in. Half of the cabinet is represented by the opposition while the rest of the ministers are Assad’s supporters.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Yemen’s large cities demanding trial for the ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh who stepped down and scheduled new elections for February 21.
However, the protesters want him to face punishment for violent crackdowns on the opposition.
On December 10, Yemen’s new government of national unity led by Muhammd Bassandava was sworn in. Half of the cabinet is represented by the opposition while the rest of the ministers are Assad’s supporters.
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