Will Yemen's woes ever cease?

Medical check-ups delayed yet again the final solution for the 10-month long political crisis of Yemen, bemoans Nasser Arrabyee

November 3, 2011

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was supposed to authorise his deputy to sign a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-brokered deal and implement all its steps until a new president is elected. However, Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi last week flew to the United States for necessary medical checks.

And so did presidential political advisor Abdel-Karim Al-Eryani, who is the chief negotiator with the opposition forces about the GCC deal. And so UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Bin Omar consequently postponed his trip to Yemen.

Both Hadi and Al-Eryani are scheduled to return to Sanaa on the weekend. According to reliable sources in government and opposition, the UN envoy will attend the final consultations with both sides before the GCC accord is signed by Hadi.

Some of the opposition politicians confirmed Tuesday that they were informed by the US ambassador that Saleh had agreed to authorise his deputy to act for him until a new president is elected within three months after the GCC deal is signed.

The authorisation decree stipulates that Saleh will remain president until a new president is elected and that the authorised deputy should not remove him. This is a kind of guarantee.

Immediately, after the GCC deal is signed by Hadi, and the implementation mechanism is approved by both sides, the UN Security Council would issue a resolution binding all conflicting parties to implement the mechanism step by step and UN envoy Bin Omar would be monitoring all steps and performance of all parties.

After being authorised by President Saleh, Hadi would entrust someone nominated by the opposition to form a national unity government from the opposition coalition and the ruling party.

The opposition-chaired government would form a military and security committee chaired by Hadi, to control the army and security. The son and three nephews of President Saleh will remain in their positions as commanders in army and security until the end of the transitional period.

Then, the vice president would call for presidential elections within three month. Hadi himself would be the candidate of both the ruling party and the opposition as a man of national consensus.

Hadi would be elected as a transitional president for two years during which all political and constitutional issues are supposed to be solved.

However, the situation on the ground remains tense and escalation continues. The protesters refuse the GCC deal and insist on the ouster of Saleh without conditions, despite the fact that the opposition parties are involved in the GCC deal and negotiations with the ruling party.

The armed opposition tribesmen supported by rebel troops are still in almost daily confrontation with the government forces inside the capital and other places.

Meanwhile, the Nobel prize awarded to Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman this year along with two Liberian women has done little to calm the waters. The Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakul Karman described Saleh as a traitor, even as she was chastised by a fundamentalist cleric: "Karman was given the prize of Jews and Christians as a reward for her major treason of Islam, the state and the people," said Salafi cleric Mohamed Al-Emam.

"This woman corrupted the women and men, and she and those like her need to repent to Allah Almighty before they die," said Al-Emam in his lecture. Al-Emam heads one of the largest Salafi schools in Yemen.

In addition to his school, located in Mabar, some 70km south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, there are about 4,000 other similar Salafi schools scattered all over the country. Gulf Salafi businessmen and other religious groups, especially from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, financially and logistically support these schools.

"This woman called for rebellion against Allah, and his Messenger and hijab, and this a criminal call," said the Salafi cleric who has tens of thousands of followers in Yemen. Al-Emam also blasted Karman's party, the Islamist party Islah, and called on its leaders to repent as well for dealing with the enemies, in a clear reference to Americans and Westerners in general.

So Yemeni's cliff-hanging revolution remains temporarily in suspension, with Karman and Al-Emam keeping protesters warm with their fiery words.

Source: Ahram Online

Yemen: Protests And Victims In Two Main Cities As Talks Continue

Written by: MISNA

November 3, 2011

Demonstrations and relative calm in Sana’a, protests and violent clashes in Taiz: the protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen’s two main cities continue.

MISNA sources contacted in Sana’a said that an anti-government demonstration is underway since this morning in the capital, but without the violence that erupted until mid October. However, three people were killed yesterday in clashes between the armed forces and combatants of the Sheikh Sadiq Al Ahmar.

In Taiz, protesters managed to seize control of some government buildings and banks, forcing security forces to intervene, according to the Defence ministry. The local media reports that the clashes left 5 dead and an unspecified number injured, though the toll is difficult to verify.

Meanwhile, negotiations proceed between the government and opposition representatives, who in the past days met with the US and other European Ambassadors. The focus of the talks was the accord proposed by the Gulf cooperation council that is mediating in the crisis, which foresees an end to the presidency of Saleh, in power for 33 years.

Yemeni Protester Clash With Republican Guard Leaves 7 Dead

November 02, 2011

By Mohammed Hatem

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Clashes in the Yemeni city of Taiz left seven people dead, as hundreds of thousands gathered in the capital, Sana’a, to urge the International Criminal Court to try President Ali Abdullah Saleh and members of his government.

The fighting between armed protesters and members of the Republian Guard in Taiz injured 21 people, activist Ahmed al- Wafi said today by phone from the southern city. Government forces shelled several areas with mortars and tanks, including a protest camp dubbed “Freedom Square,” he said.

The crowds in Sana’a demanded the release of activists who have been arrested or have gone missing since protests began in January. Hundreds of people have been detained in government crackdowns on protests this year, Abdulreman Barman, coordinator of the National Organization for Defending of Rights and Freedoms, said in an interview today.

Demonstrations began in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, at the end of January, inspired by revolts that ousted the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt. They deepened as military and tribal leaders joined the opposition. Efforts by the Gulf Cooperation Council to broker a power-transfer agreement have failed.

Saleh returned to Yemen on Sept. 23 after three months in Saudi Arabia, where he received medical treatment following a rocket attack in the capital.

Breakthrough on Yemen power transfer near - EU envoy

Wed Nov 2, 2011
SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has moved a step closer to handing power to his deputy by accepting a U.N. formula to ease a transition and end an uprising against his rule, the EU envoy to Yemen was quoted by the state news agency Saba as saying.
Heavy fighting between Saleh's supporters and opponents spread through Yemen's third-largest city of Taiz, some 200 km (120 miles) south of the capital Sanaa, killing four people and wounding 40 on Wednesday, a doctor there said.
Saleh, 69 and in power for 33 years, has three times agreed to give up power, only to pull out at the last minute, defying hostile demonstrations inspired by protests across the Arab world.
Michele Cervone d'Urso, the European Union resident ambassador, was quoted by Saba as saying he believed the Yemeni leader had now accepted a U.N. transition plan.
"We are convinced that we are on the verge of reaching an agreement soon and above all else the matter calls for political commitment. We hope that Eid al-Adha (Muslim holiday) will be an occasion to announce to Yemen and the world that Yemen has passed towards a new stage," d'Urso told Saba.
D'Urso asked the opposition to return home before the holiday next week, so that a deal could be finalised. Opposition leaders are in Kuwait to drum up support for their movement.
A spokesman for a Yemeni opposition council treated the development with caution. "We heard good things from the diplomats, but actions speak louder than words. We are not optimistic right but if the Gulf initiative is signed we will be more optimistic," said Houriya Mashhur.
Ruling Yemen since 1978 through a civil war and rebel movements, Saleh has clung to power despite an assassination attempt that sent him abroad for three months for medical care, breakaway generals and nine months of street protests.
Neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia and the international community fear growing lawlessness in Yemen is giving al Qaeda's regional wing scope to plan and potentially launch attacks in the region and beyond.
In Taiz, fighting raged between government troops and dissident army units on the city's main street. A local source said a bank had been attacked and looting had broken out.
SMALL STEPS
There was no immediate Yemeni government reaction on d'Urso's remarks. But there have been indications of progress.
Deputy information minister Abdo al-Janadi said on Sunday the ruling party was close to announcing Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi would succeed Saleh.
He said Hadi would return from the United States on Thursday to wind up dialogue with the opposition. He added: "He will sign the Gulf initiative and the mechanism for its operation in the near future."
U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar visited Yemen in September to try to devise a way of implementing a Gulf-brokered power handover and overcome political deadlock that has paralysed the Arabian Peninsula state and pushed it to the verge of civil war.
But he left empty-handed after two weeks of shuttle diplomacy between the opposition and the ruling party.
Benomar's plan requires Saleh to shift power to Hadi ahead of an early presidential election, which would be held within two to three months. In the meantime, the opposition would form a government with the ruling party and a body would be set up to restructure the armed forces.
But Yemeni protest leader Tawakul Karman, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with two Liberian women last month said the deals on the table offered too little, too late.
"It is disgraceful that the few who claim to show an interest in the future of Yemen should be satisfied with proposing initiatives, the most outrageous of which is to give complete immunity to Saleh, his sons and senior aides from any accountability for the crimes they have committed, including the killing of hundreds of revolutionaries," she wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

The world must not forsake Yemen's struggle for freedom

Yemenis are ready to pay the ultimate price to take on a brutal dictator. Yet the UN can't even bring itself to condemn him

Tawakkol Karman

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 November 2011 20

We in Yemen are no less thirsty for freedom and dignity than our brothers and sisters in Tunis. After the fall of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, our own vigils took a new direction when thousands of young people went on to the streets. They reached their climax with the fall of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, when millions of Yemenis called for the departure of the dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Many in the Arab world were worried about our uprising. Everyone knew that the country is awash with weapons. It was feared that the revolution would descend into violence and distort the image of the other Arab uprisings.

But the Yemeni revolution surprised everyone with its astonishingly peaceful nature. This peacefulness exposed the unrestrained brutality of the regime toward the revolutionaries. They met the bullets of the regime with bare chests, preferring to guard their revolution rather than be lured into the quagmire of violence. A thousand martyrs fell and thousands more were injured, yet not one revolutionary raised a weapon in the face of the butchers.

What is truly regrettable, though, is that the world has not shown the least interest in what the Saleh regime does with Yemen and its revolutionaries. Despite this huge number of martyrs, despite the transformation of the country into a huge prison where citizens struggle to get even a drink of water for their children, and despite the use of heavy weapons against civilians, Saleh's regime did not even receive a token verbal condemnation from the United Nations or other world governments – despite our calls to impose sanctions. Yet harsh sanctions were imposed on other regimes that committed lesser crimes.

We in Yemen look forward to a clear stand from the UN, world governments and civil society organisations in condemning the violence of Saleh's regime. We would like to see definite measures to deter him from the violence he is perpetrating against his people and halt the actions of security forces that are led by his son and nephews. They have demonstrated in the clearest manner how instruments of the state can be commandeered in the interests of an individual.

Today we need a concerted international effort that would result in freezing the assets of the ruling family, which are estimated at $10bn. Saleh and his relatives plundered the public coffers during the last three decades of his abuse of power.

And there must be no let-up in the pursuit of members of Saleh's regime for the crimes they have committed against peaceful demonstrators, which can be classified as crimes against humanity. It is the duty of the European commission and member states of the European Union to uphold the principles of human rights and the rejection of corruption.

In the same vein, I call upon them to show similar concern for the suffering of the revolutionaries in Syria, where the machinery of President Bashar al-Assad's regime produces a daily harvest of dead and wounded. This is a moment of truth for the values of freedom about which our region has heard so much from the international community, without having access to them.

Now our peoples have awakened to break the chains and seize our destinies. The least we desire from the institutions of the free world, and especially the US and the countries of the European Union, is that they appreciate our struggle for freedom. We want them to discharge their responsibilities towards vulnerable people and support them in the face of the cruelty of rulers who continue to kill.

It is disgraceful that the few who claim to show an interest in the future of Yemen should be satisfied with proposing initiatives, the most outrageous of which is to give complete immunity to Saleh, his sons and senior aides from any accountability for the crimes they have committed, including the killing of hundreds of revolutionaries.

But perhaps the most basic error of the international community is to describe what is happening in Yemen as a political crisis and not a revolution. The Yemenis insist it is – not by words only, but with their blood, which the regime continues to shed.

In my capacity as a leader of the popular and youth revolution in Yemen, I reaffirm our adherence to the peaceful nature of our struggle until the end. At the same time, I ardently call upon the free people of the world to examine what is happening in my country and Syria especially, and to honour their responsibilities to confront rulers who do not hesitate to carry out the most heinous crimes against people who have the temerity to demand their natural rights to freedom and dignity.

Four killed in latest security crackdown in Yemen, opposition says

Oct 30, 2011

Sana'a - Four people were killed in overnight attacks by troops in Yemen's two largest cities, opposition sources said on Sunday.

Three children were killed when troops shelled a fuel station in the Arhab region, north of the capital Sana'a. Around a dozen people were injured in the attack.

Security crackdowns on villages that have declared support for the anti-government uprising have taken place frequently. Protests are demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule.

In the city of Taiz in the south, a 16-year-old boy was killed late Saturday by sniper fire, the opposition Maareb press website reported.

According to government figures, at least 1,480 people were killed between the start of protests in February and the end of September.

Five Qaeda suspects held in south Yemen after killing

29 October 2011

Aden. Yemeni police arrested five suspects after the killing of a top security agent in a car bombing blamed on Al-Qaeda in the southern city of Aden, a source close to the security services said Saturday, AFP reports.

"The five suspects were arrested shortly after the assassination of Colonel Ali al-Hajji, head of an anti-terrorist unit in Aden, and are being questioned" on their role in the attack, the source said.

He said they were found in a nearby vehicle with a remote control device when the officer was blown up in his car on Friday in Al-Arish district near Aden airport, in an attack which also wounded two of his children.

A police source told AFP that four members of the security forces were wounded in another bomb attack late on Friday on a checkpoint near a police station in Aden.

Vice-President Hadi Leaves Yemen for the US

Sana'a, October 29, 2011

Vice-president Abdu Rabbu Mansoor Hadi left Yemen for the United States of America on Friday, making a stop in Dubai where he is rumored to stay for a day or so.

The State news agency SABA, announced that Hadi was travelling for medical reasons as he had scheduled a routine medical check-up in the US, taking place at one of Cleveland Hospitals.

The agency did not specify however whether Hadi was also planning to use the trip to hold talks with officials and diplomats regarding the recently approved UN resolution against President Saleh.

Interestingly enough, Hadi's trip to the US coincide with the arrival in Yemen of UN envoy Benomar and GCC secretary General al-Zayani, further delaying any hope of a quick transition of power since its main party will not be present.

Under the terms of the GCC brokered proposal, President Saleh would transfer his power to VP Hadi before announcing his official resignation.