Yemen: Transition Needs Accountability, Security Reform, Says HRW

Eurasia Review

April 6, 2012

Yemen’s transition to a democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law is at risk unless the new government moves swiftly on security reform and accountability for past crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

The transition government of President Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi also should ensure that security forces on all sides release unlawfully detained prisoners and decommission child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said. The government should repeal provisions of an array of laws that restrict free expression, association, and assembly, and that discriminate or fail to protect women and girls. Human Rights Watch met in Sanaa with Yemeni government officials, political party leaders, and civil society members during a trip to Yemen from March 15 to April 3, 2012.

 “While Yemen’s new government has taken several promising steps, the repressive security apparatus of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh remains largely intact,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Civilian leaders reiterated that they cannot move forward on accountability and reform of the security services so long as Saleh continues to play a hand in directing various security forces there.”

The Human Rights Watch delegation, led by Whitson, met with members of the Yemeni cabinet and judiciary, including Prime Minister Mohammed Salim Basindwa; Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi; Interior Minister Abdul-Qader Qahtan; Human Rights Minister Huryah Mashhoor; Legal Affairs Minister Mohammed Ahmed al-Mikhlafi; the Supreme Judicial Council chairman, Esam Abdulwahab al-Samawi; Justice Minister Murshed Ali al-Arashani; and Prosecutor General Ali Ahmed al-Awash.

The delegation also met with intelligence and security chiefs, including Ali Mohamed al-Anisi, chairman of the National Security Bureau; Gen. Ahmed Ali Saleh, commander of the Republican Guard; Brig.-Gen. Yayha Saleh, chief of Central Security Forces; and Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, commander of the First Armored Division, which defected to the political opposition in March 2011. It also met with Hamid al-Ahmar, the head of a powerful clan whose fighters clashed with Saleh’s forces during the uprising.

Hadi, who was inaugurated in February after a yearlong uprising against Saleh, and the caretaker cabinet that took office in December have made progress in a number of areas, Human Rights Watch said. Positive steps include partially demilitarizing major cities and making a small number of leadership changes within the security units and the Supreme Judiciary Council, Yemen’s top judicial authority. The government also has pledged to draft a new constitution, commence a national dialogue, and reform electoral laws in advance of parliamentary elections in 2014.

The government is drafting a transitional justice law that would empower a truth commission to investigate past violations, including deadly attacks on largely peaceful protesters by government forces and gangs in 2011, and compensate victims. In addition, it is working on measures to increase participation of women in public life and has permitted the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to open an office in Yemen.

However, Human Rights Watch found that Sanaa and other cities remain divided into zones controlled by an array of military, paramilitary, and tribal forces, and that Hadi’s efforts to reorganize them under a central command have stalled. Moreover, with few exceptions, the leadership and membership of these units remain unchanged, despite documentation by Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups of serious violations by their forces, including the Central Security Services, the Republican Guard, and the Political Security and National Security agencies during the 2011 uprising and in previous years.

In addition, the country has yet to complete any investigations into the abuses committed by these forces, including their role in attacks on peaceful protests that killed at least 270 demonstrators and bystanders, the excessive use of force to police demonstrations, and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, and to hold those responsible to account.

Saleh’s relatives and other loyalists of the former president head security forces including the Republican Guard and Central Security, and the civilian leadership in the country has stated that it has no control over these forces.

The US Pentagon has stated that it plans to spend $75 million this year in military training and donations of equipment to Yemen to fight al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and affiliated armed Islamist groups, provided the new government shows sufficient progress toward reform. The US suspended $150 million in such assistance during the uprising last year. In the past, US security assistance has gone to individual units of the Yemeni security services, including the Yemeni Air Force and Central Security’s Counterterrorism Unit.

Human Rights Watch called for the United States and other donors to ensure that they do not provide military aid to individual units of the security services that have been implicated in serious abuses and where there have been no clear steps to ensure accountability for these abuses.

President Hadi dismisses air force commander

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A: April 6, 2012- Yemen's new President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi dismissed on Friday Maj. Gen. Mohammed Saleh, air force commander, the half brother of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh after nearly three months of daily protests by Yemeni low-ranking airmen demanding the immediate departure of Mohammed Saleh , who has held his post for more than 20 years.

On the other hand, president Hadi appointed new governors for Taiz, Abyan, Mareh, and Hajeh provinces.

Republican decree No. (41) for 2012 appointing the following:

Shawki Hail Said as a governor for Taiz province instead of Hamoud al-Sowfi.

Jamal Nasser Al-Akel as a governor for Abyan province instead of Hossen Saleh Al-Zaweri.

Soultan Mabkhot al-Arada as a governor for Mareb province instead of Naji Ali al-Zaedi.

Ali bin Ali al-Qessi as a governor for Hajeh province.

Suicide bombers die in blast at Yemeni intelligence agency

April 6, 2012

Two suspected Al-Qaeda suicide bombers died in Yemen when their payload exploded short of their intended target on Friday, April 6 the defense ministry said as it reported a government offensive killed over 100 militants in two days, AFP reported.

The ministry said on its news website 26sep.net that the bomb detonated before the bombers could reach the branch of the government intelligence agency in the main southern city of Aden.

Witnesses said one of the two men was a civilian, and a security official told AFP that the bomb went off outside the entrance gate to the building.

"Two suicide bombers belonging to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network were killed when their motorbike exploded... early Friday in Mansura" neighborhood, 26sep.net reported.

"The bomb-laden motorbike exploded with the two suicide bombers whose bodies were left in pieces before they managed to carry out their suicide attack that targeted a branch of the political security services in Mansura," it quoted a security official as saying. No other casualties were reported.

The ministry said the security services had identified one of the two men as Fawaz al-Subaihi, who lived in the neighborhood, while an investigation was ongoing to identify the second.

A witness in Mansura, who identified Subaihi from his remains, told AFP that the man owned a shop in the area and had "no links to Al-Qaeda." The same witness said that the other man's body was "torn to pieces."

Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, the self-proclaimed Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), has exploited the decline in central government control that accompanied Arab Spring-inspired protests that eventually forced president Ali Abdullah Saleh to cede power.

But suicide attacks targeting security forces have intensified since his successor, Abdrabuh Mandur Hadi, took office in February and vowed to continue the U.S.-backed fight against Al-Qaeda.

Interpol-wanted fugitive arrested in Yemen

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A: April 5, 2012- The Security Authorities in the capital Sana'a arrested on Thursday evening a person based on an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).

The Information Center in the Interior Ministry said that the security authorities have apprehended D. Naldon, 32, who is wanted for the American security authorities for a murder crime.

The American citizen was working in the region as a teacher in a language institute.

No more details were reported.

Yemen: Al-Qaida’s new haven

April 5, 2012

U.S. drone attacks may be helping the terrorist group gain sympathy and recruits in southern Yemen

By Casey Coombs

ABYAN PROVINCE, Yemen — After a brief respite in the air assault on al-Qaida militants in Yemen, Sanaa and Washington’s warplanes are again scrambling.

Global PostA five-day bombing campaign mid-March, for instance, killed at least 60 militants across central and southern parts of the country. Most of the strikes — launched from warships, jets and drones — occurred in Yemen’s Abyan Province, a region on the Gulf of Aden that has become the latest and perhaps most important front in the war against al-Qaida.

Here, al-Qaida’s ranks have swelled in the last year, and at least five cities are now controlled by the terrorist group.

Despite the hefty death toll, some think the military assault might be aiding the terror group more than hurting it, sewing sympathy for the militants and anger toward the Americans.

Yemenis who live in these poverty-stricken areas, long neglected by the central government, said that with al-Qaida now governing large parts of the region, some stability has finally arrived.

One local merchant, when asked by GlobalPost what he thought of the new government, said, “Very, very good. Very peaceful. I go to prayer knowing my store is safe. I leave the door unlocked.”

Gregory Johnsen, an expert on Yemen at Princeton University, said the renewed military operations could have unintended consequences. He said the U.S. should focus more on strengthening Yemen’s central government than its military.

 “I think such an approach actually does more to exacerbate the problem of al-Qaida in Yemen than it does to solve it,” he said. “The US counterterrorism strategy of air and drone strikes has also killed dozens of innocent civilians, which has further inflamed public opinion in Yemen and driven even more men into the arms of al-Qaida.”

Abyan has suffered from high unemployment, extreme poverty and rampant illiteracy rates, creating an environment in which extremist groups flourished.

Jaar, the first city in Abyan captured by al-Qaida last year, after nationwide protests shattered Yemen’s divided government, has become the main breeding ground for al-Qaida. It is now governed in a style reminiscent of how the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.

It’s also one of the top military targets of U.S.-Yemeni forces.

In a rare visit by a foreign journalist to Jaar on March 5 — the day after militants stormed a Yemeni base outside Zinjibar, killing more than 150 Yemeni soldiers and capturing 73 more — GlobalPost witnessed civilian life in the bombed out city.

At first glance, Jaar resembles most rural Yemeni towns, struggling after a year of uprisings choked off what few services a corrupt state government was willing to provide. Donkey carts wind through desolate streets piled with trash. Feral cats and dogs root through the garbage. In the shade of bullet-pocked storefronts and vacant buildings, haggard, bearded men drink tea and chew qat — a leafy stimulant widely used in the region.

But in one important way Jaar is different. The black-and-white flag of al-Qaida flies at each entrance to the city, flapping behind Kalishnakov- and grenade-strapped soldiers on motorcycles. Other al-Qaida soldiers patrol the city’s streets in army trucks pillaged from the Yemeni military weeks earlier.

Townspeople said al-Qaida provided them with reliable services, such as electricity, food, water and even healthcare, though officials would not allow GlobalPost entry into the town’s only hospital, one wing of which had been shelled in recent months.

While speaking to merchants in Jaar’s central market, an elderly man with a long red beard asked GlobalPost, “Why American drones?” The sound of the drones buzzing overhead was a constant reminder, they said, of the strikes that could happen at any time.

Others in the region were less supportive of al-Qaida. Some said the group was simply exploiting Jaar’s destitute masses, who are clinging to any form of stability during a time of conflict and uncertainty.

For the United States, al-Qaida’s ability to control Jaar is a matter of national security and it’s military, with the cooperation of Yemen’s central government and national army, has responded in force.

Since December 2009, after a failed plan to detonate a bomb on Northwest flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas day was traced back to Yemen, the US military and the CIA are known to have carried out at least 21 missile strikes here.

The bulk of those strikes occurred in the wake of al-Qaida’s dramatic May 2011 takeover of Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan, 35 miles from Aden, a major port city.

Within seven months of taking Zinjibar, militants captured three more cities — Shaqra, Rawdah and Azzan — bringing the total number of al-Qaida-style Islamic emirates to five and setting the stage for the now ramped up airstrikes. CIA Director David Petraeus said in September 2011 that the area had become “the most dangerous regional node in the global jihad.”

Al-Qaida has responded with its own bombing campaigns.

Following the Feb. 25 swearing-in of President Abd Rabbo Monsour Hadi, who had replaced the 34-year rule of Ali Abudullah Saleh after a referendum-like vote, al-Qaida unleashed a string of bomb attacks across the country.

Hadi is tasked with leading the country through two years of democratic reforms, outlined in a Gulf Cooperation Council deal that eased the unpopular Saleh out of office. The controversial deal granted Saleh immunity for crimes he had committed against peaceful protesters at the height of Yemen’s pro-democracy movement.

The world’s No. 1 oil exporter and Yemen’s neighbor to the north, Saudi Arabia, spearheaded the pact with the backing of Washington and the United Nations Security Council.

The three major powers brokered the agreement to calm anti-Saleh protesters and create an environment in which Sanaa’s divided government could reassert control over its southern territories.

Local al-Qaida leaders rejected the power transfer deal outright.

“America aims to steal the fruits of the revolution,” read a statement translated by SITE intelligence group, which was released after Hadi’s inauguration. “America’s project in Yemen will never succeed . . . our operations will reach the American project and its tools . . . wherever they are.”

In his first public statement on the inherited terrorist threat in March, Yemen’s new president rebuked al-Qaida.

 “We are unwaveringly resolved to keep up the fight against al-Qaida and we will chase them to every cache until they are eradicated, no matter what the cost is going to be,” Hadi said, to the delight of his U.S. counterterrorism partners.

But Hadi is facing many more problems than just a resurgent al-Qaida. He is under mounting pressure to reform a military whose highest echelons remain largely in the hands of the former president’s family. And he is charged with turning around a broken economy and securing relief for a worsening famine amid rising food prices, as well as tackling separatist movements in the north and south that are unrelated to the conflict with al-Qaida.

 “At this point,” Johnsen said, “it looks as though Yemen is going to be a broken and weak state where Islamist groups are able to thrive for some time to come. The US can either double-down on its current policy of bombing in the hopes al-Qaida doesn’t attack it first, or the U.S. can completely revise its approach to Yemen and come up with a policy, which would include a strong counterterrorism component that would deal with all of Yemen’s problems — not just al-Qaida.”

101 people killed and wounded over last month

By Fatik al-Rodaini

SANA'A, April 5, 2012- At least 101 people, including children and women, were accidentally killed and wounded throughout playing with guns across Yemen in March.

Yemen's Interior Ministry said in a report posted on its website that 101 people, including 27 children and 6 women, were killed and wounded throughout playing with guns.

The report mentioned that at least 21 people were killed among them 10 children while 80 others were wounded in similar accidents among them 17 children and 6 women.

According to the ministry most of the incidents happened in 16 provinces across the country with 18 incidents in the capital Sana'a, 14 in Dhamar, 10 in Sa'ada, 7 in Ameran, 6 in Taiz, 5 in Aden and Ibb, 4 in Lahj and Sahbowa provinces, while the other incidents happened in the rest of Yemen's provinces.

Recent studies proved that weapons proliferation had drastically increased over the past year in direct connection with the revolution and the need civilians felt to protect their families.

Despite many positive steps which were taken by the Yemeni government in 2007 to curtail weapon-carrying in urban areas, the past two years pretty much rendered all efforts fruitless.

Social violence in the impoverished Republic is now exacerbated by the widespread ownership of weapons.

Although some statistics claim that there are an estimated 60 million weapons in Yemen a more recent and more accurate report cited a figure closer to 11 million in a country of 23 million, which in any case make the weapon per inhabitant ratio still one of the highest in the world.

2,000 Yemenis die every year in ethnic conflicts, according to government figures and gun-related crime is on the increase.

Many Yemeni children who accidentally killed their loved ones while playing with guns

On the other hand, Yemen's Interior Ministry has said that approximately 235 people committed suicide, including 24 children in a decline of 19.6 percent when comparing with 2010 when 292 committed suicide.

According to the ministry, 36 people were committed suicide in the capital Sana'a, 22 people in Taizi, 22 in Ibb and the rest of the figure was in other governorates.

Analysts say that most people commit suicide as a result of the poverty and unemployment in Yemen that faces sever hunger.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) , five million Yemenis are moderately food insecure and at risk of experiencing further food shortages.

The protests that hit Yemeni in 2011 demanding the ouster of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh sharply pushed up prices. The cost of most essential commodities has risen by 50 percent.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last year that Statistics indicate that one in three people are food insecure and under-nourished, and more than 50 percent of children are stunted.

A Yemeni economist, Mohammad Al-Afandi, had revealed that poverty in Yemen has raised to 70 percent and unemployment to 40 percent, pointing out the GDP growth rate declined to approximately zero and the reserves of foreign currency fell to $ 4.5 billion.

Yemen remains the poorest country in the Arab world, with a per-capita income of $1,300; almost half of the population lives on less than $2 a day.Yemeni economists expect that the donor conference on Yemen to be held in March in Riyadh, would enable the government overcome economic challenges.