Bab al-Yemen

New study opportunities for Yemenis in Germany

2012-02-02T15:18:00.003+01:00

There are several calls open to Yemenis from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for master degrees in Germany (in cooperation with universities in Egpyt and Jordan). Note that you need work experience for all four master courses. Also note that the deadline for the second call is already on February 15!

new campus of Sanaa University (© M. Heinze)

1. DAAD Scholarships German-Arab Master’s Course „Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)“, Cologne University of Applied Sciences / University of Jordan

This master’s course is designed with an interdisciplinary and integrative approach that goes beyond addressing problems related to engineering, economic and environmental policy issues. The economic, ecological and regulatory policy dimensions of the water sector (e.g., quality control, distribution, treatment and recycling, national, cross-border and sustainable use, legal aspects etc.) are reflected in the curriculum along with the socio-cultural aspects. The programme stretches over three semesters: two semesters in Amman/Arab region and one semester in Cologne. Moreover, the first semester includes an German or Arabic language course and modules in intercultural training.

The target group are young professionals active in water-related fields, with practical work experience. By working in small mixed groups, students are trained in intercultural communication and management skills, so that as graduates they will be in a position to cooperate on international projects in areas such as development cooperation or scientific- technological cooperation. English is the language of instruction and applications are open to participants from the following countries: Germany, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.

The complete application must be submitted by March 3, 2012. Further information here.

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2. DAAD Scholarships for German-Arab Master’s Course “Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency for the MENA Region (REMENA)”, University of Kassel / Cairo University

This master’s course is designed with an interdisciplinary and integrative approach that goes beyond addressing problems related to the natural and environmental sciences. The economic, ecological and regulatory policy dimensions of the energy sector (e.g., national and international energy and climate policies, energy management legislation, etc.) are reflected in the curriculum along with the socio-cultural aspects. The course stretches over 20 months: two phases in Cairo/ the Arab region and one phase in Kassel.

The target group are young professionals from the field of Renewable Energies, with practical work experience. By working in small mixed groups, students are trained in intercultural communication and management skills, so that as graduates they will be in a position to cooperate on international projects in areas such as development cooperation or scientific-technological cooperation. English is the language of instruction and applications are open to participants from the following countries: Germany, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.

The complete application must be submitted by February 15, 2012. Further information here.

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3. DAAD Scholarships for the German-Arab Master’s Course “Economic Change in the Arab Region (ECAR)”, Philipps University Marburg

This master’s course pursues two goals: on one hand, it further educates Arabic economists in their field under special consideration of the economic reform needs in their partner region. On the other hand, German students who have already completed a first formal training in economics will simultaneously be educated as economic experts for the region, and will familiarize themselves with the conditions of economic transactions in the Arabic cultural area. The programme consists of an introductory pre-semester in Cairo, followed by two semesters in Marburg and one additional semester in an Arabic country.

The target group are young professionals from the field of Economics, with practical work experience. By working in small mixed groups, students are trained in intercultural communication and management skills, so that as graduates they will be in a position to cooperate on international projects in areas such as development cooperation or scientific- cooperation. English is the language of instruction and applications are open to participants from the following countries: Germany, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.

The complete application must be submitted by March 31, 2012. Further information here.

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4. DAAD Scholarships for the German-Arab Master’s Course „International Education Management (INEMA)“ University of Education Ludwigsburg / Helwan University, Cairo

This master’s course is designed with an interdisciplinary and integrative approach that is aimed at conveying general capabilities and knowledge in education management. It is divided in four semesters. In each semester one attendance phase in Egypt/Cairo as well as one in Germany/Ludwigsburg is part of the programme. The course has to be completed within three years Besides education management the studies comprise also comprehensive political and socio-cultural subjects.

The target group are young professionals active in education-related fields, with practical work experience. The participants acquire capabilities in intercultural communication and management that enable the graduates to join international development or scientific-technological co-operation projects. English is the language of instruction and applications are open to participants from the following countries: Germany, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.

The complete application must be submitted by March 31, 2012. Further information here.

Combating sexual harrassment and gender discrimination in Yemen

2012-01-24T09:56:00.000+01:00

photo by Yemen Times

These days, great initiatives spring up everywhere as young people, emboldened and politicized by the Yemeni "revolution", decide to become active on issues they consider detrimental for society. Below is a report by the Yemen Times on one of these initatives:

Fighting for Yemen's morals

Yemen Times, January 23, 2012

by Marwa Najmaldin

In a hall in Sana’a, on International Volunteers Day last month, a whiteboard was hung with words often used by men to harass girls. A room full of young boys were told to throw arrows at the board and when full, the words were pulled back to reveal a picture of a girl. On the picture, pocked with arrow marks, was written the words, “I am your mother, I am your sister, I am your wife, I am your daughter.”

“We started this campaign because we feel that this problem [of harassment] is getting worse and the results will be harmful to individuals and to our conservative society,” said co-founder, Amani Abd Al-Qader, 21, a student at the University of Sana’a.

Under the slogan “Are there any morals anymore?” Al-Qader, explained the campaign was against any form of harassment – whether directed at women or men.

Read the rest of the article and view further pictures of the campaign here.

On Sana'a

2012-01-18T10:19:00.004+01:00

view on the Old City of Sanaa (©M. Heinze)

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a British author turned Yemeni, who regularly writes on the country. His book "Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land" is one of my favorite non-academic books on Yemen and won the 1998 Thomas Cook / Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award. Below is a recent publication of his on Yemen's capital city Sana'a, where he has been living these past thirty years.

The City: Sana

The Daily Beast, January 16, 2012

by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

What do Kazan, Caracas, Sadr City, Marrakech, Mumbai, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, and Frankfurt have in common? Answer: they have all recently shared the epithet “city of contrast.” I confess I didn’t look at any more of the 285 million hits for the phrase on my search engine…You get the idea. You will search the globe in vain, it seems, for a city of boring homogeneity.

It must be said, though, that the city I’ve lived in for most of the past 30 years, Sana, the Yemeni capital, gives new life to that clapped-out cliché. For a start, the contrast with the rest of the Arabian Peninsula could hardly be greater. The other day, for instance, the placemat for my lunchtime saltah, a nourishing beef and fenugreek hotpot eaten in a hole in the wall in the souk, was the usual sheet of newsprint, this one from a Gulf daily. It showed a row of multimillion-dollar yachts in a marina in Abu Dhabi—a short flight away, but which for most Yemenis might as well be on one of Jupiter’s moons. Conversely, my tower house here—and any one of the thousands of historic buildings in the ancient heart of Sana—would be classed as a national monument in the Emirates.

But it is the contrasts within Sana that are stranger. They were already ancient when the 10th-century geographer al-Hamdani noted the paradoxical character of the city. In fact, they are innate: because Sana was founded during a conjunction of Venus and Mars, al-Hamdani explained, the contrary characteristics of the two planets coexist in its people—good manners and love of la dolce vita contend with a fondness for unseemly jokes and quarrels and for messing about with knives. More than a millennium later, Yemen’s greatest modern poet, Abdallah al-Baradduni, portrayed the city in chiaroscuro as “a pretty woman wooed by consumption and mange.”

Read the rest of the article and look at Karim Ben Khelifa's beautiful photograph here.

One day without qat

2012-01-12T09:43:00.001+01:00

Today, the Yemeni youth demonstrates once again its faithfulness to the goals of the Yemeni revolution, which go much further than "simply" getting Salih to leave office. Much rather - and as the currently ongoing "parallel revolution" demonstrates - Yemeni (educated) youth aim to change society as a whole. For today they have called upon fellow Yemenis to participate in a Day Without Qat, thus drawing attention to once of the most prominent and in many ways detrimental practices of Yemenis, male and female alike.

To inform yourself about the pro and contra debate in regard to qat, I recommend you read Daniel Varisco's paper on "The elixir of life or the devil's cud? The debate over Qat (Catha edulis) in Yemeni culture" or, if you have time enough for a book, Shelagh Weir's seminal study on "Qat in Yemen: Consumption and social change".

To inform yourself on the ongoing campaign and its possiblities of success, click here.

New opportunity for researchers on Yemen

2012-01-10T18:38:00.000+01:00

me with my friends from YPC in Sanaa

The Yemen Polling Center (YPC), an independent research and training institute in Sanaa, offers internships to foreign researchers, graduate and postgraduate students residing in Yemen for research purposes or those studying Arabic Language courses.

YPC also hosts a small number of Visiting Fellows every year as part of its Fellowship Program. YPC assists in securing sources, resources and research materials. YPC also offers opportunities for the fellow to participate in different events in Yemen and to interact with our diverse national staff and establish contacts with officials and other Yemeni stakeholders. Visiting Fellows receive a small stipend.

Applications are open to all; there are no preconditions for submitting an application and all foreign students and researchers are invited to apply. However, researchers with the following backgrounds are favored: political sciences, social sciences, mass communication, media, law and economic studies.

YPC interns and Fellows are expected to assist headquarter staff and field representatives in carrying out their duties, realizing the center's mission and helping implement its different projects.

The duration of the internship or Fellowship shall be for a minimum of 10 weeks with a 12-hour workweek. Applicants are encouraged to seek funding and/or academic credit through their affiliated university or college.

YPC will host no more than two interns and/or Fellows at one time.

Read more on this opportunity on the website of the Yemen Polling Center.

Vortrag zur "Revolution" im Jemen am Mittwoch

2012-01-09T11:26:00.000+01:00

photography by Abdulrahman H. Jaber

Diesen Mittwoch um 19:00 Uhr halte ich in Leipzig einen Vortrag zur "Arabischen Frühling" im Jemen mit dem Titel

"Wem gehört die jemenitische 'Revolution'? Akteure, Strategien und Rahmenbedingungen des politischen Umbruchs im Jemen"

Mehr Informationen zu Vortrag, Organisator und Veranstaltungsort gibt es hier.

Yemen's artistic creativity

2012-01-07T12:11:00.001+01:00

photography by Abdulrahman H. Jaber

The "revolution" in Yemen has not only created a new sense of political awareness among Yemeni citizens, it has also sparked, enhanced, yes: unleashed Yemeni creativity. From the Marches of Life and Dignity, art exhibitions, poetry, music, photography, and film-making, etc. Yemenis have explored multiple ways of expressing their beliefs and feelings as related to the ongoing upheavals and to draw the international community's attention to their struggle. Below is the most recent example, a high-quality film created by an initiative of Yemeni Americans called Support Yemen, which you can also watch on YouTube:

A new, "parallel revolution" in Yemen

2012-01-06T17:19:00.006+01:00

photography by Abdulrahman H. Jaber

Yemen rises up against its mini-dictators

The Guardian, January 5, 2012

by Abubakr al-Shamahi

In the current state of confusion in Yemen, with the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and his family attempting to retain control behind the scenes even though he is officially due to leave office in February, Yemeni protesters have a new tactic.

A "parallel revolution" of anti-corruption protests and strikes is seeking to remove the mini-dictators – Saleh's lieutenants who are in charge of the various state institutions and the bloated state bureaucracy.

Ten months after the start of anti-government protests, and with the country's future steeped in uncertainty, Yemenis are determined to ensure that real change is the fruit of their sacrifices.

A dictator's power comes from having the ability to surround himself with a loyal group of henchmen, the faithful minions who will ensure that power remains in the hands of the leader. Without such followers it is impossible to rule dictatorially.

Over his 33 years at the helm, Saleh has managed to build an effective network of partisans, people who aid him in controlling the various branches of the state, and yet also know that they are only in their position because of their loyalty to Saleh.

In turn, Saleh allows these men to get rich and to run their institutions as personal fiefdoms. These corrupt officials have siphoned off millions, most likely billions, in a country that is ranked as the poorest in the Arab world. This nouveau riche group are busy building villas and mansions on the edge of Sana'a, Yemen's capital. In the meantime, the city is running out of water because of mismanagement and poor infrastructure.

Weak state institutions mean that officials can get away with many illegitimate practices. Contracts are given out to friends and family, or simply the person willing to grease officials' hands with the most money. Yemen's oil and natural resources industry – its main (but dwindling) source of income – is notoriously corrupt, with oil revenues under-reported and educational scholarships from oil money going to the children of high officials.

The Yemeni mini-dictators abuse their power in other ways. There have been reports of military officers running "personal prisons" and taking money from officers' salaries.

One protester at a government office in the city of Taiz said his boss had put a gun to his head only the week before. The boss, at first confused, and then angry, was barred from entering the building by the protester and his colleagues.

Read the rest of the article here.

Brian Whitaker has also commented on this new development in his blog al-Bab.

And the Yemen Times offers a very nice map with some examples of this new form of revolutionary clean-sweeping.

The March of Life

2011-12-23T14:49:00.001+01:00

"Thousands of Yemenis have joined the “Life March” that began its 250 kilometer journey from Taiz to Sana’a on Tuesday, December 20, due to arrive in the capital Sana’a to stage a demonstration in front of Parliament on Saturday, December 24.

The “Life March” could be one of the longest marches recorded in history, but just as remarkable as the march, has been the complete silence of international media about this unprecedented event, including TV networks and newspapers in the Middle East, all of which have circumvented the importance of the event by simply calling it a “peaceful rally.”

To Yemenis and readers in the Middle East this is hardly a surprise: The revolution in Yemen has received limited coverage, even though hundreds of people have been massacred, cities stormed and peaceful demonstrators attacked.

For a country at the edge of breaking, being one of the world’s poorest, with a long history of unrest and secession, continued strife in the north, and with millions and millions of firearms on the streets, the fact that the Yemeni revolution did not escalate into a civil war is one of the most remarkable and yet unheard of, successes of Arab Spring.

On Saturday, the Parliament is scheduled to vote a law that would grant full immunity from prosecution to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and many senior officials, in compliance with the terms of the deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and signed by Saleh in November in Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni revolutionaries have made clear the aims of this peaceful march: Rejection of the deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council and political compromises with Saleh, their adamant refusal to circumvent the goals of the revolution and to accept guarantees or amnesty granted to those who have looted and savaged Yemen for decades.

Lastly, they emphasized that the world should know that what is happening in Yemen is a revolution and not just a political crisis. In this spirit, they call for peaceful coexistence between all political and religious groups, to ensure true freedom for all Yemeni people."

(Arie Amaya-Akkermans: Yemen's 'Live March' monumental, but media remains silent, in: bikyamasr 23.12.2011; read the rest of the article here)

There is also a great and very moving blog entry on this topic, which you should read here.

And below is some video footage on the March from AJE:

Ta`iz, yesterday

2011-11-03T18:09:00.001+01:00

The city of Taʿiz in the lower highlands of Yemen was heavily shelled by security forces yesterday. Laura B. Kasinof has written an excellent article on this, which you can read here. Below is a video from youtube documenting the bombardment.

Appeal by Tawakkul Karman

2011-11-02T13:26:00.002+01:00

The world must not forsake Yemen's struggle for freedom
The Guardian, November 1, 2011

by Tawakkol Karman

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.

Yemeni women in the capital, Sana'a, burn veils in protest at a government crackdown on peaceful protests. Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

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...

Read the rest of the article here.

Occupy Sanaa

2011-10-31T17:57:00.001+01:00

The Time Magazine has a great new photo story out on Change Square in Sanaa:

Yemen's Change Square: Occupy Sana'a

Time LightBox, October 31, 2011

by Aryn Baker

Change Square, the locus of anti-government protests in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, has become a veritable tent city, home, for more than eight months, to several thousand protestors. And like any city, it caters to the needs of its citizen population: Doctors tend to the wounded at a makeshift hospital, volunteers prepare food, imams call the faithful to prayer, and a few entrepreneurs provide entertainment in the form of pellet-gun rifle ranges for revolutionaries frustrated with the peaceful part of their protest.

But unlike other cities, where the dead are forgotten in far away cemeteries, the martyrs of Change Square are at the center of attention. Photographs of those killed in the clashes flutter from the tent ropes that crisscross the city’s walkways. Portraits are plastered on the walls of the mosque. Some protesters even wear bandanas printed with pictures of the dead wrapped around their forehead. And in the center of the square is a vast billboard where the protest’s grim toll is laid out in a mosaic of death intermingled with pride. “We all want to be martyrs,” one young protestor told me. “To have change, we need to sacrifice, and sometimes that means our lives.” His friend agreed. “The only way we will get international attention for our cause is if there is blood on the streets.”

It’s a subtle condemnation of waning interest from the West as the Arab Spring moves into its ninth month. Thousands waving placards demanding the fall of the regime no longer garner the fevered media attention of Tunisia and Egypt. But death does. So in service to their dreams of liberation, some Yemeni revolutionaries aspire to the snipers bullet, or the machine gun spray. Not all of course. “I don’t want to be a martyr,” another protestor told me. “I want to see our dreams of a new Yemen come true.”

Yuri Kozyrev is a contract photographer for TIME who has covered the Arab Spring since January. To see his previous work from Libya, click here.

Aryn Baker, TIME‘s Middle East Bureau Chief, is based in Beirut. Find her on Twitter at @arynebaker. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

See the photo story here.

Yemen prepares for civil war

2011-10-28T10:19:00.000+02:00

Intensive army recruitment feeds ongoing conflict

Yemen Times, October 27, 2011

by Nadia Al-Sakkaf & Mohammed bin Sallam

Estimates predict that between 15 and 20 percent of the men involved in Yemen’s armed combat are under 18. YT Archive photo

Despite recent news of a truce between the state security and splinter army, recruitment of new soldiers from both sides has not stopped. Thousands of new recruits, mostly driven by poverty and many of whom are children, are being prepared for a feared civil war.

Armed recruitment on both sides of the conflict has reached an unprecedented level this month with thousands of young men, many under 18, have been joining the ranks of both the official and the splinter army since April.

A source from within the defected First Armored Division said, on condition of anonymity, that at least five thousand young men had signed up during October alone.

Similarly, a source in the state’s Central Security said that in anticipation of a heavy armed conflict, President Saleh had issued orders on October 18 to initiate the recruitment of thousands of Yemenis. The source said that at least 12,000 new soldiers needed to be recruited before the end of the month. The new soldiers will be recruited mostly from the governorates and deployed both in Sana’a and conflict areas elsewhere.

On Tuesday young unemployed men lined up outside the Central Security offices in Ibb city hoping to be enlisted as part of the 2,000 sliders needed to be recruited from that area. A local from Ibb said that Brigade Rashad Mutahar Al-Masri, Central Security Commander and son of Interior Minister Mutahar Al-Masri had ignored a number of recruitment requirements so as to reach his target as soon as possible.

Currently, most state army units are in Sana’a governorate, with strong focus on the three Republican Guard camps in the Arahab district on the outskirts of the city where regular battles are fought with the Salafi tribes.

The second concentrated presence is in Taiz, where the armed opposition is most active. Sources from the city’s armed opposition said that the five thousand new recruits of Al-Ahmar’s division are set to back up the armed conflict in Taiz. “It is supposed to be the Benghazi of Yemen. From there we will take over Sana’a,” said the source.

Recruits on both sides receive minimal training before they are sent off to the battle grounds. Bakeel Mohammed, a fresh graduate from university and one of the new recruits in the splinter army, said they had a six-day-in-camp training before given a rifle and asked to join the fight. “But I am not doing this for the money but because I am tired of this regime and believe that a peaceful way for ending it is no longer possible,” he said.

“He suddenly disappeared from home after telling his sisters that he is joining the defected army,” said his panicked mother. “This is my son whom I raised and nurtured, how can he throw himself into the danger just like that?”

Many of the new recruits in the splinter army have had close association with either the Eman University headed by Abdulmajid Al-Zindani, an alleged AQAP member.

“My son was doing his masters degree at the Eman University in Sana’a when I heard the news that he was killed by the state army,” said the father of Mahdi Abdulghani, who joined the ranks of the splinter army this month and died in armed conflict on October 8. “He was supposed to graduate and have a life, not die for an unclear battle. Even then, the army that recruited him did not take the effort to provide for his burial and funeral service. Is that how they reward their men?” questioned Abdulghani’s father.

Commenting on the increased recruitment by the opposition forces, the army’s official media as well as the website of the Ministry of Defense warned that it was illegal and that any men recruited by anti-government forces would not be acknowledged by the state and should not consider themselves officially enrolled.

Child soldiers

Several international organizations highlighted their concern that many of new recruits are children. In an April report this year, Human Rights Watch stated that it had encountered dozens of armed soldiers who appeared to be younger than 18 in Sana’a since unrest began in February.

“On April 12, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 soldiers in Sana’a who gave their ages as 14, 15, and 16, and said they had been serving in the army for one to two years,” said the report.

The same report stated that six officers from the First Armored Division told Human Rights Watch that the unit allowed the recruitment of 15-year-olds and occasionally makes "exceptions" by recruiting younger children.

Most of the state’s newly recruited youth within Sana’a were allocated to the various checkpoints within the city and at its entrance points.

“At the check point a very young man – I would not give him more than 16 years – stopped me very arrogantly and checked my car in an unprofessional manner,” said Fathi Abdu, a resident in Sana’a. “He didn’t seem to know what he was doing, but was enjoying the power he had to stop people and make them wait.”

Ali al-Sayyaghi, a recruitment officer at the Ministry of Defense, told IRIN, the UN’s news agency, that some new recruits looked younger than the date of birth on their ID cards, but said the ID card was “the only reliable document for determining the age of an applicant".

Moreover, the pro-government tribal militia and the Houthi rebellion in the north were included in the UN’s 2011 list of shame report. Each year the Secretary-General lists those parties to conflict who recruit and use, kill and maim or commit rape and other forms of sexual violence against children in conflict.

The UN listing stated that 15 percent of the pro-government militia were children compared to 20 percent of the Houthi rebels. While the conflict in Sa’ada, north of Yemen, between the Houthis and the state ended in 2009, the composition of both armies remains the same.

Despite the UN highlighting the risk of child soldiers being used in Yemen, the White House issued a memorandum allowing military funding to Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Chad last month – all of which are on the UN’s list of shame for recruiting child-soldiers.

This article was originally published here.

On the complex role of women in the Yemeni "revolution"

2011-10-27T16:29:00.000+02:00

Women cry for tribal protection

Yemen Times, October 27, 2011
by Amira al-Arasi

Some 800 women burned their veils as they called on tribal leaders to protect them from armed attack. Photos by Adnan Al-Rajihi

SANA’A, Oct. 26 — Women burned their veils as they called on Yemeni tribes to protect them from attacks by the regime yesterday.

Around 800 women, some travelling from as far as Taiz 200 kilometers south west of Sana’a, burned veils and headscarves at 60 Meter Street on Wednesday.

They read a statement signed by women’s alliances in Change Square before starting the fire and calling on the “honorable proud men of all Yemeni tribes” to come to their aid and end the killing of women by the regime.

Yesterday’s protest came 10 days after a woman from Taiz was killed when the Republican Guards attacked an opposition protest on October 16. She is said to be the first female protestor killed since the uprising began and was shot in the head by snipers because of her political activities. Two weeks ago in Sana’a two women who were thought to be part of a mixed protest were shot in the legs by pro-regime snipers.

Asma’a Al-Uthari, a campaigner in Change Square, said that they began organizing this event after Aziza Al-Mahajri was killed in Taiz. The women collected nearly 400,000 veils in Taiz, which they brought to Sana’a. They wanted to call on the tribal sheikhs to help them against the regime that has killed and suppressed women and children. The protest started at 11am on Wednesday and the burning began at noon.

“This is not a message to only the tribal sheikhs but to also all the free people in the world. We want to tell them that Yemeni women have been attacked and killed,” she said. Al-Uthari added that the cover the regime has used to hide itself should be revealed.

The burning of the veil in Yemeni tradition is a cry for help used by women in tribal culture to complain of injustice. It is supposed to move men to action when they see that the women have been violated, with the veil or headscarf symbolizing women’s honor.

This custom obliges the women to actually remove their veil or headscarf because she then exposes her symbolic hidden shame. However, the women in yesterday’s protest did not remove their veils but instead brought additional veils to be burnt.

“What happened today is a ridiculous mockery that depicted women as helpless and weak while we are strong and revolutionary,” said Wameed Shaker, a member of the Tahaluf Watan Women’s Collation for Peace. She said that by doing this, the women had sidelined their role, which should have been in the forefront of action rather than crying for help.

“This is also a call for violence and war, because it is a call to the tribes as if saying ‘come and protect me no matter what you do’,” she said, adding that the protest should have been more modern and civilized. While she watched protest and tried to convince the women not to go ahead with it, she heard the surrounding men mocking it and making fun of Yemen’s women, added Shaker.

The article has originally been published here.

UN Security Council Resolution on Yemen

2011-10-22T13:45:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, on October 21, 2011, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2014 (2011) with the following text:

“The Security Council,

“Recalling its Press Statements of 24 September 2011, 9 August 2011, and 24 June 2011,

“Expressing grave concern at the situation in Yemen,

“Reaffirming its strong commitment to the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Yemen,

“Welcoming the Secretary-General’s statement of 23 September 2011 urging all sides to engage in a constructive manner to achieve a peaceful resolution to the current crisis,

“Welcoming the engagement of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and reaffirming the support of the Security Council for the GCC’s efforts to resolve the political crisis in Yemen,

“Welcoming the continuing efforts of the Good Offices of the Secretary-General, including the visits to Yemen by the Special Adviser,

“Taking note of the Human Rights Council resolution on Yemen (A/HRC/RES/18/19), and underlining the need for a comprehensive, independent and impartial investigation consistent with international standards into alleged human rights abuses and violations, with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring full accountability, and noting in this regard the concerns expressed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,

“Welcoming the statement by the Ministerial Council of the Gulf Cooperation Council on 23 September 2011 which called for the immediate signing by President Saleh and implementation of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative, condemned the use of force against unarmed demonstrators, and called for restraint, a commitment to a full and immediate ceasefire and the formation of a commission to investigate the events that led to the killing of innocent Yemeni people,

“Expressing serious concern at the worsening security situation, including armed conflict, and the deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation due to the lack of progress on a political settlement, and the potential for the further escalation of violence,

“Reaffirming its resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009) and 1960 (2010) on women, peace, and security, and reiterating the need for the full, equal and effective participation of women at all stages of peace-processes given their vital role in the prevention and resolution of conflict and peacebuilding, reaffirming the key role women play in re-establishing the fabric of society and stressing the need for their involvement in conflict resolution in order to take into account their perspective and needs,

“Expressing serious concerns about the increasing number of internally displaced persons and refugees in Yemen, the alarming levels of malnutrition caused by drought and soaring fuel and food prices, the increasing interruption of basic supplies and social services, and increasingly difficult access to safe water and health care,

“Expressing further serious concern at the increased threat from Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and the risk of new terror attacks in parts of Yemen, and reaffirming that terrorism in all forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivations,

“Condemning all terrorist and other attacks against civilians and against the authorities, including those aimed at jeopardizing the political process in Yemen, such as the attack on the Presidential compound in Sana’a on 3 June 2011,

“Recalling the Yemeni Government’s primary responsibility to protect its population,

“Stressing that the best solution to the current crisis in Yemen is through an inclusive and Yemeni-led political process of transition that meets the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Yemeni people for change,

“Reaffirming its support for the Presidential decree of 12 September which is designed to find a political agreement acceptable to all parties, and to ensure a peaceful and democratic transition of power, including the holding of early Presidential elections,

“Stressing the importance of the stability and security of Yemen, particularly regarding overall international counter-terrorism efforts,

“Mindful of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security under the Charter of the United Nations, and emphasizing the threats to regional security and stability posed by the deterioration of the situation in Yemen in the absence of a lasting political settlement,

“1. Expresses profound regret at the hundreds of deaths, mainly of civilians, including women and children;

“2. Strongly condemns the continued human rights violations by the Yemeni authorities, such as the excessive use of force against peaceful protestors as well as the acts of violence, use of force, and human rights abuses perpetrated by other actors, and stresses that all those responsible for violence, human rights violations and abuses should be held accountable;

“3. Demands that all sides immediately reject the use of violence to achieve political goals;

“4. Reaffirms its view that the signature and implementation as soon as possible of a settlement agreement on the basis of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative is essential for an inclusive, orderly, and Yemeni-led process of political transition, notes the signing of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative by some opposition parties and the General People’s Congress, calls on all parties in Yemen to commit themselves to implementation of a political settlement based upon this initiative, notes the commitment by the President of Yemen to immediately sign the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative and encourages him, or those authorized to act on his behalf, to do so, and to implement a political settlement based upon it, and calls for this commitment to be translated into action, in order to achieve a peaceful political transition of power, as stated in the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative and the Presidential decree of 12 September, without further delay;

“5. Demands that the Yemeni authorities immediately ensure their actions comply with obligations under applicable international humanitarian and human rights law, allow the people of Yemen to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms, including their rights of peaceful assembly to demand redress of their grievances and freedom of expression, including for members of the media, and take action to end attacks against civilians and civilian targets by security forces;

“6. Calls upon all concerned parties to ensure the protection of women and children, to improve women’s participation in conflict resolution and encourages all parties to facilitate the equal and full participation of women at decision-making levels;

“7. Urges all opposition groups to commit to playing a full and constructive part in the agreement and implementation of a political settlement on the basis of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative, and demands that all opposition groups refrain from violence, and cease the use of force to achieve political aims;

“8. Further demands that all armed groups remove all weapons from areas of peaceful demonstration, refrain from violence and provocation, refrain from the recruitment of children, and urges all parties not to target vital infrastructure;

“9. Expresses its concern over the presence of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and its determination to address this threat in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and international law including applicable human rights, refugee and humanitarian law;

“10. Encourages the international community to provide humanitarian assistance to Yemen, and in this regard requests all parties in Yemen to facilitate the work of the United Nations agencies and other relevant organizations, and ensure full, safe and unhindered access for the timely delivery of the humanitarian aid to persons in need across Yemen;

“11. Requests the Secretary-General to continue his Good Offices, including through visits by the Special Adviser, and to continue to urge all Yemeni stakeholders to implement the provisions of this resolution, and encourage all States and regional organizations to contribute to this objective;

“12. Requests the Secretary-General to report on implementation of this resolution within 30 days of its adoption and every 60 days thereafter;

“13. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.”

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya - beware!

2011-10-21T13:44:00.001+02:00

A very creative campaign! You can also watch the video on youtube.

New Crisis Group Report on Yemen

2011-10-20T17:54:00.001+02:00

A new International Crisis Group Report was issued today on "Yemen's Southern Question" (Middle East Report No. 114):

Executive Summary:

Ten months of popular protest spiked by periodic outbursts of violence have done little to clarify Yemen’s political future. Persistent street protests so far have failed to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh or bring about genuine institutional reform. The country is more deeply divided between pro- and anti-Saleh forces than ever, its economy is in tatters and both security and humanitarian conditions are deteriorating. Amid the uncertainty fuelled by this lingering crisis, the country’s unity – and notably the status of the South – hangs in the balance. Old grievances are coming into sharper relief and, among some, secessionist aspirations gaining steam. There remains an opportunity for Yemen’s rulers, opposition groups and protesters to reach agreement on a political transition that would give priority to the Southern question and redefine relations between centre and periphery, for example by moving toward a federal model. Should this chance be missed, the conflict risks getting bloodier. And Yemen’s unity could be a thing of the past.

The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) merged with its northern neighbour, the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), on 22 May 1990 to form the Republic of Yemen. From the start, this was a troubled unification that resulted in a short, bloody civil war in 1994. The North emerged victorious, but this hardly closed the chapter. In the wake of the conflict, two profoundly different narratives took shape. Under one version, the war laid to rest the notion of separation and solidified national unity. According to the other, the war laid to rest the notion of unity and ushered in a period of Northern occupation of the South.

The most recent tensions did not suddenly erupt in the context of the January 2011 Yemeni uprising. In 2007, a broad-based popular protest movement known as the Southern Movement (Al-Hiraak al-Janoubi) had come to the fore. The Hiraak originated as a rights-based movement requesting equality under the law and a change in relations between North and South – all within a united country. The government responded to the demands with repression; it also largely ignored its own promises of reforms. By 2009, the Hiraak had begun to champion Southern independence. In the months leading up to the uprising that became the Yemeni Spring, its influence and popularity in the South clearly were on the ascent.

Could the popular uprising open up fresh opportunities to peacefully resolve the Southern issue? If the various sides act reasonably, it should. From the start, it facilitated cooperation between Northern and Southern protesters and broke through barriers of fear, allowing a larger spectrum of Southerners to join the national public debate on the status of the South. Most importantly, it has facilitated debate and growing consensus around federal options. If political foes can reach agreement on a transition of power in Sanaa and launch an inclusive national dialogue, they could seize the moment to negotiate a peaceful compromise on the Southern issue as well.

The problem is that there is no indication Yemen is heading there. Instead, as mass protests have continued without result, frustration has grown and so too has Southern distrust that anything that happens in the North will improve their lot. The risks are many. An enduring political impasse could prompt further collapse of security and economic conditions throughout the country, producing greater unrest and instability in the South. Alternatively, a full-fledged civil war could break out between Northern rival elites, a scenario that could prompt Southern stakeholders to pursue a serious bid for separation. Already, the early euphoria generated by coordination between protesters in the North and South is giving way to resurgent calls by some for Southern independence.

This is a dangerous brew. The South’s secession almost certainly would be resisted by the North and could spark a violent conflict. Any effort toward independence also could trigger in-fighting and additional fragmentation within the South itself. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and other violent groups already are prospering amid growing instability and chaos; further deterioration would only expand their reach.

A clear path toward a redefinition of relations between centre and periphery is badly needed. This can only be achieved through an inclusive dialogue that recognises Southerners’ legitimate grievances and the importance of profoundly amending that relationship. Four possible outcomes are being discussed in various forums, with varying degrees of popularity: maintenance of a unitary state albeit with more inclusive, transparent and accountable central government; maintenance of a unitary state but with significant powers devolved to local governments; a federal state consisting of two or more regions; and Southern secession.

Of these, the first and last are the more likely recipes for heightened conflict. The former (a kind of status quo plus) would essentially ignore Southerners’ legitimate demands for greater participation, control of local resources and protection of local identity and culture. The latter (Southern independence) would alienate not only Northerners but also many Southerners who strongly prefer reform within the context of unity.

That leaves the two middle options. Both have their problems. Hiraak supporters suspect that a mere strengthening of local government powers – even under a more democratic and representative central government – could be a subterfuge and fail to truly protect Southerners’ rights. For this and other reasons, they favour either immediate separation or, at a minimum, a federation of two states lasting four to five years, to be followed by a referendum on the South’s ultimate status.

On the other hand, federalism, especially under a two-state formula (one Northern, the other Southern), is eyed by many with considerable suspicion as only the first step toward the South’s eventual separation. Some form of multi-state federalism, with perhaps four or five regions, potentially could allay those anxieties. It has found relatively wider appeal in the North and arguably could gain traction even within staunchly pro-unity parties, such as the ruling General People’s Congress and the opposition Islamist party, Islah. But much more precision about the details of this model will be required before it does so. Overall, none of these fears ought be brushed aside or downplayed. Instead, they should be aired openly and discussed seriously through robust debate and peaceful negotiations.

External players, including the Gulf Cooperation Council members, the U.S., the UK, the EU and the UN, have a role to play. All officially support a unified Yemen. But that is an umbrella broad enough to accommodate the need for Yemenis to comprehensively renegotiate the relationship between the central government and regional entities.

Yemen’s upheaval presents a rare opportunity to redefine its flawed and failed political compact. At the same time, however, it has considerably raised the price of inaction. If nothing is done soon to peacefully address both national and Southern deep-seated grievances, a darker and more ominous chapter could yet be written.

Read the recommendations here.

Read the full report here.

Yemen Panel in Berlin Tomorrow

2011-10-05T11:43:00.002+02:00

Tomorrow, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., a panel on the current social and political developments in Yemen will convene in Berlin at the 18th Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO). The speakers will be as follows:

Mareike Transfeld (Erlangen): Friend or Foe? Islah at Sanaa's Change Square

Thomas Müller (Darmstadt): AQAP in Yemen and the Arab Spring – Onward Irrelevance or an Islamic Emirate Looming?

Sarah El-Richani (Berlin): Yemen’s Youth Protesters and their Use of Social Media

Marieke Brandt (Dägeling): Political Developments in Sa’da, Yemen, since the End of the 6th Sa’da War

Marie-Christine Heinze (Bielefeld): Weapons of the Revolution: The Role of the Yemeni Dagger

The panel will be chaired by me. For more information on the Congress and its venue, click here.

Anwar al-Awlaki's death

2011-10-01T13:35:00.000+02:00

So he is dead and like most Yemenis I wonder more about what this is going to mean for Saleh and the current political situation. By now we know that the US Department of Justice has no misgivings about killing one of its own citizens and had produced a respective fatwa to legalize the drone strike that did away with Anwar al-Awlaki on Friday. But the fact that it was a drone strike that killed al-Awlaki underscores Brian Whitaker's analysis (below) that his death weakens rather than strengthens Salihs ability to cling to power. Obviously, Salih had no hand in this and now that al-Awlaki is gone, the US might feel more inclinded to let Salih go than it was a few days ago.

What is important now is to seize the opportunity to accomplish a peaceful transition of power while it is still there. Gregory D. Johnsen has laid out a sound approach towards this goal and the US would be well advised to follow in its path before it loses all credibility with the youth of Yemen. This revolution will not turn Yemen into a full-fledged democracy in the short run, even most independent youth on Change Square have realized this by now. But there is still the opportunity of preventing civil war and taking a first step to a stabilization of the political situation in the country upon which further steps in the direction of democracy may follow. And as long as Salih remains in power, this is not going to happen. Right now, the best alternative to Salih (at least for a period of transition) is Vice President Hadi. He is weak enough for all parties vying for power (Salih, Ali Muhsin, and the al-Ahmar brothers) to be able to agree upon.

(I will post Brian Whitaker's post in full as his blog does not allow linking to specific posts. For all those interested in Yemen and Middle East politics in general, however, I highly recommend following his blog regularly.)

Awlaki's death weakens Saleh

al-Bab, October 1, 2011

by Brian Whitaker

The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen raises questions about its likely impact on the country's politics – in particular, whether it will hasten or delay President Saleh's departure.

Internationally, Saleh has tried to present himself as a lone bulwark resisting al-Qaeda and uses it as an argument for his remaining in power.

He was at it again on Thursday, in an interview with Time Magazine and the Washington Post. Reminded that the US has urged him to step down, he responded by questioning America's commitment to "fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda".

"We are pressurised by America and the international community to speed up the process of handing over power," he said. "And we know to where the power is going to go. It is going to al-Qaeda, which is directly and completely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood."

Remove Saleh and the militants will take over Yemen – that, at least, is what he would like people to believe. The reality, as I have pointed out several times before, is somewhat different. Saleh needs al-Qaeda in order to stay in power. Al-Qaeda must remain sufficiently active in Yemen for the world to be scared by it, so that Saleh can continue to be seen fighting it – and reaping the political benefits of doing so.

One view of Awlaki's killing is that it will strengthen Saleh's hand by making him appear relevant again to the world outside.

"The revolutionaries in Yemen are worried that al-Awlaki's death will ... provide a respite to Saleh in the face of mass protests against his rule," Anis Mansour, a Yemeni journalist, told the German press agency on Friday.

Jeb Boone, an American journalist who was based in Yemen until recently, also wrote:

"Having duped the west three times into believing he was about to step down, he has now handed America's most sought-after head (in the shape of Awlaki) to Washington. With a counter-terrorism trophy like that on display for American audiences, US diplomats may find it difficult to maintain the pressure on Saleh to resign."

The alternative view (which I lean more towards) is that without Awlaki lurking in the background Saleh's position is significantly weaker. The American media had become obsessed with Awlaki, inflating his importance out of all proportion – and that also had its effect on US policy. Unless some new threat emerges in Yemen which directly affects Americans, the general perception will be that there is far less to worry about now than before and the US will be better placed to push ahead towards a transition of power.

A further point is that in Awlaki's killing Saleh appears to have been more of a bystander than an active partner with the United States in the "war on terror". Details are scarce, but as yet there are no indications that Saleh (or the Yemeni military) played a major role. So far, the Americans are taking all the credit and/or blame. That also suggests Saleh is less indispensible than he would like to imagine.

From a US policy perspective, the main need now is to de-link American security concerns from questions about Saleh's fate. Saleh has always been a tricky person to deal with, as the
WikiLeaks documents showed. The attitude of a future Yemeni government on that score is unlikely to be worse, and might even be slightly better.

Behind the scenes, there are signs that the US does not really buy Saleh's arguments for staying in power. On Friday evening, according to the German press agency, the Yemeni government and the opposition coalition were close to signing an agreement on the basic principles for dialogue – under US supervision.

The agency added:

"This comes as a result of three-day roundtable talks led by the United States, with a European participation, in a bid to come up with a peaceful end to the Yemeni crisis ..."

The goal of these and other diplomatic efforts is to implement the "transition plan" cooked up by the Gulf Cooperation Council. As I have said before, I don't much like the plan. If, by some miracle, it can be made to work it is more likely to preserve the status quo (minus Saleh) than to deliver the sort of changes that Yemeni protesters have been demanding. But, at this stage, getting rid of Saleh may be better than nothing.

Thin hope for political change in Yemen

2011-09-28T10:31:00.003+02:00

Yemen's unhappy ending. Sometimes, the bad guys win.

Foreign Policy, September 27, 2011

by Charles Schmitz

Back in June, when Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh left for Saudi Arabia for treatment of his wounds, most observers thought Yemen's political crisis would be resolved in favor of the political opposition and the revolutionary street protesters. If Saleh -- who was badly burned in an attack on his presidential mosque -- did not die, then he would at least be prisoner of the Saudis, who had been actively seeking his resignation. Few thought he would ever return. And inside Yemen, the pro-Saleh forces would be weak without the president, so it was a hopeful time for those opposed to Saleh's rule. A transitional government would oversee a new set of elections that would usher in a new post-Saleh era.

That was then.

Over the bloody summer, the Saleh clan proved itself more than capable of holding on to its political position. The president's sons and nephews, who preside over key security and military positions, aggressively sought conflict. Sporadic fighting raged all over the country: in Taiz, in Sanaa, in Arhab, in Abyan, in Aden, and elsewhere.

In Sanaa, most victims of the fighting were civilians. Saleh's supporters seemed to almost relish provoking the military defectors aligned with Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the top general who joined the "revolutionaries" in March and promised to protect them.

The attacks on civilians not only sent a message to protesters, but also revealed the weakness of Ahmar's forces. Indeed, all the various groups opposed to Saleh's rule -- including Ahmar's 1st Armored Division, the revolutionaries in the streets, the forces allied with tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar (not related to Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar), and the political parties of the Yemeni opposition -- together appeared incapable of tipping the balance of power in their favor. There were no elections, nor was the opposition able to form a successful transitional government, despite attempts to do so.

And Saleh did not die from his wounds. As a "guest" of Saudi Arabia, he recovered and over the summer was seen acting presidential -- meeting in the hospital compound with some of the other Yemeni government officials who were injured in the attack.

Western officials tried to quickly manufacture facts on the ground by dealing with the vice president, Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi, as if he truly were the acting power in Yemen. Formally, Hadi was the acting head of state, but Ahmed Saleh, the president's son and commander of the Republican Guard, locked Hadi out of the presidential palace and forced him to work at home -- sending a clear signal about who was in charge.

Hadi did prove useful to the Americans, however. With his military background and local connections, he was able to rally the local forces and turn the tide against al Qaeda's ground assault in Abyan governorate. Hadi promised his cooperation and assured the Americans that Yemen would not allow al Qaeda to take advantage of Yemen's crisis. Local reports from Abyan say that Saudi and American airdrops were critical in keeping the loyalist 25 Mika Brigade alive while it was besieged for three months by militants in Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan. (Saleh thanked both the Americans and the Saudis for their support in the war on al Qaeda in a speech shortly after his return to Sanaa.)

The Americans and Europeans wanted Hadi to go further and implement the Gulf agreement that called for Saleh to step aside one month after signing it and for a transitional government to oversee new elections. They wanted a political settlement that would resolve the crisis that was clearly feeding Yemen's instability and preventing the country from addressing its badly deteriorating economy.

But Saleh's clan effectively prevented any political settlement, subjecting street protesters to live fire by snipers or random shelling, almost to show that it could act with impunity against its opponents.

Read the rest of the article here.

Salih's return

2011-09-24T15:06:00.004+02:00

So, Salih took us all by surprise and sneaked back in the night before last while we were sleeping. He as yet has to make his "speech to the nation", which was announced for yesterday, but has now been delayed to September 26, when Yemen celebrates the revolution against the imamate of 1962. Salih obviously finds it fitting to deliver his speech, with which he will aim to put an end to this year's revolution, on this day. Meanwhile, he has made it more than clear that he is willing to reassert his power in Sanaa with all necessary force. He believes that as long as this city is his, the country is his. While we wait for him to make his speech, in which he will announce exactly how he is going to continue gambling away the lives of innocent Yemenis for the sake of his hold on power, I recommend you read this or this (there are several pages to this post).

And if you are feeling desperately cynical, I recommend you watch this. It has all you need to understand Salih's politics:

The revolution at a crossroads

2011-09-17T14:29:00.000+02:00

The following article is by far the best I have read on the "revolution" in Yemen, sind February. It is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in what is going on in the country.

Yemen's counterrevolutionary power-play

Foerign Policy, Septermber 16, 2011

by Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani

Observers of Yemen are often asked why the revolution there has taken so long and why it has been so inconclusive. The more basic question -- never asked, though inextricably tied to this -- is why an uprising started in the first place.

When the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and began to spread in the region, I did not think the conditions in Yemen were ripe for it. Indeed corruption, inequality, and the callous disregard for law were much worse in Yemen than any other country in the region. However, the conditions usually viewed as prerequisites for revolution -- a large and mobile middle class, a strong civil society, high literacy rate, and internet penetration -- are all non-existent. Yet the state does benefit from an historical accident, the adoption of a multi-party system in 1990 as part of the unity agreement between South and North Yemen. Twenty years of multi-party experience and the attendant mobilization skills of politicking made it possible for Yemeni activists to launch the revolution. Unfortunately, the absence of a broad middle class and a dynamic civil society has stunted the movement's momentum. The revolution has gradually transformed into what is largely an elitist struggle for power.

In February, the revolution was in its purest form, an escalating popular protest not controlled by political parties or political factions. Activists demonstrated a degree of national unity rarely witnessed in Yemen. But the Joint Meeting of Parties (JMP), the main coalition of opposition groups, was reluctant to participate in the protests. As a result, youth in squares across Yemen cried out, "No partisanship and no parties. It is a youth revolution."

Junior partners in the JMP, especially the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), were more forthcoming in support of the revolutionary platform from the start. Meanwhile, the Islamic party Islah, the main opposition faction, which until recently had an alliance with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, was hesitant to commit until the revolution gathered pace. They had the most to lose by openly challenging the regime. Islah eventually joined the youth in full force and successfully maneuvered to control the organizing committee of Al-Taghyeer (Change) Square in Sana'a and was instrumental in setting up many provincial protest squares. It's worth noting that the exception to Islah dominance played out in al-Hurreyah (freedom) Square in Taiz, Yemen's third city, which came to be referred to as the heart of the revolution.

From then on, the slogans and the rhetoric of the protestors came to represent the voice of the JMP rather than the youth. A notable example of this shift in rhetoric is the attacks on the General People's Congress (GPC), the nominal ruling party which lacks hard power and which the masses do not perceive as a primary adversary of the revolution. Islah's disparagement of the GPC is seen as a self-serving tactic, a ploy which they hope would lead to disbanding the GPC and thus giving Islah a real chance of gaining a majority in post-revolution elections.

The situation transformed in March after the massacre at al-Karamah where snipers shot dead 54 unarmed youth and injured many more. That horrific event led to mass defections within the regime, the military, the bureaucracy, and the ruling party.

General Ali Mohsin, Shaykh Sadeq al-Ahmar, and Sheikh Abdul-Majid Al Zindani were the most notable converts to the revolution. Mohsin, the second-most powerful person in Yemen, was Saleh's closest ally. As Saleh succeeded in concentrating power around him and his closest relatives, Mohsin was sidelined and, in turn, became Saleh's greatest competitor. Al-Ahmar inherited the powerful position of the Paramount Sheikh of Hashid Tribal Confederacy from his father, the legendary Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, whose approval of Saleh was sought by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia before it agreed to install Saleh as president in 1978. Moreover, Zindani is the most popular and best-known Yemeni hard-line cleric with links to Osama Bin Laden. A leader of Islah, he was Saleh's ally against Islah moderate leadership in the past few years.

Read the full article here.

UN report on the revolution in Yemen

2011-09-14T16:13:00.003+02:00

Report of the High Commissioner on OHCHR’s visit to Yemen

Summary

A delegation from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) visited Yemen from 28 June to 6 July 2011 to assess the human rights situation in the country. As a result of nine days of extensive meetings and consultations with representatives from the Government and civil society in the cities of Aden, Sana’a and Ta’izz, the Mission observed an overall situation where many Yemenis peacefully calling for greater freedoms, an end to corruption and respect for rule of law were met with excessive and disproportionate use of lethal force by the state. Hundreds have been killed and thousands have suffered injuries including loss of limbs.

On 18 March 53 persons were reportedly killed in Change Square in Sana’a, an incident which lead to the resignation of a number of Ministers, Ambassadors, members of parliament, of the Shura council (the Upper House) and of the ruling party, and the defection of General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar who vowed to send his troops to protect the peaceful demonstrators in the square. In another major incident on 29 May in the city of Ta’izz, after a riot and a brief kidnapping of security officials, “Freedom Square” was forcefully cleared by Government security officials, burning tents and killing dozens of demonstrators. Tribes claiming to protect protesters sent armed supporters to the square and occupied certain public buildings.

By the time the Mission had arrived in Yemen the picture that was emerging in the major cities was of a number of separate, but at times intertwined, struggles taking place. One comprises peaceful demonstrators calling for change in a similar fashion to their counterparts in other parts of the region. Another is an increasingly violent struggle for power between President Saleh and his supporters on the one hand and armed opponents, including alleged elements of Al-Qaeda, on the other. Yet another comprises political opponents, including recent defectors, who are publicly renouncing the resort to violence and seeking a resolution that would bring about regime change.

The Mission noted that the Yemeni Government had lost effective control of parts of the country and within the major cities, where armed opponents appeared to have de-facto control. The Mission also observed that among those seeking to achieve or retain power some have deliberately sought to collectively punish and cause severe hardship to the civilian population by cutting off vital access to basic services such as electricity, fuel and water. The Mission notes the danger that the protests might become increasingly radicalized and more violent in response to the excessive use of lethal force by the government, and the growing involvement of, and intimidation by, armed elements within the demonstrations. In essence violence has led to more violence and it is a tribute to the street protesters that they have sought to maintain their peaceful character despite the heavy price in loss of life and in severe injuries that has been paid thus far. On the other hand, the Mission is alarmed by the deteriorating humanitarian situation, which is negatively affecting most Yemenis, but in particular the poorest and most vulnerable, such as children, IDPs and refugees. Isolated acts of sabotage cannot account for all the suffering witnessed by or reported to the Mission throughout the country and the availability of electricity, fuel, cooking gas, water and other basic services should not be misused to punish the entire population. The Mission is of the view that calls for investigations and prosecutions will be undermined unless urgent measures are undertaken to ensure the independence and integrity of the judiciary and to provide them with sufficient resources. Additionally, given the lack of confidence by many Yemenis in the judiciary to conduct impartial investigations into human rights abuses there is a need for international, independent and impartial investigations to take place.

Read the full report here.
Read more on Yemen's humanitarian crisis here.

Yemen's humanitarian crisis continues

2011-09-10T11:47:00.004+02:00

Yemen's future is being made now

September 10, 2011

by William Lambers

More than 110 malnourished children under the age of five were enrolled and treated at the outpatient therapeutic program, while 38 suffering acute severe malnutrition were admitted to the therapeutic feeding center in Saada’s Al-Jumhori Hospital in August 2011. According to a rapid assessment conducted last year, 45% of under-fives in some parts of Saada are suffering from global acute malnutrition. This is one the highest rates of malnutrition in the world. (Ali Ghailan/UNICEF Saada/August 2011)

White House anti-terrorism advisor John Brennan spoke to reporters yesterday about the growing threat of Al Qaeda in Yemen. According to Laura Rozen’s report, Brennan warned, “Anytime there is a power vacuum, as in Somalia, and Yemen, Al Qaeda is attracted to it.”

Yemen is still in turmoil with protesters demanding that long-time President Saleh step down from office. The hope is now for a smooth, peaceful transition of power.

But the truth is that Yemen’s future is already being made, away from the protests and political halls. In fact, every day that small children in Yemen do not get proper nutrition, they are a step closer to lasting physical and mental damage. No society can advance under such a scenario.

The political crisis needs to get resolved quickly and peacefully. But Yemen clearly needs more. Child hunger takes center stage.

In Yemen, malnutrition among children was a huge problem even before the political turmoil started. About half of Yemen’s children are chronically malnourished. In the Sa’ada governorate of Northern Yemen, years of conflict between the government and rebels has taken its toll on children. Child malnutrition rates are extremely high.

The political unrest in the capital, as well as the fighting in Southern Yemen, have made the situation even worse.

Yet there are things the international community can do to bring some relief and allow Yemen to catch its breath. This would be to set up a child feeding program that would cover all cases of malnutrition with special foods like plumpy’nut. Right now, all children are not able to receive food as there is low funding for aid agencies like UNICEF and the World Food Programme. Relatively inexpensive interventions like child feeding have not received enough attention.

A full supply of plumpy’nut, for instance, would be a rescue line for Yemeni children to get them through the first 1,000 days. This type of interim aid is crucial so you can move on to building longer-term food security after a successful intervention. For example, there needs to be a national school lunch program with the idea of reducing malnutrition among children and getting them to school to complete an education. The ministry of education in Yemen and the World Food Programme once worked on a school feeding program with a take-home ration element. It was cut because of low funding.

But this is the kind of plan that if enacted on a wide enough scale could bring significant change and hope to Yemen. We can take action now to help Yemen as it resolves its political crisis and fights Al Qaeda. There is no better place to start than with the future: the nation’s children.

This article first appeared on Blogcritics.

For possiblities in regard to making donations for Yemen, read my blog post from July.

Hamid al-Ahmar and the revolution

2011-09-03T12:09:00.000+02:00

This is an excellent article by Sudarsan Raghavan on Hamid al-Ahmar and his role in Yemeni politics.

In Yemen's struggles, sighs of tribal clout

Washington Post, September 3, 2011

by Sudarsan Raghavan

SANAA, Yemen — Hamid al-Ahmar is not a member of Yemen’s ruling party or its military. He holds no formal position in its opposition movement. Nor can he claim the authority of a religious leader.

Yet Ahmar is anything but a mere observer in the seven-month-old populist uprising to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He is a billionaire, a scion of the country’s most powerful tribal family, and he is using his money and power to assert a role in a new Yemen.

He has bankrolled protest marches in 10 provinces, providing everything from microphones to transportation. He commands tens of thousands of tribesmen, including a heavily armed contingent that guards him day and night. His tribe’s clout has bought him access and influence; now it is providing Ahmar with a power base, one that has brought fresh energy to the revolution but has also spawned more violence and chaos.

“I am living with this revolution, day by day, hour by hour,” the 43-year-old said in an interview inside his opulent mansion.

Perhaps more than in any other country in the Middle East, the bonds of the vast extended families known as tribes occupy a central role in Yemen, a country ruled by two rival groupings, the Bakeel and the more powerful Hashid.

But Yemen is hardly alone in the region being riven by tribal loyalties; tribes are a factor in Libya, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and across the Persian Gulf. In some ways, they play a role just as important as the government, military, clerics and the opposition, injecting another unpredictable dynamic into the turbulence of the Arab Spring.

The Ahmars are blue bloods in Yemen’s tribal society.

Hamid al-Ahmar’s late father, Abdullah, headed the Hashid tribal federation, to which Saleh’s tribe also belonged. Abdullah al-Ahmar also headed the country’s largest opposition party, Islah, and served as speaker of parliament. Hamid’s elder brother now heads the Hashid federation.

In Yemen, tribes make up the central social unit, and their power has only grown in recent years, while Yemen’s central government has proven incapable of controlling much of the country. Most Yemenis depend on their tribes for jobs and other services.

To help maintain his power during more than three decades of rule, Saleh turned again and again to the Ahmars, in a symbiotic relationship not unlike his bond to Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen, the country’s most powerful military leader — one in which all parties chose to overlook their differences.

In return for help from the Ahmars and Mohsen, Saleh gave them wide latitude to “run their affairs with informal armies, courts and economic empires” and made “direct payments from the treasury to the . . . tribal and military constituencies,” thenU.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Krajeski wrote in a 2005 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

This year, following the deaths of 52 protesters by snipers loyal to Saleh, the Ahmar clan and Mohsen broke with the president and openly expressed support for the uprising.

‘A fiery combination’

As a child, Hamid al-Ahmar played with Saleh’s sons and nephews. In high school, Ahmar started a tourism company, using family money. He earned an economics degree at Sanaa University and spent two summers in England, where he studied English. He also studied the language in the San Francisco Bay area for four months while visiting one of his nine brothers, Sadiq, who was training to become a pilot.

His business holdings include Yemen’s largest cellphone company, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Baskin-Robbins franchises, a supermarket chain, and an influential satellite-TV network that has been critical of Saleh’s government.

To his supporters, Ahmar represents Yemen’s future: a young, modern businessman with the willpower to guide a nation gripped by poverty and Islamist extremism into a more stable era.

But to his detractors, including many youth activists who sparked the revolution, Ahmar is a living testament to how tribal-backed power has suffocated the Middle East’s poorest nation.

“There is a part of the people who like Hamid al-Ahmar,” said Ali al-Jaradi, editor in chief of al-Ahali newspaper, one of the largest in Yemen. “There are others afraid of what he represents. He’s from the president’s tribe. He’s a part of the old order.”

Unlike his father, though, Hamid al-Ahmar has shown no loyalty to Saleh. As a member of Yemen’s parliament since 1993, he is a senior leader of the opposition party, known as Islah, and he first called on Saleh to step down in 2005 — six years before the uprising that began this year.

“I don’t hate him personally. I hate his way of running the country,” Ahmar said, adding that Saleh’s sons and nephews should also leave power.

His increasing influence did not escape the attention of American diplomats. “Hamid al-Ahmar has ambition, wealth and tribal power in abundance, a fiery combination anywhere but especially in Yemen,” then-U.S. Ambassador Stephen A. Seche wrote in August 2009, in another of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

Read the full article here.

Reasons for a media blackout on Yemen

2011-08-28T14:41:00.004+02:00

A lady blogger from Yemen has reacted to the current debate on a "media blackout on Yemen", which I too have addressed im my last entry. I will repost her arguments for why there is hardly any good reporting on Yemen below, but would like to add two further points as she seems to be mainly talking about a media blackout on Yemen in the United States. From a German perspective, I think, one further point has to be taken into account (apart from the fact that there are even fewer German speaking experts on Yemen than there are English-speaking ones):

We don't get much coverage on what is going on in Yemen because YEMEN IS SO FAR AWAY. Germans, and I believe other Europeans, too, are more interested in what is happening on their borders that what is happening in some remote Arab country, whose revolution will neither impact upon our security (except if your world is made up of thinking about al-Qaidah and terrorism), or social welfare system (no Yemeni refugees likely to end up in Germany), or our economy. If the Yemeni revolution would be willing and able to produce some pirates endangering the transport of goods necessary for upholding our lifestyle and the economy as such in Bab al-Mandab, I am sure we would be likely to pay more attention.

Further reasons are listed below by "Woman from Yemen". Read the original blog post here.

Some thoughts on the media blackout

There is an ongoing discussion on why Western mainstream media is not writing or broadcasting enough material about the Yemeni revolution.

I was back in the US this summer, and many people I spoke to there, did not know that the peaceful protesters are still camped at the squares. They thought that the peaceful protests were over because the media had stopped giving them a voice.

In this post I will list some of the theories that people have regarding the media blackout. I don't necessarily agree with all these points, but I would like to list them all here in order to have a discussion about it.

Theories on media blackout:

1) People just don't care about "Yemen", after all they just recently found out this country exists. Same people knew about"crazy" Qadhafi for years, and Syria was also known especially for it's link to "scary" Iran. But, Yemen..it's still brand new for media. (of course Yemen is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world)

2) Journalists find it hard to understand Yemen due to its complicated history and various players on the ground. To them, the pro-democracy movement seems scattered and it is therefore very difficult to know who to talk to. Who is the spokesperson? Who can speak on behalf of the revolution? Etc

3) More analysis pieces need to be written to help everyone including the journalists with understanding Yemen, and yet editors are not necessarily eager to publish these analysis pieces. They are more interested in how many people died, where, and when. No depth, just fast facts. Why? Because everyone is obsessed about sending the story first, not enough people care about the quality of the story.

4) There are few western journalists in Yemen. However, there are many English speaking journalists in Yemen covering stories in all governorates. In addition, there are a lot more Western journalists in Yemen than there are in Syria, yet information from Syria is covered on a daily basis and not from Yemen. Why is that?

6) Mainstream western media is serving a specific agenda, that does not include promoting real change in Yemen. Without realizing it, western journalists repeat, like parrots, the standard government lines void of any analysis. How many times have you read the same exact information in different articles on the same day?!

7) We often hear about AQAP as the largest threat to the world, without proper investigation or analysis. Have we heard much about former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair's analysis that the drone attacks are “not strategically effective. If the drones stopped flying tomorrow, Blair told the audience at the Aspen Security Forum, “it’s not going to lower the threat to the U.S.” This is not the story the west wants its audience to hear.

Of course each one of these points needs further explanation, and I will try to elaborate on that soon in another post. No matter what the reasons are, the reality is, information on Yemen is scarce. Of course other countries in the region, like Bahrain, are suffering from the same blackout.

More importantly than why, is how can we circumvent this blackout and push Yemen and other countries in the media? We need to really push independent media to disseminate information that's missing from mainstream media.

We can't constantly blame journalists for all of this, they are trying hard to do their job, but it's our job as citizens to push them to always do their best. So with that, my advise to the journalists in Yemen is the following: if editors are refusing to publish deeper stories on Saudi's role in Yemen, the humanitarian situation of the IDPs, or the impact of drones on ordinary citizens for example, journalists should still write the story. Don't wait until you find an editor who agrees, write the story and then find an independent source to publish it if needed.

Finally, if your goal is to serve a community through writing about the truth, it won't matter if your name appears on the best selling newspaper or an independent online one.

Western media: Cover the Yemeni revolution now!

2011-08-26T09:59:00.001+02:00

This is a strong and very timely appeal to the Western media to cover the courageous perserverance of the Yemeni pro-democracy supporters. I don't agree with everything this man says, but certainly with the general tenor of his message:

You can also watch this video on YouTube here.

A revolution in Yemen?

2011-08-25T10:04:00.000+02:00

The following blog entry by a Yemeni living abroad is one of the most powerful statements I have read on the Yemeni revolution so far. It is sad and disheartening, but also - unfortunately - very true. We have all let the Yemeni youth and the independent revolutionaries down.

Is it time to call a taxi for the Yemeni revolution?

Click here for source.

Is there ever a time when it becomes not only right, but patriotic, to admit that reforms have failed? That a once in a lifetime oppurtunity has been lost? That we have let down not just people who gave their lives or had it taken from them, but also condemned the lives of the next generation of Yemenis in order to maintain a status quo that can be judged by any amateur by its record of delivery over the last three decades? Dory Eryani took the brave step of saying what I am sure is in everybody’s mind and I want to add my voice to hers.

Removing all the ‘distractions’ and ‘complexities’, what is happening in the Middle East? We have seen revolutions rising to remove regimes that have mismanaged them. The template is almost identical: First move against the symbol, then after that the establishment that supported it and that is how it should be. It’s only logical. After all, its perfectly clear that these establishments are incapable or have no intention to self reform and if they are not going to self-reform, then they have lost the mandate to rule. None of the three countries that have toppled their regimes can claim success, but all three are on the right track there. They have toppled the symbol, and now are engaging with the bigger, harder step of dismantling the establishments. Whether they will succeed or not is anyone’s guess but all three countries revolutionaries have a clear understanding that an establishment that was part of the problem can not be part of the solution.

Watching the people of Libya in their moment of glory makes it even more painful to question what has happened to the Yemeni Revolution. Of all the Arab countries, and I say this not only because I am a Yemeni, it is the one that deserved it the most. If Yemen was a person it would be the most disadvantaged, side-lined, over-looked, marginalised, poverty stricken person ever. You can say what you like about Hosni, or Ben Ali, or even Gaddafi, but the fact of the matter is that all these countries standards surpass Yemen’s astronomically. I hate the family of Al Saoud with a passion for their betrayal of Yemen recently and for decades of foreign policy that have led Yemen to where it is today:The road sweeper of the Gulf, but haven’t they done well for their people? Look at Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar, and yes, even Bahrain.. yes they are dictators but haven’t they done well for their people? You will say they have the money to be able to buy their people’s silence. The equation in the Gulf States is very simple trade-off: you put up with us, and we will give you a standard of living other nations of the earth can only dream of. Free housing, free health care, free education.. a good life. I’m sure the average Gulf Arab, with the exception of certain Bahrainis, understands and approves this. In their perspective, They have what they need, the house, the food on the table, disposable income, education for their kids etc. Do I blame them? or think they are making a mistake? Of course not, because they are satisfied enough and ultimately that is what it’s about. What is most important to the voter in the most advanced democracy on Earth? Isn’t it economics? jobs? more disposable income? less tax?

Cynical about democracy? I will be honest. At this point after 8 months of watching, I am almost at the point of just wanting food on the table for Yemen, never mind democracy. Find even a benevolent tinpot dictator for Yemen who will help himself to even a little bit less and put some effing food on the table for Yemen, but even that is not an option. There is nothing benevolent in sight. The only chance we had was this revolution which started with the Youth.. These youth who took the chance, feeling their way blindly, with no experience, guided by their understanding that this was a golden opportunity that doesn’t come very often. They were not copying the neither the Egyptians, nor the Tunisians, or the Lybians. They saw a chance and took it.

Speaking for myself, I was entirely swept up with the euphoria that something big was happening in Yemen. I was one of the fools who saw Ali Muhsin’s defection as the sign of someone who is cutting his losses and switching to the winning side. I was also one of the fools who thought the failed assassination attempt ,which has all the marks of an inter-establishment coup, was a further sign that Saleh was on his own. Even when rumours will swirling that Tawakol Karaman is nothing but the public face of Islah I still didn’t click, after all, what does it matter what party she belongs to, in the end she captured the national mood and articulated the case of the Yemeni Revolution very well. The first shadow I glimpsed was when Ali Muhsin made his first move against protestors intent on escalation. He arrested them and beat them. He was sending out a clear message. No escalation will be allowed. Of course the explanation given was that the protest had to stay within the the limits of Change Square in order to be able to protect the protesters from the snipers and regime. In effect, and im sure in intent, he succeeded in containing the Sana’a protest movement. Before Ali Muhsin’s move, It was easy to say who the revolutionaries were, and who the establishment were. After that move it was sensed by many that the lines were all of a sudden blurred. And regardless of what anyone said or tweeted, or wrote, that action went UNCHALLENGED. yes hindsight is a fine thing. I wonder now if that singular action succeeded in planting seeds of self-doubt..

The establishment that I grew up in the Yemen and left can be summarised in a famous Saleh pearl of wisdom, and it really is a pearl of wisdom: Let them do what they want to do, and we will do what we want to do.. This isn’t arrogance, It is confidence. The confidence that comes not from any super-human abilities, but from the smug knowledge that comes from creating a rigged democracy from scratch and taking 30 years to perfect it. Everything about the first democracy in the Arabian Gulf (as Saleh is fond of reminding you and me) has a mysterious way of working comfortably on his behalf for his interests. Saleh’s democracy works something like this: he was liberal enough within his establishment including the alleged opposition to let them help themselves to the cake. In fact, it was encouraged. It was never a hard life to be an opposition member of parliament, it was harder to be an independent. Help yourself and allow French TOTAL to grab yemeni gas at stupid prices, help yourself and allow other Arab/Non ARab countries to fish in Yemeni waters with dynamite and ships so huge while the average tihami yemeni takes his life in his hands on a rickety boat for left overs. Help yourself to dig any numbers of well.. Help yourself to other people’s lands and real estate. If you were a potential threat he allowed you to thrive. Wasn’t that the arrangement with certain business and tribal families? In the end everybody becomes so corrupted that no one has the moral high ground to say anything or do anything meaningful because he would have something against you. This culture is now everywhere in Yemen. You cant do anything without paying someone for a job they are supposed to do anyway. Bribery and corruption. Even to mention it is a cliche in its own right.

By the time the opposition took advantage of the power vacuum and Saleh went for his cosmetic procedure in Saudi, it was clear that ppl were starting to worry. What wasn’t clear was everything that came after that, but whatever it is, it ceased to be the Youth’s Revolution after that. Besides Ali Muhsin’s defect, there was the Ahmar’s, the tribes that came to defend him, The ‘surprise’ appearance of AQAP, and the smooth and ease with which the opposition took over as caretakers of the revolution. What people call the opposition, is really the third layer of yemen’s ruling establishment who are not so much moving against Saleh, but seizing the opportunity to move up a notch in the food chain. It is not an opposition it is an extension of the regime itself. Above the opposition is Saleh, and above Saleh is Saudi Arabia.

Most Saleh supporters are supporters of the lesser of two evils. Now I don’t know much about Islah or Zindani. In fact, I only know one thing about Zindani and its all I ever need to know: That he has (allegedly) invented the cure to HIV and is keeping it a secret from the world because of patent rights. This is not what I heard, this came from his own mouth. Presumably his Islamic sensibilities prevent him from sharing it with the rest of the world until he gets the patent sorted? Or maybe he is just a liar? It can’t be a publicity stunt surely. In any other country this would have discredited anybody, but not in Yemen. There are no other options out there. No one who isn’t in one way or another tainted by association.

It is also painfully clear now that there is no national narrative in Yemen. There is no all embracing Yemen like the Egypt the mother, that rallied all Egyptians. Everyone sees Yemen from their own bubble. Yes it maybe true that some would say that Libya is the same but the transitional council in Libya made a point of reaching out to all and including all groups like the Amazigh and uniting them against Gaddafi.. The national council barely made the effort to even look like it was being representative. Why? simple, they know that they will get away with it.. whos they? the careerist politicians, the opportunistic parties, the cultural Islamists the list goes on.. what no one is doing is taking a pause and say: Stop, can we afford this? Can we afford to let Yemen go on the path it is going on for even 10 more years? with all the inflation, the water and food shortages, the sky-rocketing population, the shrinking oil and gas reserves, the rising unemployment, the culture of corruption, the illiteracy, the poverty… It doesn’t matter what people say with their lips, the answer is in their actions. If the action of the National Council is anything to go by, then it is hardly a wonder that our revolution is all but over. we have gone full circle only to end up in the arms of the establishment again.. IF you’re not chewing Qat by now, you certainly will be by the time this revolution is through… We almost got rid of a dictator, only to hand the power back into the hands of his creation…

On the complex situation in Zanjubar

2011-08-13T11:20:00.001+02:00

This is an interesting article by the Jamestown Foundation on the situation in Zanjubar (or Zinjibar).

The battle for Zinjibar: The tribes of Yemen's Abyan governorate join the fight against Islamist militancy

August 12, 2011, The Jamestown Foundation - Terrorism Monitor

by Andrew McGregor

As if Yemen did not already face enough political, social and economic challenges in the midst of a multi-sided civil war, there are significant and not unreasonable fears in the Yemeni opposition that President Ali Abdullah Saleh has manufactured a new conflict between the state and al-Qaeda in Abyan governorate designed to ensure Western support for his continued rule. Many Yemeni political and military leaders insist the bitter and ongoing battle for the coastal city of Zinjibar (capital of Abyan governorate) is merely the culmination of a decade long policy of manipulating the al-Qaeda threat.

Yemen’s military is badly divided at the moment; some units and commanders have crossed over to the opposition, some units are engaged with Huthist rebels in northern Yemen, some (such as the Republican Guard) are devoted to crushing protestors, and still others, such as the leadership of the embattled 25^th Brigade in Zinjibar, say they are neither pro- nor anti-regime, but will fight to the death to prevent an al-Qaeda takeover.

Saleh’s regime has attempted to capitalize on the seizure of Zinjibar as a warning of what can result from the instability sweeping Yemen as a result of anti-regime protests, describing the militants as “members of al-Qaeda [who] benefit from any instability to establish their Islamic state (Yemen Times, June 2).

The Islamist Takeover of Zinjibar: Betrayal at the Top?

According to official reports, Zinjibar was taken by about 300 Islamist militants (which the government identified as al-Qaeda) in late May after two days of fighting with government forces (AFP, May 29). Residents of Zinjibar reached by Western media provided a different version of events, describing a city abandoned to militants who went on a looting spree (BBC, May 29). Only the 25^th Brigade refused to evacuate the city and was soon surrounded by militant forces. It seems that the original 300 militants received substantial reinforcements before tribal forces recently began cutting the roads into Zinjibar.

Not long after the occupation, reports began to appear in the jihadist forums of the proclamation of an “Islamic Emirate of Abyan,” as declared by AQAP (Ansar1.info, March 28; al-Bawaba, March 31). The forces in Zinjibar, however, are gathered under the banner of the newly formed Ansar al-Shari’a (al-Watan [Sana’a], August 4). The exact identity of the Islamist forces in Zinjibar remains uncertain. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has not issued any statements regarding the fighting there, though government statements routinely refer to the forces occupying the city as “al-Qaeda.”

Yemen’s foreign minister, Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi, strongly denied suggestions that the government was using al-Qaeda in Zinjibar to further its own interests and collect Western funding intended for anti-terrorism activities: “It cannot be said that the state that spares no effort in fighting [al-Qaeda], is the one that planted it there” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 29).

Read the rest of the article here.

Walter Dostal passes away

2011-08-12T13:56:00.004+02:00

This weekend, the social anthropology of Yemen has lost one of its greatest scholars: Prof. em. Walter Dostal has passed away at the age of 83. The Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, where Walter Dostal worked until his retirement, published the following obituary. A list of his publications as well as a full CV can be accessed through here.

WALTER DOSTAL (1928-2011)

With Walter Dostal's passing away in Vienna on August 6th/7th 2011, the anthropological communities in Austria, Central Europe and the German-speaking countries lose one of their best-known representatives shaping the field throughout the latter quarter of the 20th century. Dostal was best known for his ethnographic studies of Arabian and Middle Eastern societies, but he also contributed substantially to anthropological theory - with particular emphasis on the interplay between environment, society, and history. As a leading expert for the Arab peninsula at this Academy, Dostal continued a remarkable research record into the early 21st century which at the Academy of Sciences goes back to the late 19th century.

Dostal had belonged to the first generation of anthropology students trained after the second world war, and his scholarly work was committed to build a new and internationally oriented foundation for the discipline once called "Voelkerkunde" in the German-speaking countries after 1945. Born on May 15th 1928 in Grulich near Brno (today:Czech Republic), Dostal and his family moved at the end of the war to Vienna where he began his studies in anthropology. His critical engagement with the so-called "Culture Circles" theory led him to reject any speculative historical models, and to appreciate the empirical archaeological and textual evidence. Formative influences during those early years of his career were Robert Heine-Geldern (a corresponding member of the AAS)and Joseph Henninger. After his dissertation on Semitic-speaking peoples he began a first sequence of ethnographic fieldwork in the Arab peninsula,which he combined with international research sojourns in Frankfurt and Rome, and his first position as Curator for the Middle Eastern section at Vienna's Ethnology Museum.

With his early field work in Kuwait (in the late 1950's) and in southern Yemen (during the early 1960's) Dostal in fact became the world's first trained socio-cultural anthropologist who carried out ethnographic fieldwork in the Arab peninsula. His book-volume habilitation on the Bedouins in Southern Arabia established his international reputation and included a theory on camel riding techniques, and their significance for the evolution of camel raising in Arabia. In the very last academic lecture Dostal gave in October 2010 at the ISA-hosted international workshop "Camels in Asia and North Africa: Their significance in past and present", Dostal returned again to this topic and to a critical re-assessment.

In the mid-1960's, Dostal was invited to become the first chair at the newly-founded seminar for ethnology in Switzerland's capital Berne, which he helped to build up, and that he led for a decade. During those years, he continued his ethnographic field work with several intense campaigns in northern Yemen, which resulted in his book on the market of San'a and in several articles on tribal organization. Simultaneoulsy, Dostal also produced a dense ouevre of ethnographic documentary films on Southern Arabia. At the same time, Dostal began to elaborate his theoretical insights on the impact of ecological factors upon the socio-cultural organization of humans. As Dean at Berne University, Dostal also engaged anthropology with new issues such as indigenous rights among native ethnic groups in the Americas, and he was among the first male scholars in German-speaking anthropology to publish on gender topics. The late 1960's thus brought Dostal into even closer contact with new international developments in this field and beyond.

In 1975, Dostal returned to Vienna to take over the Chair at the University of Vienna's Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology. On May 25th 1977, he was elected a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS). At the University Department, several among those who today belong to ISA's senior and mid-career core staff were his doctoral and magisterial students and benefitted from his wide academic repertoire and counseling - among them Andre Gingrich, Guntram Hazod, Johann Heiss, Christian Jahoda, Maria-Katharina Lang, and Helmut Lukas. That list also includes those who continued to cooperate with ISA while pursuing their careers elsewhere, such as in the US (Peter Schweitzer, Alaska Fairbanks), the UK (Hildegard Diemberger, Cambridge) or Germany (Ernst Halbmeier, Marburg).

At the AAS, Walter Dostal merged the Ethnological and Arabian Studies Commissions into the Commission for Social Anthropology, and instilled this unit with new life. By promoting major research projects through the Commission for Social Anthropology, Dostal decisively contributed to the basis on which ISA today is built. Not only did he promote a new generation of field work being carried out in the Himalayan countries and in Tibet, as well as in southeastern Asia, he also personally launched the major Austrian Science Fund project in Asir (Saudi-Arabia) which led to his edited publications of 1983 and 2007. In addition, Dostal published his monographs on the Austrain Yemen scholar Eduard Glaser, and on socio-cultural evolution in Arabia. In view of these prolific scholarly activities, Walter Dostal was elected a Full Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences on May 11th 1993. He served as the Commission for Social Anthropology's Chair until 2003, and he continued to provide his advice and expertise as the Consultative Board's chair when that Commission was upgraded to a Research Unit in 2007 and subsequently into today's ISA in 2009. ISA as well as Central Europe's anthropological communities at large will always remember the person and the scholar with respect, gratitude, and affection.

Democratic transition in Yemen will need outside support

2011-08-10T14:18:00.006+02:00

Taking a chance on a democratic Yemen

August 8, 2011, al-Jazeera
by Abubakr al-Shamahi

The Yemeni youth movement represents the country's best chance for democracy - but it needs outside support to succeed.

Yemen finds itself in the fifth month of mass anti-government protests that have left the country with a severely injured President seeking treatment abroad, an economic and humanitarian disaster, and a seemingly intractable stalemate. The youth, who comprise the vast majority of a population whose average age is 18, are increasingly divided, yet increasingly adamant that all the corrupt remnants of the old regime should be replaced by a fully-functioning democratic system.

This wish, in line with the aspirations of millions of Arabs inspired by the events of the "Arab Spring", may appear to be idealistic and even naïve in a country like Yemen. Poor education levels, the lack of an established middle class, the prevalence of qat, and, perhaps most importantly, various armed uprisings, secessionists, and militant activity, are seen as roadblocks preventing any realistic democratic enterprise. However, the events of the past few months have given hope that a new, more democratic, Yemen might emerge out of the ashes of the current crisis.

There is no denying that the current anti-government movement is supported by the majority of the Yemeni people, especially in the restive areas of Taiz, Aden, Saada, Ibb, and Hodeida. Even in the capital Sanaa, where pro-Saleh sentiment is seen as strongest, the biggest and most regular rallies have been those calling for his removal from power.

The anti-government protest movement encompasses a wide cross-section of Yemeni society, centred around a student-based youth movement, and growing to encompass various civil society groups, the traditional opposition parties, women's groups, and a significant tribal element. The cultural change that may bring hope for the future of the country can be seen in the seemingly uniform calls for a pluralist state by the protesters, and the conferences, town hall style meetings, and even poetry nights that are held at the protest squares around the country.

Nonetheless Yemen, in keeping with its history, is different. Yemenis have not had their "resignation moment", as Egyptians and Tunisians did, and yet they have a President who has left the country, unlikely to return. Ali Abdullah Saleh's son, Ahmed, has taken his father's role in the palace, without officially taking over, nor having the power to. Vice-President Abdu Rabbo Mansur Hadi, whom the constitution designates as acting President in light of Saleh's absence, is seemingly powerless, and torn between the various sides who all want to influence him. Some revolutionary groups have set up transitional councils, yet the details are shady. State media, usually a good indicator of the control of an authoritarian government, remains the official mouthpiece of the Saleh regime, and still labelling protesters as criminals and mobs.

One of the main reasons that the regime has carried on without Ali Abdullah Saleh is that his sons and nephews, especially his son Ahmed and his nephew Yahya, have effectively been running the show for the past few years. This period has seen the President replace his old advisors with these family members, and the accompanying period of instability in the country can be seen as evidence of this transfer of power. Although the figurehead is no longer in the country, the Salehs have been busy building on their established military and security power bases to consolidate power for themselves.

Read the rest of this article here.

Day and night in Yemeni politics

2011-08-09T16:10:00.004+02:00

When will Yemen's night really end?

July 28, 2011, Le monde diplomatique

by Gabriele vom Bruck

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh might be forgiven for refusing, on 22 May, to sign a Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered agreement obliging him to rescind power within a month. The date marked the twenty-first anniversary of the unification of his Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south — the highlight of his political career. However, this was the third time he failed to confront the inevitable, so failing to ease the dangerous impasse in the country he has ruled for over three decades. Yemen, as Amnesty International warns, is “on a knife-edge”.

Thus far, the country has been spared another devastating war, one potentially bloodier than those fought since unification in 1990. In the capital Sana, in spite of daily harassment, tear gas, beatings and killings by security forces, the protests have for the main part remained peaceful, even after the killing of over fifty protesters on 18 March. In the southern city of Taiz, where security forces destroyed protesters’ tents, killing dozens of them on 30 May, “Martyrs’ Square” — recently renamed “Freedom Square” — has again become testimony to the city’s martyrs. There are daily clashes in the southern provinces (in the former PDRY); five provinces in various parts of the country are no longer under government control. Since the attack on Saleh’s palace mosque on 3 June which compelled him to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, there has been a power sharing of sorts. Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi has become acting head of state, but Saleh’s eldest son Ahmad has moved into the palace and the government insists that Saleh will return and rule until the end of his term in office in 2013. Amid continuing deadly clashes in several areas and a looming humanitarian crisis, a political transition process is urgently needed.

The current crisis follows the trajectory of Saleh’s rule: the president is not known for seeking peaceful solutions to political crises. He has relied on “divide and rule” tactics to neutralise threats to his authority, and on a patronage system that permeates all sectors of government and society. The political elite exercises authority through extra-constitutional means and controls a substantial part of the business sector. The provision of public services to provinces has often been made dependent on political loyalty — a policy which has served to perpetuate historical grievances and antagonism. Even where obvious solutions were available to some of the country’s more entrenched problems, the political will was lacking. Yet western nations offered support to Saleh’s regime even as he lost legitimacy among his people. In the past months the regime, as well as western diplomacy, has been challenged in the streets of Yemen’s towns and cities. US foreign secretary Hillary Clinton’s statement on 2 June 2011 that “if it wasn’t obvious before it certainly should be now that [Saleh’s] presence remains a source of great conflict” reads like an embarrassing admission of past misjudgement. In 2010, the so-called “Friends of Yemen” was established, a group made up of 20 countries determined to improve Yemen’s capacity to maintain security and increase and coordinate foreign assistance. The tragic irony of the project was that it sought to stabilise a country that had been systematically destabilised by its leader.

Square of dignity

Nowadays, Yemen’s capital is divided by checkpoints manned by rival factions of the army, some of them allied with militias loyal to tribal leaders. Fearful residents argue that this stand-off is reminiscent of events in 1994 which marked the end of a promising period of liberalisation which had begun in 1990. The armies of the former YAR and the PDRY confronted and eventually fought each other, leaving thousands dead. Yemen’s democratic experiment, strained by economic downturn and the two former leaders’ ambition to outsmart each other, was doomed to failure.

Read the rest of the article here.

Yemeni tribes and the revolution

2011-08-05T10:19:00.002+02:00

This is a fascinating article about recent developments in the involvement of Yemeni tribes in the ongoing upheavals in Yemen:

Yemeni Tribes Unify under Western Darkness, August 4, 2011, The Palestinian Chronicle

by James Gundun

As information flows from Yemen's revolution, it quickly deposits into the black-hole of U.S. and European media. Sometimes this information completes the transit intact, but reports are more often jumbled and spliced before reaching the Western public. Even then, an estimated 3-9% of Americans are paying "serious" attention to the incomplete picture of Yemen’s revolution.

Last weekend naturally elapsed through this machine when many news sources, Western and non-Western, picked up the brutal clashes between Yemeni security forces and anti-government tribesmen. Most bandwidth has been diverted south to the ongoing battle in Zinjibar and Aden, where government forces and anti-government tribes are caught in a proxy battle against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and government-funded "jihadists." While international media generally positions Yemen’s tribes on the government’s side, they are largely fighting both Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime and AQAP after the government manufactured a takeover of Zinjibar in May.

As the U.S.-trained Republican Guard and Central Security Organization concentrate their remaining forces in Sana'a and Taiz, local units were ordered to retreat and reinforcements were withheld until mid-July.

The commander of Yemen’s 25th Mechanized Brigade tried to explained his situation in a recent interview with the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat. For reasons still unclear to him, Brigadier General Mohammed al-Sawmali found himself outgunned and "besieged" by AQAP militants at a local stadium. al-Sawmali admitted upfront, "The security services pulled out of Abyan leaving their weapons behind, and Al Qaeda seized these weapons, and is now using them against us. This is something that no one can deny."

"However, if you ask me about the motives behind this, I can only say to you 'God knows.'"

Read more about this and the recently established Yemen Tribal Coalition in the full article.

Parliamentary performance in Yemen before and during the revolution

2011-08-03T13:44:00.001+02:00

I would like to use this opportunity to draw attention to a project implemented by the Yemen Polling Center, the foremost independent research institute in Yemen: Yemen Parliament Watch (YPW). Since November 2009, the Yemen Polling Center (YPC) has been observing parliamentary performance on a daily basis. It has also trained Members of Parliament about the responsibilities and opportunities of their job as well as journalists on how to monitor the performance of MPs. The English version of the website can be accessed here, it is, however, not as detailed as the Arabic one. One of the features I as a researcher like most about this project is the ability to access information about all MPs, i.e. their affilition, constituency, background as well as the correct spelling of their names in Arabic (very important!). YPW has also documented the performance of Parliament throughout the revolution. Moreover, it has published two detailed reports analyzing the the performance of parliament last year, which are available in English and Arabic.

A Friday on Change Square in Sanaa

2011-08-01T10:39:00.000+02:00

If you want to get a feeling for what it is like to be on Change Square in Sanaa, watch these beautiful video documentaries by a young Yemeni lady:

Transition Council established by members of protest movement (updated)

2011-07-17T17:59:00.003+02:00

The news today are not – as anticipated – about Salih's return to Yemen as had been announced by members of the ruling party as today marks the 33^rd anniversary of his rule. Instead, although I suspect a connection there, what makes the headlines today is the establishment of a Transitional Council by members of the protest movement, listed below. The list of members is of course interesting in itself, but what I find similarly intriguing is:

a) How did this Transitional Council came to be established? Obviously, some prominent members of the protest movement came together to decide on them, but these are obviously not representatives of the protest movement. As the always excellent Laura Kasinof reports in her most recent article in the New York Times, some of the members of the Council seem to be surprised to find their name on the list. Also, other members of the protest movement do not seem to second the list of members: "'I would call this council Towakil and Khaled al-Ansi’s council,' said Adel al-Musanif, a graduate student, referring to Ms. Karman and the protest leader who announced the council with her."

b) Why now (and not earlier)? I suspect that the answer to the latter question is the announcement of Salih's imminent return to Yemen – a Yemeni friend told me only yesterday that he was hoping for Salih's return to Yemen as only this event would help reunite the protest movement, which became increasingly fragmented after the common denominator or common enemy, the President, left the country. (We might also speculate that this process might have contributed to Salih's decision to delay his return to the country.) In light of this, the announcement of a Transitional Council that is, according to a prominent member of the protest movement, Tawakkul Karman, "charged with leading the country during a transition period not to exceed nine months and with forming a government of technocrats" is an important step to counter the fragmentation process.

The Council will elect a leader from amongst its members, who will then establish his (shadow) government. It has also been set the task of selecting 501 members of a national assembly, which will work on the formulation of a new constitution (and which will hopefully be more gender sensitive than the Transitional Council). I put "shadow" in brackets as from the perspective of those who set up the Council, its members are now considered the new leaders of Yemen. I have just today read an article about the framing of social movements, which argued that "if movement activists interpret political space in ways that emphasize opportunity rather than constraint, they may stimulate actions that change opportunity, making their opportunity frame a self-fulfilling prophecy" (Gamson & Meyer 1996: 287). I would be pleasantly surprised if this turned out to be the case here.

On the council are 16 men and one woman. It includes politicians from the North and South as well as members of Yemeni civil society. At least one of those listed has been in exile for almost twenty years. The 17 members of the Transitional Council are:

ʿAbd Allāh Ḥasan al-Nākhibī (عبد الله حسن الناخبي)

ʿAbd Allāh Salām al-Ḥakīmī (عبد الله سلام الحكيمي)

ʿAlī Ḥusayn ʿAshāl (علي حسين عشال)

ʿAlī Naṣir Muḥammad (علي ناصر محمد)

ʿAydarūs al-Naqīb (عيدروس النقيب)

Ḥaydar Abū Bakr al-ʿAṭṭās (حيدر أبو بكر العطاس)

Ḥūriyah Mashhūr (حورية مشهور)

Jamāl Muḥammad al-Mutarrib (جمال محمد المترب)

Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Malik al-Mutawakkil (محمد عبد الملك المتوكل)

Muḥammad ʿAlī Abū Luḥūm (محمد علي أبو لحوم)

Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Saʿdī (محمد سعيد السعدي)

Muḥammad Sālim Bā Sindwah (محمد سالم باسندوة)

Muḥsin Muḥammad bin Farīd (محسن محمد بن فريد)

Saʿd al-Dīn Ṭālib (سعد الدين بن طالب)

Ṣādiq ʿAlī Sarḥān (صادق علي سرحان)

Ṣakhr Aḥmad al-Wajīh (صخر أحمد الوجيه)

Yaḥya Manṣūr Abū Uṣbuʿ (يحيى منصور أبو اصبع)

Of course, as interesting as the names on this list are the names not on this list, amongst them Yāsīn Saʿīd Nuʿmān, former prime minister of the PDRY (1986-1990), whose name was one of those most often mentioned when possible members of a possible Transitional Council were discussed. The next days will show how Yemenis will react to the establishment of the Council and its composition. Much of its legitimacy will rest on its broad acceptance among the protestors on Change Square in Sanaa, in Taʿizz, Aden, and nation-wide. According to Karman, the Transitional Council was established to "protect the unity of the country before it completely collapses", but as the opposition parties were not included in the establishment of this Council (nor any other influential political players) I am doubtful whether this goal will be achieved.

Source:

Gamson, William A. / Meyer, David S. (1996): "Framing political opportunity", in: McAdam, Doug et al. (eds.): Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge Univ. Pr., pp. 275-290.

Donating for Yemen

2011-07-11T10:13:00.006+02:00

For all those interested in making donations to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, there are several reliable organizations, which have been and continue to be active in the country. I have listed them alphabetically below. Unfortunately, I have found no reliable Yemeni humanitarian relief organization to donate to (which is not to say that there are no reliable CSOs in Yemen, there are!), but continue to be on the look-out. I will update this post if I come across any.

CARE International has been active in Yemen since 1993. At the heart of its work are poverty reduction and the promotion of social justice with a focus on women's literacy, water management, capacity building of local organizations, natural resource management, and relief assistance to refugees. Next to these long-term programs, CARE also offers emergency relief to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Yemen. From what I understand, you cannot donate directly to Yemen, but can help support the Rapid Response Fund (from which humanitarian relief in the current Yemen crisis is funded) here.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen is active in a number of fields in the country, amongst which are support to IDPs in Yemen due to the conflicts in North and South as well as refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen, support for detainees in Yemen prisons and vocational training for women prisoners to support social reintegration as well as advocacy for humanitarian principles. You can donate to the Red Cross in Yemen under "other operations" on this page.

Oxfam has been active in Yemen for about 25 years. At the core of its work in the country is advocacy for greater justice for women in Yemen, which includes campaigning against early marriage, increasing women’s economic empowerment, access to healthcare in remote villages, and working to secure legal protection. In regard to disaster preparedness, Oxfam cooperates with the Yemeni Red Crescent. From what I understand, you cannot donate to Yemen specifically, but only to Oxfam's work in general, which you can do here.

The World Food Programme (WFP) in Yemen focuses on food assistance to the most vulnerable. It has been active in Yemen since 1967 and has in recent years added several special programs to this broader aim, amongst which are emergency assistance to families affected by the conflict in Sa'dah, relief and recovery assistance to refugees from the Horn of Africa, and food for girl's education. You can donate to support hunger relief for Yemen here.

AQAP, politischer Wandel und die humanitäre Krise - Jemen in den Medien der vergangenen Woche

2011-06-29T14:43:00.001+02:00

Gefängnisausbruch von AQAP Mitgliedern:

Vergangenen Mittwoch, d.h. am 22. Juni, sind ca. 60 "militante Islamisten" aus einem Gefängnis in der süd-östlichen Hafenstadt al-Mukalla ausgebrochen. Auf welche Weise dies geschah und wie dieser Ausbruch zustande kam, ist allerdings unklar. Die möglichen Versionen rangieren von einem Tunnelausbruch über eine Mischung aus Aufstand von Innen mit der Hilfe anderer AQAP Mitglieder von Außen zu einem von Salih-Unterstützern inszenierten Ausbruch, der vor allem den USA Angst vor einem Jemen ohne Salih einjagen soll. Während AQAP-Experte Gregory D. Johnsen (siehe obiger Link) sich eher für die zweite Version ausspricht, weisen einige andere Punkte auch in Richtung Version drei: Zum einen geschah der Ausbruch zeitgleich mit dem Besuch des US-amerikanischen Stellvertretenden Staatssekretärs für Nahostangelegenheiten, Jeffrey Feltman, im Jemen und zum anderen sollen 12 als besonders gefährlich eingestufte Islamisten kurz vor dem Ausbruch in ein anderes Gefängnis verlegt worden sein. Jeffrey Feltman rief einen Tag nach dem Ausbruch zu einem "friedlichen Machttransfer" im Jemen auf, während der abtrünnige Generalmajor Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar Salihs Willen zu einem Sieg über al-Qaidah in Frage stellt und sich selbst als neuen Partner im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus anbietet.

Die politische Lage:

Währenddessen geht des Desinformationsspiel um Salihs Rückkehr weiter: Er kommt zurück, er kommt nicht so schnell zurück, er kommt gar nicht zurück, er wird in den nächsten Tagen eine Rede an die Nation halten. Solange die Frage seiner Rückkehr nicht geklärt ist, passiert offiziell gar nichts, inoffiziell jedoch eine Menge: Nach Kenntnissen dieses Blogautors ist auch Salihs Familie bzgl. seiner Rückkehr gespalten und einige Familienmitglieder haben ihn angeblich bei Besuchen in Riad dazu aufgefordert, nicht zurückzukehren. Dies gilt natürlich nicht für Salihs Sohn und Neffen, die weiterhin um das politische Überleben ihrer Familie kämpfen und daher die Möglichkeit, dass Salih nicht zurückkehren könnte, kategorisch ausschließen. Salihs Sohn, Ahmed Ali Salih, ist nach dieser Analyse selbst politisch nicht stark genug, um an die Stelle seines Vaters treten zu können, aber hat genug (militärischen) Einfluss, um die aktuelle Lage und inoffiziell laufende Verhandlungen aktiv beeinflussen zu können. Salihs offizieller Stellvertreter in Sanaa, Vizepräsident Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, sieht sich währenddessen zunehmend dem Druck ausgesetzt, einen friedlichen Machtwechsel – unter anderem durch die Einrichtung eines Übergansrates – einzuleiten. Während in einigen jemenitischen Medien auch darüber spekuliert wurde, dass er aufgrund der Einschränkung seiner konstitutionellen Rolle durch die Familie des Präsidenten frustriert das Handtuch werfen und sich nach Aden absetzen können glauben versiertere Analysten wie Abd al-Ghani al-Iryani, dass Hadi sich langsam durchsetzen wird: "Hadi is only slowly and carefully beginning to assert his role as a constitutional and legitimate head of the executive," Mr Al Iryani said. He said if Mr Saleh's family continue to defy Mr Hadi "their popular support and sympathies, just like their ability to continue to control the military, would soon wither away". Offiziell zumindest hat Ahmed Ali Salih daher seine Unterstützung für Hadi und eine friedliche Lösung der aktuellen Krise erklärt. Er hat schon viel von seinem Vater gelernt.

Die Versorgungssituation:

Die humanitäre Situation verschärft sich währenddessen weiter. Eine Freundin postete heute auf Facebook, dass sie gerade 20 Liter Gas zu 600% des gängigen Preises gekauft hat – dies können sich nur wenige Jemeniten leisten. An den Tankstellen bilden sich kilometerlange Schlangen und viele müssen ihr Benzin auf dem Schwarzmarkt zu hohen Preisen kaufen, wo die Möglichkeit besteht, dass dieses mit Wasser vermischt worden ist. Es gibt kaum noch Elektrizität und noch weniger Diesel, um die Generatoren zu betreiben. Am schlimmsten ist jedoch um die Wasserversorgung bestellt: Viele Farmer können ihre Pflanzen nicht mehr bewässern, da ihnen das Diesel fehlt, um die Pumpen ihrer Brunnen zu betreiben. Mit dem Mangel an Wasser steuert der Jemen so mittelfristig auch auf einen Mangel an Nahrungsmitteln zu. Brotpreise haben sich bereits verdoppelt und in einem Krankenhaus in der Hafenstadt al-Hudaydah sind angeblich 15 Patienten aufgrund der andauernden Stromausfälle gestorben. Das World Food Programme spricht daher jetzt bereits von der größten je bekannten humanitären Krise im Jemen und gestern ist eine UN Mission in Sanaa eingetroffen, um sich vor Ort ein Bild der Lage zu machen. In der Zwischenzeit beschuldigen sich Opposition und Salih-treue Kräfte gegenseitig, die Situation absichtlich zu verschärfen. Während sich Saudi-Arabien einem Ansturm illegaler Flüchtlinge über die gemeinsame Grenze mit dem Jemen ausgesetzt sieht und die Hilfslieferungen aus dem Königreich offensichtlich nicht ausreichen, um die Lage zu entschärfen, drohen nun hochrangige Regierungsmitglieder mit einer Militäroperation in der Provinz Ma'rib, um die beschädigte Militärpipeline wieder herzustellen.

Salehs Gesundheitszustand, die neue Anti-AQAP-Strategie der USA und die Top-Twitterer weltweit

2011-06-20T11:20:00.000+02:00

Jemen in den Medien der vergangenen Woche

Vor ungefähr 2 Wochen bat eine der zahlreichen Facebook-Seiten zur jemenitischen Revolution, genannt News of the Yemeni Revolution, ihre Mitglieder um Abstimmung zur folgenden Frage: "Who forms the greatest risk to Yemen?" Von den 109 abgegebenen Stimmen entfielen 14% auf die al-Ahmar Familie, 27% auf Salehs Sohn und Neffen und 60% auf Saudi-Arabien und die USA. Mein etwas zynischer Kommentar hierzu war: "Why blame things on Yemeni actors if you can blame it on outsiders?" Nach den Entwicklungen der vergangenen Woche frage ich mich, ob dieser Kommentar nicht etwas voreilig war.

Während das Desinformationsspiel über Salehs Gesundheitszustand weiterhin anhält und es nun auch Spekulationen darüber gibt, dass Saleh nach Deutschland verlegt werden könnte, planen die USA nach Berichten des Wall Street Journal eine Ausweitung ihrer Dronenangriffe auf al‑Qaidah-Mitglieder im Land. Die derzeitige Sicherheitslage im Jemen mag tatsächlich – wie von den USA behauptet – al‑Qaidah in die Hände spielen (dies ist jedoch noch keineswegs bewiesen). Gleichzeitig nutzen die USA jedoch die limitierte Regierungsfähigkeit von Saleh und seinem Stellvertreter in Sanaa, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, um sich durch eine Verlagerung ihres Antiterrorprogramms hin zur C.I.A. die Möglichkeit zu weiteren Angriffen auch für den Fall offenzuhalten, dass die jemenitische Regierung ihre bisherige Kooperation mit den USA im Antiterrorkampf beendet. Demnach bauen die USA derzeit an einem geheimen Luftstützpunkt im Persischen Golf, um von dort aus vermehrt Angriffe fliegen zu können. Letzte Woche wurden nach Angaben dieses Artikels in der New York Times mehrere "militant suspects" in der südlichen Provinz Abyan getötet, aber auch vier Zivilisten.

Und so sind wir hier schon bei zwei zentralen Problemen dieser Vorgehensweise – neben ihrer rechtlichen und innenpolitischen Legitimiertheit – angekommen: Das erste, offensichtliche Problem, bereits bekannt aus Afghanistan und Pakistan und ebenso aus früheren Ereignissen im Jemen (an eines von diesen und seine Konsequenzen erinnert uns der Christian Science Monitor), ist die hohe Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass bei solchen Angriffen Zivilisten ums Leben kommen. Und auch wenn die USA es also auf diese Weise schaffen sollten, einige wichtige Mitglieder von AQAP (al-Qaidah on the Arabian Peninsula) auszuschalten, wird diese Vorgehensweise gemäß der informierten Analyse von Gregory D. Johnsen (Experte zu AQAP im Jemen), letztlich nur dazu führen, dass AQAP im Jemen mehr Zulauf erhält und weiter erstarkt.

Darüber hinaus stellt sich die Frage, ob die USA wirklich dazu in der Lage sind, al‑Qaidah-Mitglieder im Jemen von anderen bewaffneten Kämpfern für die eine oder andere Sache bzw. von solchen Menschen zu unterscheiden, die Kontakt zu AQAP-Mitgliedern haben, aber nicht AQAP-Mitglieder sind. Sollten die USA hierzu nicht in der Lage sein, was angesichts der Informationslage im Land höchstwahrscheinlich ist, wird von "zielgerichteten" Angriffen auf ausgewählte AQAP-Führungsmitglieder nicht mehr die Rede sein können. Dies bedeutet schlussendlich, dass sich die USA auf dem Weg in einen weiteren Krieg befinden, der für beide Seiten nur schlecht ausgehen kann: Der jemenitischen Bevölkerung droht eine weitere Verschlechterung der Sicherheitslage und das nächste Votum der für Demokratisierung protestierenden jemenitischen Jugend, wer die größte Bedrohung für das Land darstelle, wird noch eindeutiger gegen die USA ausfallen. Eine der bekanntesten Aktivistinnen der Jugendbewegung im Jemen, Tawakkul Karman, schrieb in ihrem Op-Ed für die New York Times am Samstag: "Because America has invested so heavily in Yemen’s security forces, it now seems that a transition to democracy will depend on whether Washington believes that investment will remain secure. The establishment of a new government will therefore be contingent on American officials’ approving the country’s new leaders. Sadly, it seems likely that the United States will support figures from the old regime rather than allow a transitional government approved by the people to take control of Yemen. This would be a grave mistake."

Noch ein Zusatz: Wer stets up-to-date sein möchte, kann sich aus dieser Liste der Top-Twitterer von Foreign Policy seine Favoriten herauspicken.

Der jemenitische Dolch

2011-06-18T16:27:00.001+02:00

Unten stehend findet sich meine Rezension zu einem kürzlich erschienenen Bildband über die janbiyah, den jemenitischen Dolch. Dieser ist einer der prominentesten Artefakte jemenitischer materieller Kultur und aufgrund seiner semantischen wie auch ästhetischen Vielfalt ein faszinierendes Forschungsobjekt (und daher auch unter anderem Gegenstand meiner Doktorarbeit über Waffenkultur im Jemen). Der unten vorgestellte Bildband kann trotz einiger Fehler und Mängel jedem/r zum Kauf empfohlen werden, der/die sich für den Jemen und seine materielle Kultur begeistern kann.

Stephen Gracie (2010): Jambiya. Daggers from the Ancient Souqs of Yemen (Review)

2011-06-14T14:24:00.009+02:00

I find it fitting to start this blog with the janbiyah (pronounce: jámbiya), the Yemeni dagger that is of major concern for my PhD thesis in-the-making on Yemeni weapon culture. The janbiyah is one of the most prominent cultural markers of Yemeni manhood. It is especially widespread in the northern highlands of the country and in some regards also in Hadramawt and the Tihama, but you will rarely find it worn by men from Aden. The janbiyah features prominently in certain (tribal) rituals such as the bar‘a (a dance-like ritual practice performed by men at many different occasions) as well as in ‘urf, i.e. customary law. The dagger as part of the ancient warrior's as well as of the nobleman's dress can be dated back to sixth century B.C. and over the past few decades it has become a symbol of Yemeni national identity. Even though most Yemenis would claim otherwise, insisting that it is zīnah [adornment] only, the dagger also continues to be used as weapon in short-range fighting.

The janbiyah is one of the most prominent objects of Yemeni material culture. Despite this fact, hardly any research has gone into studying its various forms and socio-cultural dimensions. Its manifold types and variations have thus never been more beautifully documented than in Stephen Gracie's illustrated book Jambiya. Daggers from the Ancient Souqs of Yemen with photographs by Uri Auerbach. We are introduced to Yemen's long and varied history and the first archeological artifacts documenting the history of the Yemeni dagger. Gracie shows how the janbiyah as male adornment was strengthened with the advent of Islam and provides us with some interesting theses in regard to when and why the janbiyah acquired its bent shape. He also documents the impact of the Ottoman Empire, which occupied parts of Yemen in the 16^th and 17^th and again in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and Eastern Yemen's long-standing ties with India on South Arabian weaponry as such as well as on the manufacture of the janbiyah scabbard and the hilt. Due to the limited lifespan of the different dagger parts, janābī (pl. of janbiyah) older than 200 years are very rare indeed. The more fascinating is the find of a thūmah (a variation of the janbiyah) presented to us in chapter 3, whose silver scabbard can be dated back to 1707 AD and whose belt can be dated to 1729 AD by way of a paper scroll found in an amulet case sown onto the belt. It thus predates the janbiyah bought in Sanaa in 1763 by the Danish traveler Carsten Niebuhr, which is one of the earliest known specimens to exist today, by over 50 years!

The social relevance of the janbiyah is documented by Gracie in his chapters 1.1 Cultural significance, manhood and social class as well as 1.2 The cult of the Jambiya. Different types of janābī denoted the belonging to different social groups with the ‘asīb, for example, being worn by tribesmen and the thūmah by the religious elite of the Zaydī North, the sāda and quḍāt. The sāda (or "Sayyids", as Gracie calls them (p. 33)) were however not, as he claims, of tribal origin. Since the revolution against the imamate in the 1960s, the strict rules as to what type of dagger could be worn by which social group were relaxed and "most in Sana'a have since adopted the Assib style". Unfortunately, we do not learn why the ‘asīb has taken such prominence over other janbiyah styles.

Accompanied by the beautiful photographs of Uri Auerbach, Gracie takes us through a day in the Old City of Sanaa, starting from the Morning Prayer. We are introduced to a number of men involved in the manufacture and trade of the different dagger parts in chapters 4 and 7. Chapter 8 provides a fascinating and well-documented overview of the different regional scabbard and hilt styles. I know of no other source that provides such a detailed account, accompanied by so many beautifully photographed specimens of the different variations. Gracie and Auerbach truly provide us with a wealth of information here and it becomes clear why Yemenis refer to the janbiyah as "treasure trove" [khazīnah]!

Unfortunately, Gracie's fascination for the janbiyah and his efforts in documenting its diversity meet their limits in Gracie's lack of knowledge of the Arabic language. We meet numerous misspellings, of which "Assib" instead of "‘asīb" (or ‘aseeb in simpler writing) is maybe the most bearable one. But "qanum" (p. 206) instead of "qānūn" [law, statute] is less tolerable, although "Meuzzin" (p. 121) instead of "Muezzin" may just be another of the numerous typos we encounter on many pages of the book. More significant, unfortunately, are the mistakes he makes when documenting the manufacture of the dagger hilts (pp. 187‑193), which can either too be attributed to his lack of knowledge of Arabic or to the numerous pitfalls of disinformation one encounters when doing research in the Sūq al-Janābī, the dagger market in the Old City of Sanaa. "Al‑Zerraf" is therefore not, as Gracie claims (p. 193), a family known to manufacture black rhinoceros hilts. Instead, zurrāf or zurrāfah is Arabic for giraffe and has—for unknown reasons—come to denote rhino horn hilts in their earliest stage of maturation when the horn is still of a greenish-black color. Neither is "Al‑Saifani" a family name (p. 191), but "ṣayfānī" stands for the best stage of rhino horn hilt maturation (60 years and older), which can only be reached if such hilts have constantly been handled and treated with special care.

From my knowledge, Gracie has financed his research, the work of the photographer, and the layout and printing of this book out of his own pocket and without any funds from outside. This justifies the relatively high price of 95 USD for this beautifully illustrated and exceptional book. A better binding and fewer spelling mistakes would have made the price even easier to bear. Nonetheless, Gracie and Auerbach have provided us with a gem of a sourcebook on the Yemeni dagger that ought to be in the possession of everyone fascinated with Yemen and its material culture!

Full bibliographical details:

Stephen Gracie (2010): Jambiya. Daggers from the Ancient Souqs of Yemen, with photographs by Uri Auerbach, Sydney: Stephen Gracie Pty. Lt.

The book is available at Oriental Arms: http://www.oriental-arms.com/