Global Arab Network | President of 33 years - Yemen revolution against Ali Abdullah Saleh

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President of 33 years - Yemen revolution against Ali Abdullah Saleh

Global Arab Network - Kate Nevens

Wednesday, 09 November 2011 02:22

Global Arab Network - Yemenis, like the rest of the world, watched with baited breath as they witnessed Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak being swept from power in a wave of mass protests. Within hours of Mubarak’s departure, thousands had gathered in cities across Yemen announcing a peaceful revolution against their own president of 33 years, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Another domino, it seemed, was set to fall.

Yet in the weeks and months that have passed since the Yemeni revolution began, the President’s regime has clung on and the protestors have faced sporadic and increasingly ferocious crackdowns. Thousands of Yemenis have been killed and injured as Saleh’s security forces target them with snipers, tear gas, batons, swords, water cannons and, most recently, shelling and rocket-propelled grenades.

In early June, Saleh was badly wounded in an attack on his presidential palace and evacuated to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. Authority was nominally transferred to the vice-president, Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The GCC, together with the US, UK and others have been working hard to try and negotiate a more conclusive transfer of power, but to date, Saleh and Saleh’s family remain very much in the game, proving their reputation for political brinkmanship.

President Saleh’s divide-and-rule policy has left Yemen the poorest country in the Middle East, and the protracted political negotiations and conflicts are taking place against a backdrop of a failing economy, high unemployment rates, mass poverty and hunger. Living conditions are getting worse day by day, and a fuel, water and food crisis – exacerbated by the current political situation but with much deeper structural causes – threatens to induce a nationwide humanitarian disaster.

Youth and the drive for a civic state

At its peak in early May, the protest camp in the capital Sana’a covered approximately a square mile, housing over 10,000 people. Probably around half of the camp’s residents represent Yemen’s youth movement, a vibrant grouping of young pro-democracy activists who see themselves as unaffiliated to any traditional political alliance, organising coalitions but so far shunning the idea of nominating leaders or forming political parties.

The youth are well networked across the country, with a presence in all Yemen’s major cities, leading marches and sit-ins. While inspired by the Arab Spring, the youth are in fact expressing long-standing grievances about corruption, weak and illegitimate governance, and lack of political and economic opportunities in Yemen.

The youth’s demands are not limited to the removal of the current regime: the call is for a comprehensive change to the entire political structure of Yemen, a move away from an elite patronage system headed by the President’s family towards a modern civic state. The movement has clear and well-articulated goals, set out in a charter by the Civic Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, an umbrella group which brings together Yemen’s four main youth organisations. A comprehensive list of demands includes establishing a parliamentarian system in Yemen and adopting an electoral system based on proportionate representation. Their vision, they say, is ‘to lay the ground for a civic, modern and democratic state which can interact with the realities of the modern world on the basis of equal citizenship, human rights, social justice, a plural political system, [and] the freedom of expression and opinion.’

Elite dynamics and the politics of opposition

The youth protestors share their turf – if not their vision – with Yemen’s formal opposition parties and Saleh’s elite political rivals, who are also vying for an end to Saleh’s regime.

Competition between Yemen’s three rival elite factions – Saleh’s family, the al-Ahmar family and the now-defected General Ali Mohsen – has been brewing for several years, particularly as Saleh has been concentrating more and more power around his immediate kinsmen. In May, this rivalry came to a head and fighting broke out between Saleh’s regime and the al-Ahmar faction, ending abruptly when the president was airlifted to Riyadh. Conflict resumed in September, when Saleh’s security forces once again opened fire on protestors and General Ali Mohsen’s First Armoured Division fought back. In one of the bloodiest days of the uprising, more than 60 protesters died in the crossfire, with hundreds badly wounded.

Both the al-Ahmar family, who head the powerful Hashid tribal confederacy, and General Ali Mohsen, once Saleh’s closest ally, are aligning themselves with the protest movement. Yet the youth are suspicious of the personal motivations of these ‘strong-men’ who belong to Yemen’s entrenched political system of privileged elites and patronage. For the pro-democracy youth, a mere ‘reshuffling’ of those at the top would not be a satisfactory outcome for the revolution: what is desired is a new system, not a new face.

Yemen’s formal opposition, the Joint Meeting Parties (largely dominated by the Islamic party Islah, of whom Hamid al-Ahmar is a leading figure), are met with similar scepticism and frustration. The established political parties are very much seen as a continuation of the old system, out of touch with the needs of the Yemeni people. Confusingly, Islah in particular are present in large numbers in the protests, heavily involved in coordinating protest activities and divisions are appearing within the camps, with different groups setting up separate stages. Many independent youth are concerned that the old parties are trying to co-opt the revolution for personal gain.

International Support: the search for a political settlement and a secure Yemen

Yemenis resent the international community for their ‘weak’ response to the events in their country. They have watched as the UK, US and others have frozen assets and provided assistance to the rebel forces in Libya, imposed sanctions on Syria and made bold(er) and more progressive statements on Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region. Repeated calls from the US State Department for a ‘peaceful and orderly transition’ in Yemen or an ‘impartial investigation into the causes of violence’ seem hollow in comparison.

The international community’s primary concern in Yemen has in fact been to try and facilitate a political solution to the current crisis. The US and the UK have put their weight behind a GCC-led deal, designed to broker a transfer of power from Saleh to an interim government, schedule elections and give the President and his family immunity from prosecution. After months of delays, President Saleh still has not resigned.

For the pro-democracy youth, however, the GCC deal was flawed from the outset. Neither the youth, nor other disenfranchised groups in Yemen (such as the Houthi rebels or the southern secessionist movement) were involved in the negotiations or the design of the transition plan. It is perceived as an intra-elite deal in which the international community are supporting a transfer of power within current regime elites, rather than a more inclusive political settlement or a more fundamental change to state-society relations.

Another underlying issue for the relationship between the international community and the protest movement is security. The headquarters of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are located in Yemen, and for the last few years several Western governments have been providing military aid and assistance to Yemen’s security and intelligence apparatus – run by President Saleh’s son and nephews – to help combat the terror threat. This counterterrorism partnership makes it hard for the West to fully isolate President Saleh and his immediate family – a fact the family are fully aware of. The sons and nephews who have been acting as counterterrorism partners are now leading the crackdowns against protestors. The common perception in Yemen is that, through this support, the Western ‘supporters’ have helped, and continue to help, Saleh’s regime maintain its position in Yemen.

Recommendations

Yemen faces multiple, severe and protracted crises: political, economic and humanitarian. However, the current situation also presents an ‘open moment’ to create a far more legitimate, responsive and inclusive system of governance. In a speech in April, Yemen’s former prime minister and long-time presidential adviser Abdul Kareem Al-Eryani said: ‘I believe that the youth revolution has already produced a tremendous change in the political and perhaps social system in Yemen… I think the youth revolution has now succeeded in making change imperative. The change is coming.’

With this in mind, the UK should:

• Realign its desired ‘end goal’ for Yemen as political legitimacy rather than political stability, and resist the temptation to push for a fast transition process at any cost.

• Support the inclusion of youth and other previously disenfranchised groups in any mediation and negotiation efforts, without requiring them to nominate leaders or conform with externally-determined political models.

• Reassess its relationships with Yemen’s traditional power elites and ‘strong-men’ and ascertain new ways of working on counterterrorism, including seeking local community partners and engaging with underlying grievances at the grassroots level.

• Balance the need for short-term results with the need for long-term strategies which address corruption, employment and equal access to resources for all Yemenis.

Global Arab Network
Kate Nevens is Manager of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs). This article was written for cmec

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