Writers Articles And Opinions |
|
|
15 October 2010 By Subir Ghosh
Yemen is now a classic example of
how and why a government hemmed in by all sides
militarily and economically takes it out on its own
people. It ought to be a cause for worry too, for
there is more to it here than meets the eye. If you
don’t look for it, you won’t see it.
Instability caused by internal
conflict and religious terrorism, coupled with brazen
corruption and merciless repression of freedom of
expression make a heady and potent mix. See this in
the light of the fact that nearly a third of the
workforce is out of a job, and you know what you are
reading about has only one word as a descriptor:
trouble. More than 40 percent of Yemen's 23 million
people live on less than $2 a day. Now, that’s a lot
of trouble. A geo-political perspective will make it
look worse still: Yemen is contiguous with top oil
exporter Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf of Aden at its
southern tip is the gateway to the Suez Canal through
the Red Sea.
It’s the link that you might have
missed in America’s War on Terror.
Secessionist movement in the South
North Yemen merged with the
once-Soviet bloc South Yemen in 1990. It was this
region that was oil-rich, and unified Yemen exploited
the resources to the hilt. The result was a feeling of
discrimination among the people, with euphoria fading
away and development in the area remaining zilch.
Alienation grew, and metamorphosed into a movement for
secession.
It started out as a moderate
movement, but turned mildly militant over the years
after the Yemeni government, with tacit support of the
West, repressed the voices of dissent. Another classic
case of making people take up arms against the State
when civil and civilised tact could have yielded less
violent results at the onset itself. But then, the
West needs oil. And the Yemeni government has only
been too glad to oblige. Everywhere the battle is for
natural resources.
A civil war in the South had
briefly erupted in 1994. The rebellion, at that time,
was ruthlessly crushed and its leaders were either
silenced or thrown into prison. The government time
and again offered talks, but these were usually
interspersed with military forays. These in turn,
instead of quelling the feeling of restlessness, only
aggravated the situation.
As things stand, incidents of
clashes between the separatists and the security
forces have been on the rise. With a beleaguered
Yemeni government trying to finish off the Southern
Movement by hook or by crook, the collateral damage is
more likely to make fence-sitters take up arms against
the State. Poverty and unemployment already provide
the fertile ground for that.
The government has been trying to
discredit the Southern Movement by giving it a
terrorist hue. Ironically, it was the Yemeni regime
itself that had unabashedly used Yemeni fighters
returning from Afghanistan to quell the 1994
rebellion. It was only natural that al-Qaeda soon
began to establish a base in the area, which later
became the largest in the Arab world.
The Southern province of Abyan
has been the target of a series of brutal attacks over
the last year. One of the bloodiest took place in
December 2009 when the Yemeni army, with support from
the US government, launched two air strikes on
suspected al-Qaeda camps. Fortytwo civilians were
killed in these raids, most of whom were women and
children. One can vouchsafe say no kin of those killed
have, since, become American fans.
Islamic
militancy of the al-Qaeda kind
The one that has made the most of
the all-pervading bitterness and chaos has been the
Al-Qaeda. It has locked horns with the Yemeni
government since the US launched its War on Terror.
But the group’s operations have paid more attention to
Western targets than home-grown ones. Not that they
have left the government’s forces alone.
Only last week, a rocket attack
in capital Sana’a targeted a vehicle carrying the
deputy chief of the British mission. Elsewhere the
same day, a gunman fired at an Austrian-owned oil and
gas firm, killing a Frenchman. In April, a suicide
bomber from attacked the British ambassador's convoy,
killing himself and injuring three others. The envoy
escaped unscathed.
It was the December attack plan
that made the Yemeni government take on al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, as the outfit is known in the
region. The motivating factor was simple – Western
nations and Saudi Arabia saw the al-Qaeda preparing
Yemen as a regional launchpad. So the idea was to nip
al-Qaeda’s plans in the bud. Yemen declared war, and
the US did what it usually does – supplied military
and intelligence aid. The al-Qaeda did suffer
reverses, but many civilians too were killed in what
the US loves to describe as collateral damage.
The security forces, ill-equipped
as they are, make for an easier target than Western
ones. Since June, more than a score have been killed
in militant attacks on State targets, including one on
an intelligence headquarters in the port city of Aden,
where 11 people were killed.
Though the al-Qaeda has had a
presence for a while, it started asserting itself only
after Saudi Arabia last year launched a crackdown on
the group in its territory. The Yemeni arm assimilated
the fleeing ones, and in the bargain consolidated
itself. The outfit is now powerful enough in the
southern provinces of Abyan and Shabwa to make even
the US wince.
The West, like in many countries
in the region, is not liked. And when it plays a
dominant military role, it perpetuates the acrimony
that the al-Qaeda is known to make harvest of.
The internally-displaced people (IDP)
scene is grim. Only last month, clashes between al-Qaeda
operatives and Yemeni security forces in the Shabwa
governorate forced 12,000 civilians to flee their
homes in Al-Hawtah town, 400 km east of Aden. The
displacement continues to grow.
Shi’ite
conflict in the North
The North is relatively silent,
but the truce with the Shi’ite rebels is tenuous at
best. The civil war here has had its ups and downs
since 2004. A ceasefire has been in place since
February, but news of sporadic incidents of violence
still trickles in. The calm is deceptive.
The rebels, who belong to the
minority Zaydi sect of Shi’ite Islam and are known as
Houthis after their leaders’ clan, feel discriminated
against in religious and socio-economic terms. They
made a tactical blunder last year when the seized some
land in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government chased them
out, into the hands of a waiting Yemeni army.
This conflict too has taken its
toll on people. More than 300,000 people have been
forced from their homes since 2004, 60 per cent of
them children. Only a third have returned, but 150,000
were again displaced after intermittent fighting in
August last year.
Qatar mediated a deal between the
Shi’ite rebels and the government this August. While
the official line was about negotiations to end the
conflict, the move of the rebels is being seen in many
quarters as a stalling tactic. So far, it had been a
rebellion. Whether this escalates into a full-blown
conflict as in the South depends on how the government
handles the situation.
An economy
in tatters
For an oil-rich country, Yemen
has too complex an economic crisis to deal with. A
good 40 per cent live under $2 a day. That would mean
a lot of hunger. Jobs are hard to come by – a third
are without one. Corruption is rampant. The Yemeni
rial has tumbled to a record low. And water and oil
resources are fast drying up. In other words, Yemen is
an economic quagmire.
Aid comes from the West and Saudi
Arabia, but never makes it to the grassroots. There
are also apprehensions that the government may soon
find itself in a spot where it will not be able to
even pay salaries to public sector employees. The
recent cuts on fuel subsidies did not go down well
with the public. The economic reforms, being dictated
by the West, are simply unpopular.
A high fertility rate, with an
average of 5.4 children born per woman means this is
one of the world’s largest and fastest growing
populations. About a quarter of the people are aged
10-19, suggesting that the unemployment crisis for
youth could get even worse in the next few years, and
with 46 per cent of the population under 16, it is an
explosion waiting to happen. In ten years, Yemen needs
2 million jobs just to keep unemployment rates at
controllable levels. With illiteracy as high as 50 per
cent, the picture seems more dismal as one keeps
looking at it.
Press
freedom, allies and the man in charge
Extrajudicial abductions,
intimidation, threats, and crude censorship have been
the watchwords of the Yemeni regime. But in the last
few years, this has reflected adversely on the media.
The internecine war with Houthi rebels in the north,
the repression of the Southern Movement, the failure
to maintain a grip on the Al-Qaeda, and the flagrant
corruption within the country’s top leadership are not
allowed to be criticized in the media. Crossing the
line means being detained illegally, newspapers and
news equipment being confiscated, or threats being
issued. Liquidation and enforced disappearances are
not unheard of either.
The government desperately needs
to control the news. And it does so ruthlessly.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh
needs the West badly, as badly as the latter needs
him. Saleh’s ruse is that poverty creates fertile
ground for terrorism, and therefore he wants aid.
In January this year, a group of
nations and organisations set up a ‘Friends of Yemen’
group at a meeting in London. Those on board were the
US, the United Kingdom, and 20 other countries, apart
from the Gulf Cooperation Council, Arab League, World
Bank and IMF. Last month, these friends agreed on an
aid package encompassing political, economic and
security aspects. But it had a catch too – the IMF
would spell out all the economic policies to be
followed.
What this ostentatious act does
in effect is tacitly endorse the status quo – that of
Saleh. The years of inept and rapacious rule of this
man and his clique stands legitimised. What the West
turns a blind eye to, is the fact that his man came to
power through a coup i.e he was never democratically
elected. It is the hypocrisy of the US-led West that
is hated, more virulently now than ever, all over the
world. On one hand it talks of democracy, and on the
other it either props up or continues to support
dictators. On one hand it criticises Cuba for not
allowing any freedom, on the other it effectually
propagates human rights abuses in countries like
Yemen.
The West is happy as long it gets
its oil and the oil routes are not clogged. Meanwhile,
people, like those hapless ones in Yemen, continue to
suffer.
– Subir Ghosh
(http://www.write2kill.in/)
is a New Delhi-based journalist. He is the author of
Frontier Travails: Northeast – The politics of a mess
(Macmillan, 2001), and writes on a variety of subjects
from conflict and environment to films and human
rights.
EsinIslam.Com
|