Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1998, page 32

Special Report

Yemen Violence Threatens Stability in Arabia

By Dr. Abdu H. Sharif

The Yemen government’s decision to increase the prices of fuel and basic foodstuffs by 40 percent to comply with terms of an $80 million International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan produced a sudden popular and, ultimately, bloody eruption across the country.

The outbreak pointed to a deep malaise after 20 years of rule by President Ali Abdallah Saleh. It began on June 20 with a peaceful demonstration in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, that soon developed into confrontations with security forces. These have lasted for several weeks not only in Sana’a, but also in Hajjah, Ebb, Dhamar, Marib, Mukalla, Hutah, and other cities where crowds vented their anger against state corruption, particularly in President Saleh’s ruling General People’s Congress.

Demonstrators chanted, “No Iryani after today!”, referring to Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Iryani, who formed a new cabinet last May following the resignation of his predecessor, Faraj Ben Ghanem.

Initially the government seemed unprepared for this “uprising of the hungry,” which began as a reaction against the price hike on basic commodities, but soon evolved into protests against the regime led by Saleh and his family and military clique. In the face of police inability to control the situation, the elite Republican Guard (established on the Iraqi model) and army units finally came in with orders to shoot. As a result, at least 14 civilians in several cities were shot and killed, many others injured, and hundreds arrested and imprisoned, according to Yemeni and Arab newspapers.

In the provinces of al-Jouf and Marib, site of rich oil fields east of Sana’a, the situation became even worse. Army units clashed with armed tribesmen, resulting in dozens being killed or injured on both sides. A pipeline run by American-owned Hunt Oil was blown up seven times by these tribesmen, resulting in leaks of over 30,000 barrels, according to the independent Yemen Times. President Saleh acknowledged on July 21 that 52 soldiers had been killed and more than 200 injured since the fighting broke out last June, while opposition groups spoke of more than a hundred deaths among civilians and military personnel alike.

These most recent developments in this South Arabian country of nearly 16 million followed a series of crises that have rocked the country since the unification of North and South Yemen in May 1990. The 70-day civil war from May to July 1994 resulted in the defeat by forces loyal to Saleh of separatists led by the south Yemeni leader, Ali Salim al-Baidh, but the situation has never really improved since then.

A series of crises have rocked the country since unification.

Hopes raised by the unification of both Yemens were soon replaced by frustration over the pervasive corruption of the entire political system. Aggravating this was the looting of state land in Aden and other cities in the former People’ Democratic Republic of Yemen by the ruling clique in Sana’a, and the marginalization of southern participation in political power.

Nor have conditions in the north been better. The standard of living in the country has declined from nearly $700 per capita in the 1980s to $280 presently. The health sector is in shambles. According to Carl Tintsman, UNICEF resident representative in Sana’a, approximately 200 Yemeni children die every day, mainly because of the lack of immunization. The World Bank reported in 1995 that the budget allotted to health in Yemen was 4 percent of GNP. The military’s share is 28 to 35 percent.

What was once one of Arabia’s most promising countries, rich in agricultural resources and blessed with a hard-working population, is now suffering nearly 15 percent inflation and over 40 percent unemployment.

U.S. policy has been to encourage democratic reform in the country, with some positive steps taken during the 1993 and 1997 parliamentary elections. But no transfers of power have really taken place. The parliament turned out to be a rubber stamp, and the power structure remains firmly authoritarian, controlled by Saleh and his relatives.

Amnesty International’s 1997 report on Yemen stated that the Yemeni regime remains a major violator of human rights, including many cases of disappearances, detention without trial, and torture. Many who sympathized with the regime during the 1997 elections subsequently have expressed disappointment with its heavy-handed policy toward political dissent, and its inability to live up to its promises with respect to political freedoms and human rights.

Moreover, there is an almost complete absence of law and order in the country. Occasional fighting erupts even in Sana’a over ownership of land, as the government seems unable or unwilling to enforce public order.

In the south, anti-government warfare is spreading, with southern separatist groups claiming responsibility for a number of explosions and clashes with government forces. And, as in the past, in the eastern region of the country local tribesmen kidnap foreign nationals and tourists as a way to publicize their grievances against the regime.

The response of the government has been, in some cases, to reward those who did the kidnapping. In one of those cases, it is no secret that the individual responsible for the kidnapping of U.S. Cultural Attaché Haynes Mahoney in 1993 was appointed to the post of deputy director for security affairs in the province of al-Jouf.

More than 100 foreigners, including Americans, British, Germans, Italians, Dutch, Japanese, and others, have been kidnapped since 1992. The latest and most horrible incident was the killing of three Catholic nuns on July 27 by a Muslim religious fanatic in the port city of Hodeidah, 225 kilometers west of the capital Sana’a.

While the U.S. has never paid close attention to events in Yemen, it attaches great importance to the stability of the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula region, and Yemen is a back door into that region. If Yemen becomes “another Somalia” under the current regime, as President Saleh himself predicted before opposition leaders on June 25, it will invite serious troubles to the area, and could jeopardize U.S. forces in the Arab states of the Gulf.

A key to stability in Yemen is the expansion of democratic and economic rights to include all groups and all regions of the country. This means embarking on a program of national reconciliation that would address such problems as the monopoly of economic and political power by the president and his kinsmen and the exclusion of other groups from the political system. It also means ending high-level corruption and nepotism.

What Yemenis seem to be trying to express is that they do not mind economic reform as long as its burden is shared equally between them and their rulers. What they do mind, however, is watching their country sliding into violence and instability as a reaction to inept and corrupt leadership