The Blame Game
Sanaa, 25 July (AKI) – Yemen’s opposition parties have denied inciting last week’s violent riots over the dramatic rise in fuel prices, which left many dead and injured, the Emirates-based newspaper Gulf News reports. The country’s interior ministry says 22 were killed and 375 were injured in the two days of rioting in cities around the country, which followed the government’s decision to cut subsidies on oil-derived products. Witnesses and local media however, say at least 50 died in the protests.The ruling party, the People’s General Congress (PGC), led by Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused the six main opposition parties of inciting the riots, after they called for the government to reconsider its decision and demanded an “immediate, neutral and fair investigation” into what happened during the protests.
In a meeting with the Supreme Security Committee over the weekend, the president said they were studying “the issue of the price of diesel to determine what’s wrong and what’s right.”
A spokesman for the PGC defended the government’s decision, saying: “The JMPs [the opposition parties, who are known as the Joint Meeting Parties] are unable to provide alternatives for the interest of the nation. We have taken a decision that will protect the national economy from collapse.”
Government buildings were attacked and tyres were set on fire around Yemen, in demonstrations which Sanaa’s mayor, Ahmed al-Kohlaniare, estimated to have caused 468 million rials (2.55 million dollars) worth of damage in the capital alone. As well as buildings, he said the protestors had damaged power plants and vehicles and uprooted “at least 762 trees in the city”.
Following the initial reports of the protests and subsequent deaths, the human rights organisation Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal to the Yemeni authorities to “ensure that international standards on law enforcement and the use of force are strictly observed.”
“Law enforcement officials must be instructed to use firearms only as a last resort, in self-defence or the defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, when less extreme means are insufficient,” the statement said.
According to the World Bank, 42 per cent of Yemeni’s survive on less than two US dollars a day, however, following the subsidy cut, petrol prices have doubled to around seven dollars a gallon (around four litres).
No mention of corruption and military expenditures by the GPC.
