Armies of Liberation

There’s a few of these around. One holds the bodies of the Nasserites who were involved in a coup attempt against Saleh. This is a sad legacy. Maybe the families will have greater peace now.

UPI: Yemen said Saturday the authorities unearthed a mass grave with 16 bodies in the south of the country believed to date back to 1986.

The defense ministry said in a statement on its website the authorities were digging the mass grave in Aden province, adding it was discovered by a group of laborers doing routine digging for housing construction near a military base.

It added the military base was formerly the intelligence and state security headquarters in southern Yemen, which was ruled by the Socialist Party, before the unification of north and south in 1990.

The statement speculated the bodies found belonged to military officers because pistols were found near the remains, adding these weapons were only allowed to be carried senior officers in the former South Yemen.

The ministry said it believed the officers may have been killed during armed battles between two wings of the ruling Socialist Party members in January 1986, in which thousands were killed from both sides.

Any decent forensic pathologist should be able to determine the time frame in which these deaths occurred. Its not determined yet if its pre or post 1990.

More

KT: Lawyer Jamal Al Jaabi told Reuters the court ordered Jamal Al Adeenee, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly Al Osboo, to pay a fine of 30,000 rials ($154) for accusing an Education Ministry official of administrative and financial violations. His newspaper was suspended for three months.

He said Abdul-Wadood Al Mattari, editor-in-chief of the weekly Al Rassid, received a two-month suspended jail sentence for accusing the stores of selling sub-standard goods, and his newspaper was banned for one month.

What is the bigger story here:

YT/NY: Al-Jazeera’s Yemen correspondent Ahmed Al-Shalafi and cameraman Ali Al-Baidhani were detained today by security forces while filming a protest in Sanaa and were released more than an hour later after ‘high-level’ instructions were given….

Al-Shalafi explained that while they were filming a protest by employees of a public textile company, they were confronted by armed police forces who arrested and took them to a police station. They were kept in detention for more than ninety minutes waiting to be released.

He added that the film that was recorded at the scene of the protest was confiscated and destroyed at the police station. Both journalists could have been held longer in the station if it were not for the intense calls that they made to high-ranking officials to interfere and set them free.

Al-Shalafi told NewsYemen that the forces that arrested them said they had ‘high-level orders’ to prevent any journalists from covering the protest and to destroy any recorded material, including video footage or regular photographs.

It is worth noting that a brutal attack against journalists working for another prominent Arab news channel, Al-Arabiya, took place in the same location last month. The government said it would investigate that incident

The incident at the time led to severe injury of one of the beaten journalists, who later suffered from internal bleeding.

However, no one was held accountable since then, and journalists still feel insecure when covering events near that area.

and Press Freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the beating and intimidation of Mohammad Sadiq al-Odaini, head of a Yemeni independent press freedom group. Al-Odaini, secretary-general of the Center for Training and Protecting Journalist Freedom, told CPJ that earlier this week he was threatened at gunpoint by a man he recognized as a member of the security forces. A few days later the same man assaulted him along with two other attackers.

Al-Odaini said he believed he was targeted because of his organization’s annual report published last month that accused the authorities of failing to investigate attacks on the press.

On December 5, a man who al-Odaini identified as security officer Asaad Ali Hezam al-Aayawi, pointed a pistol at al-Odaini’s head and accused him of being a traitor, the journalist said. The officer, who showed al-Odaini his badge, is a well-known figure in the area, the journalist said. On December 8, the same man along with two masked men dragged al-Odaini from his house in the capital Sana’a around 9:30 p.m. and beat him. They tried to enter the house but left after neighbors intervened. The attackers returned later and stayed outside his home until 2 a.m. Al-Odaini called the police but they did not arrive until after daybreak.

More at News Yemen.

What a good organization:

Several opposition figures currently living abroad have also announced that they plan to run for president. In July, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in a speech that he will not run in the next elections, saying he wanted to give young people the opportunity to run the country.

In 1999 he won the country’s first ever direct presidential elections with 96 per cent of the vote, but the main opposition party says it was banned from fielding a candidate and the Washington-based National Democratic Institute said the election was flawed by political intimidation, underage voting, inappropriate behaviour by the security forces and vote-buying.

In 2001 the country’s constitution was amended to allow the presidential term to be extended from five years to seven, and Saleh had been widely expected to run in the next elections. He is Yemen’s longest serving leader since the republican system was proclaimed in North Yemen in 1962 and in South Yemen in 1967. Saleh is backed by the two main powers in Yemeni society; the army and the tribe.

However, in the parliamentary elections in 2003, despite reportedly exerting intense pressure on the electorate, Saleh’s party, the General People’s Congress, only secured 58 percent of the vote.

Corruption to Poverty to Child Trafficking
Reuters:
In early 2004, Saudi authorities handed over 9,815 children to Yemeni authorities. Many of them had been found begging or were lost.

Remarkably, about 82 percent of child trafficking occurs with the consent of the child’s parents, according to UNICEF. In almost 60 percent of cases, however, it is against the will of the child involved.

“Child trafficking is one of the consequences of people suffering from poverty,” said Minister of Human Rights Amat al-Aleem al-Soswa at a recent conference addressing the issue. “If families were better off, parents wouldn’t let their children go to places where they will be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation”.

Over a quarter of the children who have been deported back to Yemen by Saudi authorities say they faced hunger and physical violence while abroad. Some 65 percent of them ended up living on the streets or sleeping in mosques or abandoned buildings during the course of their travels, according to UNICEF.

Despite Yemen’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, national law does not contain specific provisions on the sale of children, child prostitution and child trafficking, according to UNICEF.

Aid workers note that the criminalisation of such practices is a key first step in combating them.

Fisk, yes that Fisk, but anyway: Although many Americans know about the kidnappings in Iraq, they may not have heard that some of the tens of thousands of kidnapped Iraqis are forced into sexual slavery in Yemen. Time for the tin foil hat? I dont know.

The Organization of Islamic Unity in Mecca: Among attending heads of state is Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who included in his delegation Sheikh Abdel Majid Zandani, who is wanted by the U.S. administration on suspicion of financing terrorism.

Zandani, head of the Islamic Iman (faith) University, traveled out of Yemen for the first time since he was included in an international list of terrorism financiers by the U.N. Security Council last February.

Also the 4th annual al-Quds Conference was recently held in Sanaa.

7/12/2005 al Sahwa:
The leaders of resistance in Palestine
and Iraq renewed their intent to continue their legal
struggle against the occupation forces.

Khaled Mashal, chair of the political office of Hamas,
…renewed his pledge to continue resistance as a
strategic choice to conquer occupation. He reviewed
challenges that Arab and Islamic Umah faces at all
levels and the pressure that America practices on Arab
and Islamic nations and leaders to impose its
dominance in the region and to support Zionist entity….

Hussein Hadrooj, member of the political office of the
Lebanese Hezbullah, called upon resistance movements
to carry their responsibility towards people and to
consider the dangers around….

Chairman of the Muslim Scholars Association in Iraq
Hareth al-Dhari…also confirmed before the students
rally the adherence to the constructive resistance
choice in order to thoroughly crush occupation forces
that constantly kill and oppress Iraqi people.

al-Qaradawi also in attendence per Saba:
The Chief of Trustless Council of al-Quds foundation Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said that the Sana’a conference of the foundationwas fruitful and came out with positive results. Upon his departure, Sheikh al-Qaradawi said that the donations reached about $ 4 millions for supporting the activities of the foundation.

Qaradawi (Aug 2005): “It is a duty. All scholars say that defending an occupied homeland is an individual duty applying to every Muslim. Reducing this duty to a ‘right,’ which can be relinquished, is a kind of depreciation….

“This has nothing to do with suicide. This man does not want to commit suicide, but rather to cause great damage to the enemy, and this is the only method he can use to cause such damage…The truth is that we should refrain from raising this issue, because doubting it is like joining the Zionists and Americans in condemning our brothers in Hamas, the Jihad, the Islamic factions, and the resistance factions in Iraq. It is as if we are joining them.”

So to discuss even the legitimacy of suicide bombing is traitorous.

at al-Motamar, Full text to follow, but here is an exerpt:

Q: what about your none nomination in 2006 presidency elections? Was it just for propoganda as opposition says, or was it aerial intention, as had been declared?
A: when we announced that we were and still mean it, the target was to push others for nomination, so that every one in our country get used to democracy and peaceful transition of power.
Q: Fine, but what about the alternative?
A: the alternative is the person whom would be elected by people through ballots.
Q: do you think that the opposition through its figures is capable to fill the gap, if you insist on your position.
A: this question must be directed to the opposition, but we call it develop leader ship that can hold responsibility.
Q: Openly, why did you declare that, though you were not obliged to do so? I mean was there a political necessity behind that announcement?
A: In order every one in our homeland learns principles of democracy and the peaceful transition of power, and in order to stabilize and develop multiple choices in democratic practice.

I will personally give him a legacy as a great leader if he actually steps down without bringing in Ahmed.

Of course a free and fair election does require equal access to the broadcast media, some fiddling with the election law (including the issue of proportional representation), equal rights for oppostion journalists and equal financing (and maybe their buildings back) for the opposition parties. ™

(Read on …)

YT: President Musharaf raised several points during the bilateral discussions such as the military training and supply however no final agreement was concluded. The security cooperation agreement also contained the exchange of information in the war against terrorism, organized crime and drugs manufacturing and trafficking.

However, the agreement signed was confined to security and intelligence issues, considering that there are sensitive elements of fundamentalist and terrorists who work clandestinely and are believed to receive funds from unidentified sources. Yet, it was not disclosed whether such funds are being provided from, or through, Yemen. President Musharaf only said that the two countries should coordinate their intelligence efforts to face this threat….

According to Altjamo’ weekly, the Pakistani people are troubled by the continuous recruitment of Arabs including Yemenis to join or support Al-Qaeda. It is worth mentioning that over 32 thousand Afghan-Arabs had returned to Yemen in 1992-1994, with the consent of the Yemeni authorities, in order to support President Saleh in the 1994 civil war in Yemen.

However, more recently these groups started spreading back to Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and selected locations. While other groups remained in the protection of Yemeni tribes until the 9/11 events, However, Yemen is trying to expel these groups out of the country as a part of its war against terror commitments.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by an apparent government attempt to intimidate journalists from the independent daily Al-Ayyam by sending elite Yemeni Republican Guards to its Aden office.

Around 1 a.m. on December 5, five soldiers in a gray-blue Mercedes circled Al-Ayyam’s headquarters several times before asking to meet with editor-in-chief, Hisham Bashraheel. The soldiers gave no reason for the request. They were told the editor was not available. Al-Ayyam said the soldiers, armed with rifles and machine guns, belonged to the Republican Guard based on the numeric configuration of the car’s license plate that read 3/24944. The same soldiers returned the following day at around 7 a.m. and parked next to the office. They waited there for two hours causing alarm among staff. The newspaper told CPJ that the Mercedes was later seen by an Al-Ayyam employee entering the presidential compound in Aden.

Staff at Al-Ayyam told CPJ they suspected that the show of force by the Republican Guard was an attempt to intimidate the newspaper in retaliation for its recent coverage, which included stories about the political opposition to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, and strained relations with the United States over rights abuses.

When the newspaper’s editors complained to the local governor’s office about the harassment they were told the Republican Guard were in the area to “eradicate crows” in the city. (Read on …)

Q: What does the Yemeni regime hold hostage to gain complience?

A: Buildings including personal property and party headquarters, land, people including little brothers and relatives and popular figures, money including public resources and salaries.

(YT/NY) Yemeni Minister of Justice is expected to soon present his resignation, a source at the Ministry of Justice said today.

Dr. Adnan Al-Jifri was reported to have reached a deadlock in discussions with the Minister of Finance and Central Bank of Yemen concerning the release of his dues and pending salaries of two months.

This is the same guy who gave the press conference a few months ago saying that his efforts to create an impartial judiciary were being hampered by interference from top regime officials. August 2005:

In a press conference held last Monday, Al-Jefry revealed that he had received over 450 letters, telephone calls, and direct contacts attempting to persuade him to nominate judges or move them from one position to another. The contacts came, he said, from PM Bajamal, Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar, speaker of the parliament, Abdulkarim Al-Eryani, political advisor to the President, and Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, a senior military official, among others.

“Sheikhs, and some politicians and judges are proving a stumbling-block to attempts to put our strategy into effect and modernize and improve the judicial system,” Al-Jefry said.

More at the the YO including budget cuts and official obstruction.

Related: Political Reform a precurser to Judicial Reform .

Obsticles to reform including interference and budget.

Man, that’s bad.

The official Saba news agency announced that the Central Bank of Yemen is taking over Watani Bank for Trade and Investment, due to its unstable fiscal situation and its inability to pay its liabilities.

Four more banks are on the verge of collapse, reported Elaph website.

Al-Wahdawi, an opposition paper, reported one client of Al-Watani bank shot at the guards and an employee when he learned that he was unable to withdraw his money.

A reporter for al-Wahadawi was beaten up when he tried to take a photo of the large crowd in front of al-Watani bank.

This I dont like at all. It has the potential for a huge popular reaction, and we all know how the Yemeni government handles popular outcries: with tanks.

YT: Hundreds of angry customers gathered at the WB which was surrounded by a large number of security troops and police vehicles to avoid its being stormed.

Naji Bin Abdullah al-Ghader, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors at the WB said that he met the President of the Republic and urged him to give orders to the government to deliver the financial allocations of contractors who borrowed large amounts of money from the bank upon pledges that such loans will be paid back when they receive their allocations from the government.

A total of 6.612 billion Riyals is the debt on the government for the bank that said the amount would not suffice for paying back the deposits of customers, adding that it had other debts on traders and businessmen.

Update: Board members assets frozen.

The unemployment rate in Yemen has been reported at wildly divergent rates. Pick your number: 11%, 35%, 20%

Kind of like the foreign debt.

Ambassador Krajeski’s Interview with Nabil al-Sofi of News Yemen.

Maybe if I read it twenty or thirty times, I’ll start to get some clue.

I used to complain the US never said anything, and now when they do, Im not quite sure what they are saying. I agree with this:

We are prepared to help, in any way that we can, to encourage Yemenis to build democracy. It is a big election next year. We will help with the election, as will many outsiders, but it will be for the Yemenis to decide how open, how free, how successful that election is. And here the role of the press, the role of newspapers, the media, the role of non-government groups is very important.

You can put much more pressure on the government, or on the political parties, or on anyone – the Yemeni press can put more pressure than we can. Much more. You are the guarantee of a free election and a democracy. We can help you, but you are much stronger than we are.

The rest of it with the terrorism, I have to review.

Repression: The court said an article by Saeed in September 2004 about political violence in 1968 incited ethnic conflict and threatened national security. The judge said the article also insulted Islam, Al-Tajammu’s lawyer Jamal Jaabi told CPJ.

“The closure of Al-Tajammu and the writing ban on two of its journalists is an outrage,” said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper.

“The authorities in Yemen must stop using spurious lawsuits to silence the independent press.” On November 19, a lower court fined the opposition weekly Al-Thawry one million Yemeni riyals ($5,500) for defaming two government officials.

And more repression coming in the form of the new draft press law.

Reuters: But while the proposal provides for the elimination of prison sentences for press-related offences, it imposes a 100,000-YR (nearlyUS $5,000) fine in its stead – a sum 10 times greater than the penalty imposed by the current law….The YJS, meanwhile, has stated that it is still waiting for a copy of the draft.

Under the current law, said YJS secretary general Hafez al-Bukari, the legal prosecution of press offences is nothing more than a tool for repressing journalists. “There shouldn’t be press prosecutions separately, there should only be general prosecutions,” he said.

The London-based ARTICLE 19 organisation, devoted to freedom-of-expression issues, showed disappointment with the draft, warning that the new legislation “may signal the end of the government’s brief experiment with press freedom and democracy.”

Law Programme Director Toby Mendel of ARTICLE 19 said in a 29 November statement that, “What the free press needs now is a strong statement of support from the government –the draft law is just the opposite.”

The non-governmental Yemeni journalists are really an amazing group of people for fighting for their rights in the face of such a nearly overwhelming push against democracy and free speech by the regime. More

apparently the money is already spent, so they need 2.2 billion US to cover this years expenses.

The YO doesnt really put this in context. hmmm But the News Yemen headline is “YR 451 billion supplementary budget for 2005 passed amid opposition uproar.”

The controversial supplementary budget, which equals about %45 of the original 2005 budget, had triggered heated debates between opposition and GPC parliamentarians for the last three days.

Some of the GPC parliamentarians expressed their disappointment in the government’s proposed supplementary budget by abstaining in the voting process. Among those was Abdulkareem Jadban, who justified his abstention in the vote by the failure of the government to deliver the promises and commitments it had given in 2004. “By abstaining, I protested the way the government dealt with the parliament as it continues to take it for granted. This is the third time that it spends more than it should and then demands from the parliament to approve and validate its actions by voting for any supplementary budgets it proposes.” he said.

Opposition member Ali Al-Warifi agreed with Al-Baadani and said that those who vote for such a huge supplementary budget without questioning the government are betraying the people who voted for them and are abusing their power ‘without giving a damn about it’.

“This action by the members of the ruling party encourages the government to continue its corruption and embezzlement of public wealth.” Al-Wafiri said, criticizing many of the GPC members of initially being against the supplementary budget in discussions, but contradict this by voting for it when the moment of truth comes.

More: this could put the government in a very difficult position, particularly as it had already spent this amount on “luxurious cars, high per-diem travel allowances, financial awards and aid packages to government officials on the expense of the public”.

Observers noted that surprisingly enough, this is the first time the parliament stood up, with many members of the ruling party, against the ‘rampant’ corruption of the government, which used to take the parliament for granted when it comes to votes on budgets it had proposes.

OK a better one from the YO here, details more of the infighting among the parties.

More and more articles on this: (Read on …)

SANAA: A Yemeni woman said yesterday she plans to run for president in the September 2006 election, making her the first female candidate to ever contest a presidential race in the country.

Sumaya Ali Rajaa, 45, unveiled her intention at the conclusion of a conference on the rights of Arab women.

Rajaa, who heads a Paris-based Yemeni-French cultural forum, told reporters that “the Yemeni woman has become qualified to take over the country’s presidency.”

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced last July that he would not run in the presidential vote set for September 2006.

Saleh’s ruling GPC party is to convene in mid-December to decide whether to accept his decision to leave the presidency. – DPA

Unfortunately I’ve been tainted by Hillary Clinton, and I don’t support women automatically because they are women. (Not that I can really support any one of the candidates, just an actually free and fair election.)

But it is a big step in general. Im not sure, but is this the first Arab woman presidential candidate? Before the USA even. So thats good. ew-rah Yemen. More on the candidate.

Somewhat related: Islah moderating.

Daily Star:

Saleh lashed out at the Islamist network whose leader Osama bin Laden counts Yemen as his ancestral homeland.

“These terrorists are causing their country great misfortune; they’re damaging the economy and tourism,” the president said.

“They chant: ‘Death to America,’ ‘Death to Israel,’ but these slogans are misplaced, because they are really chanting: ‘Death to the Homeland.’” – AFP

Someone should tell APF that Saleh wasn’t talking about the Islamist network lead by Osama bin Laden but rather the Houthis and he was justifying bombing civilians in Saada.

This is the same speech where Saleh said there were eight US ships off the Yemeni coast ready to invade Aden after the Cole bombing. Yet on page 36 of the transcript of the Hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Zinni says, “I did not have an adequate number (of refuelers) to use for this purpose, a single ship coming down to the Suez, to have an oiler out there to meet those requirements.”

Let’s start off with the easy stuff:

1-They can appropriate it, but they cant run it.

YO: Engineers and managers in the sector the confirmed that drilling, exploration and production operations have stopped in Mareb as the government-owned Safir Company, which took over the sector from Yemen Hunt Oil Company, is lacking legal and operational requirements necessary for routine operations.

2-YT: “MP Mohammed Saleh Ali questions education minister on embezzlement of YR 99 million.” (about US $450,000)

3-Who gets the other 5%?: (NY) “In an interview to the Economy and Markets Magazine, Al-Wajeeh said that the way the sales tax is calculated and collected constitutes a law violation that the government has been practicing for some time….The Presidential decree approved 5% for the sales tax, but the actual tax obtained on the ground is 10% Al-Wajeeh said.”

4-NY: The Yemeni cabinet approved in its extraordinary meeting yesterday the 2006 draft budget with an unprecedented amount of YR one trillion and 180 billion rials, which resembles a 41% increase to last year’s budget.

5- Genocide in Yemen: The London based Yemeni Organization for Human Rights Watch (YOHRW), which is headed by Lutfi Shatara, requested all international humanitarian organizations to pressure the Yemeni government to stop what it labeled as the genocide of Saada.

In a communiqué which the organization distributed last week, it said that the army carries out arbitrary bombardments on civilian homes with the intention of chasing Alhothi followers out of the houses either to fight back or surrender. It said that they use all sorts of heavy weapons such as air missiles, artillery, and Katychas. The organization expressed concern over massacres being committed against opponents in Saada governorate, amid a media ban to prevent leakage of information of photos and videos.

6- Related Yahya al-Dailimi death sentence upheld. (He criticized the genocide in Saada.)

7- The execution of al-Shahari was ordered by a commerical court.

YT : Soon after his arrest, Fuad al-Shahari declared that he was tortured and forced to confess of the killing, an act which he said he had not committed. However, the court failed to investigate these allegations of torture and prospective defense witnesses were said to have been prevented from testifying before the court.

Al-Shahari, who was tried in a commercial court, presented the case of his charge to the Amnesty International and complained that he was subjected to abuse and torture in order to confess to the crime: He was deprived of the right to a fair trial.

In his letter to the Amnesty International, he said: “I am sure that I am innocent and there are many witnesses who testified in my favor. I never expected that I will be tortured, witnesses will be threatened and the documents will be forged.”

He was executed a few days ago.

Undermining national unity? Reform and equality and decentralization of power will certainly be a postive force on the cohesion of the state. They call anyone with any forward thinking a seperatist. That’s another big allegation.

Meanwhile, the unity of Yemen is seriously undermined by the discriminatory policies of the state (Saleh) toward the supposedly equal partner (the Southern governates). It has been termed internal colonialism, in that there’s a policy of collective retribution, theft of resources and property, exclusion from govermental employment, and a more restricitve and economically harsh deployment of the “law” and public funds.

And what nerve to accuse them of operating from personal interests when its the personal intersts of Saleh and his family and cronies in all the top positions that determines public policy in Yemen.

SANAA, Yemen, Dec. 1 (UPI) — The war of words between Yemen’s government and opposition continued as officials affirmed plans to combat corruption.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Abu Baker al-Kurbi accused internal and exiled opposition groups of seeking to harm the nation for personal gains, stressing political and economic reforms were inevitable.

“The opposition abroad does not represent anyone and we should not care about it,” al-Kurbi said.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on opposition parties to play a constructive role with regards to the proposed reform programs.

“Parties should not seek destruction and undermining national unity for the sake of personal interests,” he told the Military Academy Wednesday.

Saleh’s comment was the first official response to the opposition’s call to replace the existing presidential system with a parliamentary one based on transparency and accountability.

Ali Wafi, a senior member of the opposition Yemeni Gathering for Reforms party, said corruption and waste of public funds over the past five years reached $5 billion in a country where half of the population lived under the poverty line.

Exiled opposition leader Abdullah Salam al-Hakimi was quoted by daily Yemen News Thursday as saying, “Our regime is willing to have dialogue with foreign countries but considers any dialogue with its nationals as an insult and treason.”

He said the opinion of non-Yemeni institutions and researchers are respected, while any opinion by Yemeni nationals, inside or outside, which does not conform to the views of the authorities, was criticized.

In a related development, an official source said Thursday the government was placing the final touches on a comprehensive plan for large-scale reforms, including the formation of a national independent body to combat corruption.

The pro-government weekly Sept. 26 quoted the source as saying “the plan consists of a series of large-scale democratic, economic, financial, administrative and judicial reforms in addition to boosting free press and women’s role.”

He noted the plan defined specific criteria for streamlining expenditure and activating financial laws and departments of inspection, observation and accountability.

A layout of the reform plan here. Also here.