Armies of Liberation

Ah yes, the old “there’s no democratic development possible internally with out solving the problems of other countries first” routine. And then “the give me money” schtick. In the process, he insults the Iraqis.

News Yemen: The participants in the conference of “Democracy, Reform and Freedom of Expression” agreed that development, fighting violence and ensuring the culture of dialogue are priorities to maintain democracy, freedoms and human rights in the world in general and in the participating countries in particular.
At the opening speech, president Ali Abdullah Saleh called rich countries to help the poor.
“Poverty is a threat and if peoples remain unable to overcome poverty, we will be laughing at our peoples when say that democracy is going ahead,” said Saleh. “Before circulating for democracy in the region, we have to stop violence in Iraq and Somalia.”
How could we talk about freedoms, democracy and reforms while terror still surrounding us, right and left, and the Palestinians continue bleeding,” Saleh inquired.
Saleh defended the Palestinian resistance and said “that is Jihad and resistance against occupation.” He also described the situation in Iraq as “disgraceful”, calling occupation forces in Iraq to adopt a national dialogue between all Iraqi factions under the sponsorship of the United States.
“Teach us democracy and its advantages and while you teach us you have to feed us because we hate to get just theories,” said Saleh calling upon the greatest countries.
The US deputy assistant Secretary of State Scott Carpenter, who attended the conference, said in a brief press statement on the sidelines of the conference that many Iraqi participants in the conference “felt insulted for belittling democracy in Iraq”.
“What is the road map should the region adopt to obtain goals of democracy?” Carpenter inquired. “Do Yemenis believe that the Iraqi democracy is suitable for them? I think no.”
He said that the most important point in this conference is to specify the goal the region wants to attain. “This conference is important to identify the goal we want”, said Carpenter.
Carpenter said that every country in the region has its own democracy. “In Yemen, they want democracy to be Yemeni. In Egypt, they want it to be Egyptian and in Lebanon, they want it to be Lebanese. No similarity between those models,” said Carpenter. “United States did not impose specific model on the Arab region.”
Former Iraqi minister of human rights Bakhtyar Ameen strongly condemned those, he described as “some people”, who muck the democracy in Iraq.
“Belittling democracy in Iraq is an insult that we do not accept at all. Iraq has taken positive steps toward building up democracy in spite of big security challenges”, said Ameen.
He called Arabs to consider the current dialogue and political argument in Iraq and to help Iraq tackle security problems.
Foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi defended the view of president Saleh and said there has been misunderstanding over the points that president mentioned in his speech, particularly describing the situation in Iraq as “disgraceful” and asking the developed countries to help the least developing ones.
Al-Qirbi said president has the right to speak over issues that democracy faces. “Democracy has economic price so president asked for the help of the rich to improve living standards of peoples and enhancing development,” said al-Qirbi. He said that the Palestinian resistance is legal, condemning any kind of unjustified violence.
The UNDP representative in Sana’a Flavia Panasery called Arab leaders to respect “the necessity of sharing all in decision-making”.
“Democracy needs daily exercise so that people can live freely and in prosperity. The political development requires fit dialogue between different viewpoints and the multiparty is a crucial component of any democratic system,” said Panasery.
President Saleh’s political advisor, Abdul-Karim al-Iryani said in his speech to the conference “if we have a look to democracy in the region, we will find three kinds of systems: system of unborn democracy, system of immature democracy and system of developing democracy.”
Al-Iryani admitted that political systems in the region are not democratic. “If the political systems in the region are built up on democratic bases we will not need to hold such conferences and forums,” said al-Iryani.
The final session of the conference on Monday focused on “freedom of expression”. The speeches and interruptions dealt with freedom of press and expression and the right of all people to get access to information.
The participants asked for laws that prevent journalists’ imprisonment over publishing critical materials, provide more space for free media, particularly in the Arab countries and disallow the monopolization of the public visual and audiovisual media outlets.
The participants said that media control by regimes is a concrete evidence of their lack of transparency and real democracy as those regimes still have fears due to wrong security practices and political corruption.
The executive manager of the Lebanese Transparency Foundation, Khalil Jabarah, said the change is inevitable, but he said all should think how to benefit from that change.
“There is strong relationship between corruption and the lack of information and democracy. And this is the most important obstacle against the political and economic development,” said Jabarah. He said that the political repression for a long time caused a lack of access to information.
“You cannot often get information except when an official flee to another country or when a quarrel occurs between officials themselves. Then you can get secret information,” said Jabarah.
Director of Al-Jazeera Space Channel’s office in Lebanon, Ghasan bin Jiddu, disagreed with Jabarah. He confirmed that there was a remarkable development in getting access to information in the last ten years, comparing with the past.
“There is advancement in getting information due to efforts of information advocates. It is not a gift from anybody,” said bin Jiddu.
Bin Jiddu said there were three obstacles against the information access: accusation of conspiracy by the ruling systems; the disability of the authorities to differentiate between the necessity of reform, democracy and information and keeping sovereignty of the countries.
“We do not accept to lose sovereignty and we do not accept to lose information. There is no contradiction between sovereignty and getting information. This is just in mind of corrupts and autocrats,” said bin Jiddu.
After 11 September events, we found that European countries practice coercion against the press photo. They do allow only photos that serve their own interests. For example, the picture of a Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces is not as important issue as killing an Israeli child” bin Jiddu underscored.
The same happens in Iraq. What serves the occupation is allowed to be aired by media. But covering the Iraqi resistance is not allowed, bin Jiddu added
He concluded his speech as confirming that price of getting information has become very high.
The conference included 400 participants form Middle East countries, Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States of America in addition to intellectuals, journalists and human rights activists.