Saleh calls for exiles to return as security beats citizens
If the people already inside Yemen were given an opportunity to express their political rights without retribution, then maybe people from abroad would return. But transfering teachers who demonstrate and charging al-Khaiwani with terrorism for *writing* and deploying tear gas against demonstrators in Aden really doesn’t give a good impression of the freedom to be politically active. Political passivism is encouraged and political activism punished. While Saleh was giving this speech about pluralism, citizens traveling to the demostration in Aden were beaten and one was killed. The speech also contains a thinly veil to anyone not
President calls on politicians abroad to return home
[29 November 2007]
ADEN, Nov. 29 (Saba) - President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on Yemeni politicians abroad to return home, especially those who has not abused the people and the country, and to take part in the
political action in Yemen.During a speech delivered in a big carnival held Thursday in the 22nd May Stadium in Aden on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Independence Day on November 30, President Saleh said that politicians have the right to practice political action but without prejudicing to the unification of the country, excluding “those who did so, their files are still open”. He also rejected all kinds of
violence and conspiracies.President Saleh gave directives to release detainees who have arrested due to devastative and riot activities they have committed in Aden, al-Dalei and Hadramout provinces.
“We tend to the comprehensive development to create job opportunities for youths. We intent to build a human educationally, culturally and economically” the president said, asking for more action and no more words.
He directed governors, general secretaries of local councils and directors of districts to use their full accountabilities and solve the people’s problems directly without referring them to higher officials or else “they are not competent to be in such posts”
He said that the government has allocated YR70 billion to build housing cities in several governorates in addition to distributing agricultural areas to youths, ordering the government to speed up handing the contracts over to them.
“The unification is as deep-rooted as mountains” he said, asserting that there is no unrest in the country.
Then activities of the carnival, which was attended by the vice president and prime minister in addition to a great number of senior officials in the government and in the diplomatic corps, were
commenced.
Nov 29, 2007, 16:02 GMT
Aden, Yemen - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday asked leaders of the 1994 failed secessionist rebellion to return home from self- imposed exile following a brief civil war.
‘We welcome the opposition leaders who live abroad to come back and exercise their political rights,’ Saleh said in a speech he delivered in the southern port city of Aden marking the 40th anniversary of southern Yemen’s independence from the British occupation.
‘We should open a new chapter in our political work,’ Saleh said, without naming any of the exiled leaders.
Senior government officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that Saleh’s call was addressed to his former deputy, Ali Salim al-Beedh and former prime minister Haidar al-Attas.
Al-Beedh has served as vice president of the Democratic Republic of Yemen, declared in May 1994 by breakaway politicians in the southern part of Yemen only four years after the reunification of the north and south.
The secession was rejected by the central government in Sana’a and went unrecognized by the international community.
The attempt was quashed by forces of President Saleh after a ten- week war in which more than 10,000 people were killed.
Al-Beedh and al-Attas and 14 other top secessionist leaders fled to Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Oman and the United Kingdom.
They were among four southern leaders who received death sentences in absentia by a state security court in 1997.
In the aftermath of the war, Saleh announced a general amnesty, which applied to nearly 8,000 southerners who left the country after the war, but not for the 16 top dissidents.
Most of the breakaway politicians who led the secession attempt were leaders of the communist Yemeni Socialist Party that ruled Southern Yemen for nearly 20 years, and shared authority with Saleh’s General People’s Congress party in a unity government after 1990.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
