Al Beidh boycotts Southern Yemen conference, new reformist Islamic party meets in Sanna, Updates
Update 4: News of the conference
Update 3: Nuba trashes the conference as held by those with a totalitarian mentality and says, “Ba’oum is not one of those who early joined the Movement, but joined in January 2008 and Ali Salem al-Baid joined in May 9, 2009.”
Update 2: a few months old but good analysis of the configuration in South Yemen
Update: Mousa Alnmrani, media officer at Hood, and others announced the first meeting of the new political party, a reformist offshoot of Islah. The legal thresholds to form a political party should be low enough that a multiplicity of political parties can form. Currently the financial requirements as well as the number of initial founding members are high, keeping political party formation an elite activity initially. I guess the Rashad Party is going to keep with established Yemeni tradition of not having an English spokesperson.
Party launched Federation of Yemeni Rashad, on Sunday, September 30 / September 2012, the work of its founding congress, under the slogan “the arbitration law of God and the reform of society and achieving renaissance of Yemen”, in the presence of party leaders and official representatives of the Parties Affairs Committee.
At the opening ceremony, which was launched in any of the Holy Quran, the President of the Federation of Rashad Dr Muhammad ibn Musa al-Amiri speech in which he welcomed the attendees, stressing that the party which declares today its launch will reach out to all forces and parties on the Yemeni arena, without exception, in terms of “virtue, righteousness and piety.”
Southern conference
South Yemen separatist leader Baid boycotts talks (AFP) : ADEN — Yemen’s Southern Movement kicked-off Sunday a meeting calling for independence for the south from the central government in Sanaa, but the conference was boycotted by a leading separatist leader.
Yemen’s prominent separatist leader, Ali Salem al-Baid, a former vice president who lives in exile, boycotted the conference, saying it was not well prepared.
Baid, who a few days earlier had expressed his intention of not attending the conference, and his supporters represent a hardline faction of the movement.
Southern leader Hassan Baoum launched the three-day conference in front of thousands of people in Martyrs’ Square in Aden’s city centre Sunday, an AFP correspondent reported.
Baoum, in a speech to cheering crowd, declared that Yemen’s southerners reject the “occupation of the north” and that the conference would focus on outlining the parameters of a “peaceful struggle” for independence in the south, which was an independent state until it merged with the north in 1990.
Baoum made no mention of the national dialogue, a critical phase in Yemen’s transition process where all parties, including the opposition, the separatists, the youth and the northern rebels are expected to come together and agree on a new constitution and on next presidential and parliamentary elections.
He said the uprising that forced the ouster of long-time president Ali Abdullah Saleh had given hope to the southerners — who have long claimed marginalisation by the north — that their calls for equality, and in some cases independence, would be recognised.
But those “hopes were dashed,” he said, referring to sporadic clashes with troops and increasing unrest in southern towns that have fought for the region’s rights.
