Armies of Liberation

There are many moves afoot within Yemen and internationally that dispute the unprecedented immunity deal for 33 years of Saleh’s crimes as well as that of his cohorts. However, the Yemeni parliament, that has been sitting since 2003, when it was elected to a four year term, was scheduled for elections in 2009 and voted itself a two year extension into 2011. I am checking but I can’t find anyone who recalls a new law being issued where they voted themselves another term extension.

(Update: the 2009 law grants a two year extension until they elect a new parliament in 2011, ambiguous language at best.

Update 2: a handy link from Yemen Parliament Watch that indicates parliament is operating outside the scope of the law: “The report indicated that the constitutional period of the parliament ended in February 2011 where the parliament had finished its six years stipulated constitution as well as the additional two years.”

Update 3: there is also a stipulation in the constitution that parliament can be extended when facing war, natural disaster or unrest, but I’m assuming that had to have been done formally, and within the scope of the term, not by some GPC mind meld.

Update 4: the amnesty was issued while Parliament was legally on vacation or in recess.)

Original post continues: A political deadlock ensued following the 2006 presidential election wherein the GPC thwarted the implementation of a proportional representation system (as opposed to a “winner takes all” single district method) and other electoral reforms, prompting the opposition JMP to boycott parliament altogether. Without the implementation of the previously agreed upon reforms, the parliament voted itself a two year extension and rescheduled elections for 2011. (In order to thwart elections in 2011, the SCER also disqualified the voter rolls en mass.) There was no new parliamentary election in 2011 and no official law passed rescheduling the election and extending their terms as far as I know. Therefore there is no legitimate Yemeni parliament, just a bunch of old men stuck to their chairs for a decade.

So where is the legal foundation of this expired parliament’s vote to give the Sanaa regime immunity? More fundamentally, the people withdrew legitimacy from the Parliament, the Sanaa regime and dysfunctional political party system through a year of mass nationwide protests.

However, while many are working on the issue of Saleh’s immunity, I am much more concerned with the implementation of the proportional representative system in order to undermine the hegemony of both the GPC and Islah who were both artificially empowered by the GCC plan. Proportional representation will allow for the growth of new parties, minority representation and probably more women in political office. It appears that the only way to get the task done is through a public referendum, as the same illegitimate GPC dominated parliament that stalled on the issue for five years will likely continue to block it.

The proportional system has a national consensus, and it has been repeatedly been endorsed by a variety of Yemeni groups from the JMP in 2005 to the tribally based National Dialog Committee in 2009 to the Yemeni Youth Revolution that took to the streets in 2011.

Had the PR system been enacted as agreed upon in 2006, allowing for authentic political growth and representative parties to compete in 2009, the revolution might not have been necessary. So its important not to allow history to repeat itself, especially with this crucial and long overdue element of the overall package of electoral reform.

There is more on the other illegalities of the unprecedented and illegal amnesty plan below from Human Rights Watch and the YCTJ:

Press Release
By The Yemeni Center for Transitional Justice Concerning the Approval of the House of Representatives of the Immunity Law

The Yemeni Center for Transitional Justice reviewed the law approved by the House of Representatives (Parliament) of the Republic of Yemen concerning the award of immunity to the President of the Regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh and his supporters. As YCTJ confirms its previous position with respect to this law, that the law lacks the minimum principles of human justice, and is openly in violation of honorable Islamic Jurisprudence, international laws, and is in breach of the international human rights conventions/agreements to which Yemen is signatory, YCTJ now also calls for the application of real true transitional justice without any selectivity, forgery or deliquescent.
(Read on …)

Yes it does. The GCC plan was rejected in Yemen since May because it is clearly designed to retain most of the status quo and is the diametric opposite of the public consensus. Its also blatantly illegal and the US has lost its moral authority on human rights and democracy forever in Yemen. Via email:

Yemen: Reject Immunity Law for President Saleh and Aides
Unlawful Blanket Amnesty Bill Gives ‘License to Kill’

(New York, January 10, 2012) – Yemen’s parliament should reject a draft law that would grant amnesty to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and anyone who served with him for crimes committed during his 33-year rule, Human Rights Watch said today. The sweeping measure could result in impunity for serious international crimes such as deadly attacks on anti-government demonstrators in 2011.

“Passing this law would be an affront to thousands of victims of Saleh’s repressive rule, including the relatives of peaceful protesters shot dead last year,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Yemeni authorities should be locking up those responsible for serious crimes, not rewarding them with a license to kill.”

The draft law, which the parliament is expected to debate as early as January 11, 2012, violates Yemen’s obligations under international law to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes such as torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said.

Bowing to international pressure and 10 months of protests against his rule, Saleh agreed in November to cede power under an accord brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In exchange, the GCC deal instructed Yemen’s parliament, which the ruling party dominates, to act on an immunity law before Saleh is to step down formally on February 21, 2012.

The granting of immunity would not prevent courts in other countries from prosecuting serious human rights crimes in Yemen under universal jurisdiction laws, Human Rights Watch said. “Even if the Yemeni parliament grants immunity, the law will not hold water abroad,” Whitson said.

An article in the draft law bars its “repeal or appeal” by either lawmakers or the courts. However, article 51 of the constitution of Yemen says citizens have the right of recourse to the courts to protect their rights and lawful interests. Article 153 of the constitution designates the Supreme Court as the highest judicial authority in the land and empowers it to strike down laws that are unconstitutional.

The preamble to the immunity law wrongfully suggests it was drafted to implement United Nations Security Council resolution 2014 of October 21, 2011, Human Rights Watch said. In fact, the Security Council resolution calls on all parties in Yemen to implement a political settlement based on the GCC accord – rather than adopt the accord itself – and also emphasizes that “all those responsible for violence, human rights violations and abuses should be held accountable.”

International law rejects impunity for serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and torture. International treaties, including the UN Convention against Torture and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, require parties to ensure alleged perpetrators of serious crimes are prosecuted. As recently as January 6, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay reasserted that amnesty cannot be granted for serious crimes under international law.

Human Rights Watch has confirmed the deaths of 270 protesters and bystanders during attacks by government security forces and gangs on largely peaceful demonstrations against Saleh’s rule in 2011, most in the capital, Sanaa. Dozens more civilians were killed last year in apparently indiscriminate attacks by security forces on densely populated areas during clashes with armed opposition fighters. Human Rights Watch also has documented a broad pattern of international human rights violations and laws-of-war violations by government security forces in previous years, including apparent indiscriminate shelling in the 2004-2010 civil war against northern Huthi rebels and the use of unnecessary and lethal force since 2007 to quash a separatist movement in the south.

“From north to south to central Sanaa, the Saleh government has violated the basic rights of the Yemeni people,” Whitson said. “Without accountability for these crimes, there can be no genuine break from the past in a post-Saleh Yemen.”

For More Human Rights Watch Reporting on Yemen, please visit:

http://www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/yemen

Related from from al Sahwa: Republican Guard kills four civilians in rural area

Alsahwah.net- Forces of the Republican Guard headed by Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, son of the outgoing Yemeni president bombarded on Tuesday some villages of Bani Dihrah, killing four civilians including child.

For its part, Hood Organization for Human Rights and Freedoms affirmed that it received on Tuesday the corpses of the four killed civilians.

Hood said that forces of the Republican Guard rejected to allow human rights organizations to take the bodies of five civilians whow were killed five months ago.

On Sunday , the Republican Guards bombarded villages of Bani Jarmooz and Bait Dihrah, using mortars and machine guns against civilians wounding several and damaging many properties.

1) via ABC News, par for the course.

2) Internet wonky in Yemen

3) state closed al Jazeera and revoked its license crackdown on local journos sure to intensify

4) vandalism in Aden blame game but my sources, witnesses rather, say it was jihaddists loyal to Saleh. I wrote about this yesterday and posted pics of the scene but forgot to post it here.

5) Saleh accepts JMP’s five points but the GPC wasn’t able to accomplish anything from 2006-2011 on electoral reform due to obstructionism.

1- Forming a government of national unity to be tasked with setting up a national committee for formulating a new constitution.

2- Wording elections and referendum law based on the proportional representation list.

3- Reshuffling the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum.

4- Voting on a new constitution.

5- Electing a new parliament that will form a new government and elect a new president of the republic by the end of 2011.

6) Gates: US has has not formulated its approach to Yemen if or when Ali Abdullah Saleh leaves office and its too soon to predict outcome. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ admission in Cairo that the administration had not focused on a future without Yemen’s president was startling. “Clearly there’s a lot of unhappiness inside Yemen. And I think we will basically just continue to watch the situation. We haven’t done any post-Saleh planning,” Gates said.

So a) even the US doesn’t believe he’s actually going by the end of the year or sooner, despite his promises, and b) I thought we always had plans. I think the US approach, like the southerners approach, is going to depend on the status of Ali Mohsen al Ahmar, scoundrel extraordinaire. But can Saleh stay without a blood bath? That’s the question. Saleh should have been brought before the ICC for war crimes in Saada.

I think every detail of the 2006 and 2009 agreements between the JMP and GPC has been violated.

Yemen Post The ruling party voted the new controversial election law amid the refusal of other parliamentary blocs to the vote, in a move that was described as a coup against all agreements between the General People’s Congress and the opposition topped by February 2009 deal. (Read on …)

I really should start making bets for money. Al Alimi was summoned to Parliament earlier in the week to discuss the revelation that he joked about lying to Parliament. (At the time of the December airstrike, the JMP opposition parties withdrew but the uber-majority GPC dutifully pretended to believe the lie.) Al Alimi rescheduled for today, Saturday, and was again a no-show. Yemen’s rubber stamp parliament, dominated by President Saleh’s ruling GPC, doesn’t have the capacity to hold al Alimi or any of the ministers to account.

The last time he was summoned I believe was after the second al Qaeda attack on the South Koreans in 2008. A pedestrian suicide bomber bounced off the convoy of SK officials in Yemen to investigate the earlier suicide attack that killed three SK tourists in Hadramout. It was apparent that AQAP had information on the route of the convoy in advance. When he finally showed up, al Alimi admitted that the security services are infiltrated by al Qaeda, but he diagnosed it as low level and a function of corruption. Then he denied saying it. And in case you are interested, the headline coming out of the Human Rights conference was, “Alimi calls for civil society organizations to expose human rights violations and document them.” (Read on …)

The only thing worse than the old press law is the new press law. It sounds lovely in the Orwellian Saba-speak, but its really bad. The ratification of the law would have a long term negative impact on Yemen’s development and counter-terror efforts. The only thing that keeps the state honest is the media, and they suffer for it terribly. The law is now in the Parliament for ratification. Saleh is ramming through all the most unpopular initiatives including non-reform of the election laws while western attention is on AQAP. Update: A good write up from the Yemen Times here.

Cabinet approves new draft law of press and publication
[02/نوفمبر/2010]
SABA
SANA’A,Nov.02(Saba)-The Cabinet approved on Tuesday the new draft law of press and publication, in its meeting chaired by Prime Minister Ali Mujawr.

The Cabinet directed Ministers of Information, Legal Affairs and Parliamentary and Shura Council Affairs to follow up the completion of necessary constitutional procedures for issuing the law. (Read on …)

Yes I know that’s a poor google translation of an al Wasat headline about the dispute over the marriage age in Yemen, but the fanatics are claiming their right to have intercourse with children all over Yemen, they might as well do it in the Parliament.

The Yemeni Parliament is overwhelmingly illiterate, and comprised of powerful sheiks and businessmen. Half of Yemeni female children are married before 15, and many before 12 and mortality rates are very high. Most drop out of school if they ever attend. With 70% in rural areas, most spend their lives doing manual labor. Here’s an English language write up of last week’s debate, which came to blows with sticks and fists, but it is not only Islah’s MP’s that support child marriage, some in the GPC do as well. The drive is to set the marriage age at 18, but even 15 would be a vast improvement.

YemenOnline.oct 28,2010- Debate was intensified between the MPs of ruling party GPC and opposition Islamist Islah party in the House of Representatives last Wednesday because of determining of marriage age of minors in Yemen . MPs of GPC demanded to vote on the new law that Which sets the marriage age from 18 years old while the Islamists MPs rejected that on the grounds of its contrary to Islamic dispensation. Sultan Al-Barakni,head of MPs group of GPC stressed that his party has the majority and they approved to determine minors marriage age.

We decided to vote in favor of law’ Al-Barakini declared. Two of Islamists MPs attempted to attack Al-Barakini using their hands and sticks . So, the Spokesman of the parliament decided to postpone the vote on the law until another session

Shipping live bombs on passenger planes doesn’t seem like a media exaggeration or an overstatement of the threat to me. The Saleh administration’s manipulation of the issue is well known though.

Sahwa Net- Yemeni lawmakers have affirmed that Yemen is in a pressing need to unite against numerous challenges, demanding to transparently probe the issue of suspicious packages sent from Yemen into Jewish synagogues in America.

They declared their refusal to any foreign involvement in Yemen, demanding the government to stop manipulating al-Qaeda issues, stressing that Yemen now suffers of fierce onslaught due to exaggeration of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

They strongly slammed media polices that overstated the threats of al-Qaeda in Yemen, demanding to create far-sighted policies to address terror issues.