Yemen in revolt

Rebellion has reached one of the poorest countries of the Middle East. Joana Ramiro reports on the revolutionary movement in Yemen.

Following the lead of Tunisia and Egypt, the Yemeni people are set to put an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s twenty-year rule. “Coward”, they call him, “American agent” they chant.

Indeed, Saleh has played a major role in the US’s “anti-terrorism” programmes, particularly since al-Qaeda’s Arabian Peninsula branch (AQAP) is based in Yemen.

Yemen’s regional importance to the US can be seen in the over $70 million it has received in 2009 in military and defence project funding.

And, while playing a part in the international gang of bandits, Saleh and his cabinet have recurrently abused power, encouraging a clientelist, nepotist system, where informal patronage continues to weaken state institutions even further.

His dictatorship is sustained by his political allegiances (being once long-time friend of Iraq’s despotic ruler, Saddam Hussein) and by its oil and natural gas reserves.

In a desperate attempt to keep friends with the capitalist imperialist forces and boost foreign investment, Saleh took a $370 million loan from the IMF in August 2010, rendering Yemen as a puppet to Western powers.

While the national budget is used as a channel for grand patronage, Yemeni unemployment hits over 50%, in a country where 70% of the population is under 25. Yet, in a country where the political aspirations of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen have slowly vanished, the middle classes account still for less than a forth of the population, technocrats are still easily superseded by tribal and military elites and the gross of employed Yemenis works in agriculture and herding.

This has created the combustible dissent which the Arab revolutions in North Africa easily ignited. On the 27 January thousands took to the streets of the capital, Sana’a, demanding the resignation of the executive.

Sana’a University is occupied by ten thousand students. In the south of the country violent clashes between demonstrators and the police take place. Saleh promises fair elections.

By early March protestors had camped in the capital’s centre, with Yemeni police recurrently firing at demonstrators. After one demonstration was shot at, funerals for the dead turned into huge protests in their own right with 150,000 coming out onto the streets.

On the 20 March Ali Abdullah Saleh dismisses cabinet, holding on to power, threatening of a civil war and commanding the presidential guard against his people. But the tables turned on the tyrant, when senior military officers, as well as tribal chiefs, defected to the protesters side. What was left of political support within the Majlis al-Nuwaab (Assembly of Representatives) is now scattered, frail and leaning on compromises with opposition. The parliamentary opposition in turn seems to be happy with such negotiations.

The situation is therefore becoming increasingly critical as faced with another huge revolutionary movement the dying regime desperately promise “reform” and concessions.

But the people have remained absolutely determined.

Students and activists have called for revolution. ““This guy, Ali Abdullah Saleh, for him everything is a game. He tries to cheat political parties and international society. We are wasting time. We have to go to the streets. This is the best moment to demand change” said one student protestor to The Washington Post.

Journalists have been deported, people have been repressed, but so far the repression isn’t working.

Women lead the revolt, with Tawakel Karman, a university student, being arrested after leading rallies to overthrow the government.

The time might have come for Saleh to pack his bags and join Mubarak and Ben Ali in the exemplary list of autocrats toppled by the people.

It is a list of names that might soon be expanded with names such as King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Colonel Gaddafi in Libya