Yemen: Determined to Self-Determine By: Jomana Farhat

Yemen: Determined to Self-Determine
By: Jomana Farhat
Published Wednesday, October 3, 2012
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/yemen-determined-self-determine

The Yemeni political scene is becoming increasingly polarized, with disputes raging over everything from the National Dialogue conference that is due to be convened next month, to the escalating tensions between the Islamist Islah party and the former rebel Houthi movement based in the northwest.

Deadlock has persisted for weeks over numerous questions related to the National Dialogue, notably the representation of the Southern Hirak, the coalition of opposition parties and groups from the formerly independent South of the country. Nobody was taken in by an attempt to get round this by appointing of southerners unconnected to the Hirak to the Technical Committee charged with preparing for the conference. The new members are seen as stooges of Islah, which southerners view as a main partner in the 1994 war in which the union was re-imposed by force of arms.

Reports have begun leaking reports of sharp disagreements between a number of committee members, and of severe animosity between some of them, stalling its work.

Moreover, one of its key members, Yasin Said Numan Secretary General of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) which formerly ruled the South remains outside the country after being the victim of an assassination attempt last month, which attempts were then made to downplay and deny it ever happened.

This state of affairs has prompted many observers to conclude that a deliberate attempt is being made to sabotage the National Dialogue ahead of its launch.

Yemenis also fear the prospect of a major conflagration erupting between Islah and the Houthis supporters of the Zaidi Shia Ansar Allah movement led by Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, which fought a succession of wars with the regime of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, backed by Saudi forces, in the northwestern province of Saada and their respective allies.

Recurrent armed clashes between the two sides that are usually confined to Saada and nearby districts have started surfacing in the capital Sanaa and other parts of the country. This rivalry is particularly dangerous as, unlike the many others that plague Yemen, it has a sectarian dimension as well as a political one though officials from both sides take care to avoid sectarian language in their public statements.

Speaking to Al-Akhbar, Mohammad Qahtan, a member of Islah's supreme council, maintained that there was no conflict between the party and the Houthis as such, and that the clashes in the North had been between them and local tribesmen though he did not deny that some of these were affiliated to Islah.

He charged that the Houthis were "seeking a sectarian enemy" so as to make their critics seem sectarian. "We as a party are not sectarian," he said. "We have members of all confessions in the party. It is the Houthis who are [sectarian]."

He stressed that the Houthis must form a political party and cease being a paramilitary group, which he said was unacceptable to Yemenis, especially after the revolution. "We welcome and encourage the Houthis turning to dialogue. They can get much more out of politics than they can out of armed action," he said.

"There can be no repeat of the Hezbollah experience in Yemen," Qahtani continued. "Yemen has its own circumstances and the Houthis should accept this and deal with it realistically. We don't have an Israeli occupation to justify the Houthis possessing such a military forces." Qahtani added that Islah was opposed to the existence of any armed groups in the country. While acknowledging that "all Yemenis are armed," he explained that "no other Yemeni group possesses heavy weapons like the Houthis."

In response, Yousef al-Feeshi, a member of the Houthi political bureau, was equally damning of the Islah, accusing it of acting like a militia and of increasingly doing the bidding of the United States. He also accused the party of being behind the attempt to assassinate Numan in collusion with the army's First Armoured Division commanded by General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar.

Feeshi insisted that the Houthis' arms are not directed against Islah or any other Yemeni party, and that is was only hostile to "the real enemy, namely Israel and America, which occupies Arab countries and interferes in the affairs of Yemen."

Among other things, he faulted Islah for what he said was its curbing of demonstrations aimed at protesting against insults to the Prophet Muhammad. "The party has changed politically since it rode to power on the wave of the revolution which we were a part of," he remarked in an interview.

Feeshi said Islah supporters had also attacked Houthi supporters in Sanaa over the past month for writing anti-US and anti-Israel slogans on walls in the capital, resulting in one death. He said these slogans "are not directed at Islah, but they are part of freedom of expression. I am in my own country. Is raising a slogan in my country provocative? Or is it the presence of foreign forces in our land more provocative to Yemenis?

He also defended the Houthis' retention of their arms under current circumstances. "We are not trying to repeat the experience of Hezbollah, though we are proud of it. We want to defend our dignity. Israel may not be here, but America is," he said. "We are not a military force, though we are armed like all Yemenis are," he explained, adding that "even the smallest tribal sheikh has artillery in Yemen."

Nevertheless, he indicated that the group would be prepared to reconsider its stance in future. "Once we have a national unity government or a government chosen by all sections of the people, and a united national army, then we can discuss the issue of weapons," he said. But as things stand, the withdrawal of paramilitary groups from the capital called for by the Gulf Initiative the deal under which Saleh stepped down and the current interim coalition government formed has not taken place, and the army has splintered into a "collection of militias, with each commander acting like a gang leader," he said.

Feeshi said that Islah, too, "are bandits and have armed formations... and include extremists and hardliners who were seduced by unexpectedly getting into power" and gaining a disproportionately large say in government.

He further charged that Islah has no intention of using the National Dialogue to seek ways out of the country's crisis. It is only in interested in remaining in government until 2014, when the transitional period ends and fresh presidential elections are due to be held, so it can tighten its grip on state institutions such as the election commission, and put itself in a position to rig an election victory.

Feeshi said Yemen's only hope lies in the holding of a "genuine, serious and strategic dialogue from which nobody is excluded," and ensuring that the state "represents all shades, from the Hirak to the Houthis, and unifies the army."

However, he was not optimistic about the conference's prospects, noting that Islah and its allies control 13 of the seats on the Preparatory Committee, another 11 are held by former ruling party the General People's Congress (GPC), while the Houthis have two, and other forces were being marginalized or excluded. He said his group had conceded to this state of affairs in order to facilitate progress, "but if the Southern Hirak is not represented in the dialogue, how do they expect to achieve results?"

Feeshi warned that unless things change, the National Dialogue will fail and the country will face a possible disaster. He added that the foreign presence in Yemen is the gravest threat the country faces, describing US forces deployed there as occupiers, and stressing: "we must all stand up and say that we do need foreigners to run our country."