Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East -- in which over forty percent of the population subsists on less than two dollars a day -- is plagued by rampant government corruption, religious discrimination, civil strife, and terrorism and has long been in dire need of change. Finally, on Thursday, January 27, the citizens of that impoverished country hit the streets of the capital, Sanaa, to demand that very thing.
Tunisia's successful 'Jasmine Revolution' has sparked similar movements throughout the Mideast -- most notably in Egypt. And if the Egyptian revolt is the most sensational of these incidents, the event in traditionally conservative Yemen is perhaps, the most surprising.
Yet political analysts, who have studied the country, are aware of the deep rifts in its society that have created conditions that are ripe for revolt. In fact, even if the Sanaa government were strong, unified and lacking in corruption, it might have to struggle to keep its reigns on power -- with secessionists in the South, and Houthi fighters in the North.
The South wants to secede because it says it is being discriminated against. And the Houthis are resisting for the same reason albeit the discrimination in their case is religious in nature. The Houthis, who are Zaidi Shias, maintain the government is discriminating against them because some of its backers -- Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda -- are strongly anti-Shia.
In an August 2009 interview with Press TV, Yemeni MP Yahya al-Houthi, corroborated this belief, saying, "Saudi Arabia wants the regime of (Yemen's president) Ali Abdullah Saleh to remain in power because he is meeting all the Saudi demands especially those related to terrorism. Yemen is now a main party in carrying out terrorist plots sponsored by Saudi Arabia; therefore it is important for Saudi Arabia to keep Ali Abdullah Saleh in power as the overthrow of his regime would lead to many big secrets being revealed. The regime in Saudi Arabia also supports the Wahhabi ideology and is trying to spread this ideology amongst our people in Yemen.
“Saudi Arabia is also suffering from internal problems which it wants to export to Yemen,” the lawmaker explained, adding that many “members of al-Qaeda … are now in Yemen.”
He went on to say that President Saleh had taken “many recruits of al-Qaeda,” whom he intended to use to combat the Houthis. “These members of al-Qaeda -- and also Baathist elements -- are now taking part in the fighting alongside the Yemeni army against the Houthis, the parliamentarian added.
And if the problems in the North and South weren't enough, Sanaa also has to deal with dwindling natural resources, widespread poverty and illiteracy.
Perhaps the most alarming of the country's shrinking resources is water. The World Bank has classified Yemen, with its annual renewable water resources measuring less than one tenth of the amount set by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) for water-stress, as “one of the most water-scarce countries in the world.” The global financial institution based its assessment on its 2008 report, which found that groundwater levels across Yemen have been dropping from 20 to 65 feet a year.
These findings are in line with a statement by Khalid Thour, a geology professor at Sanaa University, who said reports indicate that Sanaa's wells could run dry by 2015. And according to political experts, such as Hosny Khordagui, who is director of the water governance program in Arab states with the UN Development Program, Yemen's scarcity of water will likely cause even more social upheaval and unrest.
This, together with the fact that the country's oil reserves which make up 70 percent of its revenues are also being rapidly depleted bodes ill for the country's future. In fact, the economy is already in dire straits. Nearly half the population (45.2percent) lives below the poverty line and the unemployment rate, which stands at 35 percent, is the highest in the Arab world.
Thus the Saleh regime was already standing on extremely shaky ground before the Tunisian revolution sparked a chain reaction throughout the Mideast.
Last Thursday, the first indication that the Tunisian khamsin had hit Yemen could be seen, when thousands took to the capital's streets, demanding regime change.
In one of the many demonstrations, which seemed to erupt simultaneously across the city, a crowd of approximately 10,000 amassed at Sanaa University, calling for the president to step down. Saleh, however, who first rose to prominence in 1978 and has been president of Yemen since 1990, is a key US ally and battle-hardened political veteran, who is unlikely to easily give up the power he has wielded for so long.
The protestors also demanded better living conditions, an end to political corruption and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Nevertheless, the demonstrations, unlike some of the incidents in Tunisia and Egypt, were peaceful in nature, causing some observers to dismiss them as unimportant. Those views were further reinforced when the crowds failed to turn out for the rallies, which had been called for the next day.
At that point, the members of the Saleh government must have breathed a collective sigh of relief. Obviously the concessions they had made, such as promising to lower taxes, cap food prices, and raise the salaries of civil servants and military personnel had worked.
On the following day, however, the protests erupted anew and this time, one of them allegedly turned violent, with some of the demonstrators being attacked by police.
According to witnesses, the police had attacked nine of the demonstrators with clubs; but government spokesman Tareq Al-Shami denied the allegations, saying that the security forces “were given strict orders not to attack anyone.”
Obviously, the government was attempting to minimize the seriousness of the situation while scrambling for damage control. In a televised message on Sunday, President Saleh stated that Yemen is not Tunisia, inferring that he could not be ousted as easily as his North African counterpart because his country was facing a completely different set of circumstances.
That is true, to an extent; but as Yemeni journalist and activist Walid Al-Saqaf pointed out, despite the fact that Yemen's protests are different in nature from those in Tunisia and Egypt, the populations of all three countries are facing the same basic problem.
“All of them have one common denominator, which is injustice, social injustice,” Al-Saqaf told radio talk show host Brian Lehrer on the latter's January 28 program in New York.
“All of those regimes had privileged certain groups in society and amassed wealth through illegal means like corruption,” the Yemeni journalist explained, adding, “The people needed to be the rulers, not the other way around. If Tunisia did it, why shouldn't we do it?”
Indeed, that is a question that most Yemenis are most likely asking themselves, for in recent days, the demonstrations have spread, with incidents even being reported in the traditionally conservative rural areas. On Monday, a crowd of more than 3,000 protestors gathered in the town of Maweya in southern Yemen's Taiz province, denouncing oppression by President Saleh's party. On that same day, over 1500 rallied in Dhammar Province's Al-Hada district. The latter gathering was remarkable in that it was held in one of the ruling party's traditional strongholds.
Monday's events, if anything, indicate that Yemen's unrest is unlikely to dissipate as quickly as the proverbial 'summer storm'. According to Al-Saqaf, the country is on the brink of civil war, and the pressure has been building for years. One of the main grievances, the journalist maintains, stems from the regime's misappropriation of petrodollars in order to buy the loyalty of powerful factions, including that of al-Qaeda.
“The idea is that [Saleh] has been playing a role in which he would simply provide these different powerful elements with what they needed over time, and they would be loyal to him,” Al-Saqaf explained, adding, “As time passed, the resources got depleted and the oil is getting depleted...”
No wonder the citizens of the poorest country in the Arab world are angry with their president, who they believe has been taking the national wealth - funds badly needed for the public coffers that will soon run out due to the shrinking oil supply - and using it to further his own ends.
A demonstrator, named Salah Mohammad Al-Maktari, summed up what appears to be the prevalent sentiment among the Yemeni people, when he told the Wall Street Journal, “We will not stop protesting, even if we are harassed or attacked.
“We are demanding that President Saleh step down or his fate will be the same as that of the Tunisian president, and soon the Egyptian president,” warned Maktari, who added that he had been attacked by government security forces.
Despite assertions by some experts that a revolution in Yemen could never succeed, the Saana regime should take notice. Such an event is not beyond the realm of possibility. In fact, a couple of months ago, most of the world viewed the governments of Tunisia and Egypt as far more stable than that of Yemen. Moreover, conditions in Yemen are ripe for a major upheaval and the people have shown they will not be appeased by lip service. Unless drastic measures are taken immediately and the people's demands met, we can only surmise what might happen.
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