SBR:Yemen-A lonely master of a divided house:Can Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, survive against such odds? طباعة
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السبت, 24 أبريل 2010 18:45

Apr 22nd 2010 | ADEN AND SANA’A | From The Economist print edition

THERE is good reason to admire the craftiness of Yemen’s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. He has ruled northern Yemen since 1978 and its union with the once-independent south since 1990.

Its 24m people are scattered over deserts and craggy mountains in 150,000 settlements. Its resources are limited, its tribes fiercely independent and well-armed, its plagues of poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition persistent. It is famously hard to govern. Yet even if the power of Mr Saleh’s state has seldom extended beyond Yemen’s main towns, roads and oilfields, it is remarkable that he has maintained even a semblance of control (see book review). These days, however, even the agile Mr Saleh is finding it increasingly hard to keep the peace and secure his grip.

Qat, the mildly euphoria-inducing leaf that most Yemeni men while away their afternoons chewing, is one powerful pacifier. But Mr Saleh has skilfully played off tribes, parties and religious factions against each other or bribed their leaders into acquiescence. To get foreign aid he has also milked Yemen’s perennial vulnerability, its tradition of outspoken pluralism if not real democracy, and its stunning landscapes. Meanwhile he has concentrated ever more power and wealth in the hands of his own extended family and clan.

Yet his magic has lately been wearing off. For the past six years he has sent his army on increasingly costly and bruising annual campaigns against a tribal rebellion in the north, displacing some 200,000 people. In February he agreed to yet another ceasefire but the conflict shows little sign of abating. The Houthis, as the rebels are known after the name of a leading clan in the remote and spectacularly rugged region, have survived the repeated assaults not just of Yemen’s own modern army but also, in the latest campaign, heavy bombardment by the Saudi air force’s Tornadoes and F-15 fighter aircraft. An anecdote explains why. In one night engagement, the Houthis are said to have tied torches to a dozen goats and herded them into range of a Yemeni army platoon. The soldiers opened fire, revealing their position. The few who survived the Houthi counter-attack are said to have deserted.

Yemenis tend to say that, compared with the Houthis, the danger from armed jihadist groups is exaggerated. These groups include a local branch of al-Qaeda, which has sought a haven in the country’s lawless hinterlands. Yet sporadic terror attacks on Western targets, as well as on Yemeni security forces, have frightened off sorely needed foreign investment.

Mr Saleh has played a delicate game with the Islamist radicals. He sponsored the dispatch of mujahideen to Afghanistan in the 1980s and enlisted jihadist help in his own campaigns against southern separatists in the 1990s and allegedly also against the Houthis, many of whom practise Zaydi Islam, a Shia version that the Sunni jihadists abhor. But he has also co-operated, sometimes closely, with Western anti-terrorism efforts. If such collaboration brings useful foreign aid, it also risks a nationalist backlash that helps the jihadists.

A case in point was a series of raids in December by Yemeni special forces with American kit backed by American intelligence. At the time it was claimed the raids had killed dozens of al-Qaeda fighters. Later, embarrassed government officials admitted that 42 civilians had died, along with only two suspected fighters. Yemeni forces have continued to strike at jihadist cells, and foreign security aid still flows. The Pentagon recently announced that it is earmarking $34m for “tactical assistance” to Yemeni special forces as part of the $150m America has committed to Yemen this year, up from just $67m last year.

Yet Yemeni officials squirm with embarrassment when the Americans insist, for instance, on demanding the extradition of Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, a fiery populist cleric who heads a powerful Islamist political party as well as a college accused of spreading jihadist ideas. Worse yet, Barack Obama’s officials have said American forces may target Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni preacher accused of ties to several terrorist episodes, including the attempt by a Nigerian “underpants bomber” to blow up a civilian airliner over Detroit in December. Mr Awlaki is not well known in Yemen but he hails from a prominent family within the powerful Awlaki tribe. Its territory in the southern province of Shabwa straddles a vital oil pipeline.

Mr Saleh needs the goodwill of the Awlakis not only to secure his main if diminishing income from oil, but to dampen a burgeoning secessionist movement in the south. To many in Yemen, this is the country’s biggest security threat. The south, which was an independent state from 1967 (when Britain ended 128 years of rule over what it called the Aden Protectorate) to 1990, holds barely a fifth of Yemen’s people but two-thirds of its land and most of the oil and gas that provide the central government with three-quarters of its income.

Largely enthusiastic about unity with the north 20 years ago, southerners have grown ever more disillusioned. Many contrast the frugal egalitarianism under Marxist rule as a Soviet-aligned state with the corruption, unemployment, religious fanaticism and lawlessness they blame on northern domination. In recent years their grievances have grown more specific and pressing. Well-connected northerners are said to have seized the best lands and business opportunities, while southerners, including military officers, have been sidelined. Aden, the southern capital, once a busy trading port, is moribund. Promises of big investment have largely failed to materialise, as oil income has been siphoned to the national capital, Sana’a, and, it is said, into the pockets of Mr Saleh’s friends.

Demonstrations and riots, erupting sporadically across the south since 2007, have been crushed with growing brutality. Southern campaigners say the police killed some 148 civilians last year and have killed 36 so far this year. Government sources put the toll among civilians this year at eight, along with ten policemen. Yet that relatively modest death toll belies both the strength of southern feeling and its effect. Beyond Aden and the well-protected oil infrastructure, much of the south has become a danger zone for northern security forces. Aden’s governor claims that 100% of people in his city favour unity. But on the street, three people in one day begged this correspondent not to quote them for fear of being killed by police, then whispered a bitter litany of complaints. “If I were to argue for federalism, I would be stoned to death,” says an intellectual. “People want full independence or nothing.”

Northern officials tend to dismiss such talk, insisting that economics, not politics, lies at the root of most of Yemen’s ills. Yet failure to contain the secessionist movement would wreck Mr Saleh’s biggest achievement. This may explain why he has put out feelers to exiled leaders of the former southern state. Some speak of a series of secret meetings in Arab capitals, aimed at seeking a deal whereby, in exchange for a degree of autonomy, southern leaders would back a change to the constitution which Mr Saleh purportedly seeks. Currently prohibited from re-election when his term expires in 2013, Mr Saleh would stay in power.

Would more aid save Saleh’s skin?
But there is no guarantee that such an idea would work, even if the southerners agreed. For the president faces yet another growing challenge. The patronage system he has built, which relies on buying off tribes and political opponents while maintaining a loyal caste of underemployed bureaucrats, policemen and army officers, is greased entirely by oil money. Yemen has never been a big producer. Output peaked in 2002 and may peter out in a decade. As an Arab sociologist puts it, in a tribal society you do not buy loyalty, you only rent it.

The value of Yemen’s currency has slid in recent months, speeding up inflation at a time when, according to UN reports, 8m Yemenis may be “food insecure” and 58% of children malnourished. Sana’a, a fast-growing city of 2m, now boasts fancy cafés, well-stocked supermarkets and traffic-packed streets. But a swelling army of beggars badgers drivers at crossroads. For the past two weeks, teachers at the main state university have been on strike for higher wages. The main trade union federation is threatening to join them. If Mr Saleh cannot soon bring a modicum of prosperity to his people, the spirit of revolt may seep into his own back yard

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