Yemen Sabse Khatarnaak Desh

Yemen - The fortified city of Sadah

Madventures YEMEN 1/3

yemen,Al Mukalla, Hadramawt

Yemen: The rhythms of Ramadan

Ramadan mornings are strangely muted. When I left Yemen last Friday at 8am, the streets were deserted. Even at midday, the shops are quiet and government ministries are running on empty.

The normal swing of things doesn’t really get going til afternoon when workers in the juice bars and restaurants pull back the shutters, string up their bunches of mangoes and start setting out tables and chairs in preparation for the evening meal.
Around 4pm, a scrum forms outside the shops selling fresh samosas (see left). Samosas cost three for 50 riyals (25 cents) – but you got five for the same price last year. Dates and samosas are the first morsels that Yemenis eat at dusk.

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Hostility on the streets of Yemen

By Ginny Hill, for BBC News

The day I was stoned in public happened to be my birthday.

I was walking along a quiet side street, close to the parliament building in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

I was alone, but I did not think twice when a battered old pick-up truck drove towards me.

It was just like hundreds of other pick-up trucks that I saw every day in Yemen. There were two tribesmen in the driver's cabin and a handful of young men standing in the flat-bed, holding onto the side rails to keep upright.

They wore long white robes, curved daggers on belts around their waists and red and white head-dresses. Normal day wear for the average Yemeni man about town.

The truck had almost travelled past me when a rock hit me in the stomach, hurled from the back of the vehicle as it passed.

Indignant and furious, I whirled round on the spot and shouted after them: "Laish?" - an Arabic word for 'why'.

But the truck was already out of earshot and there were no witnesses to answer my question. So I dusted myself down and carried on...

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Yemen: ‘Trust in God but tie your camel first’

Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center

The British think-tank Chatham House (also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs) published my paper on Yemen last week. Claire Spencer, head of Chatham House’s Middle East programme, chaired a round-table discussion for an invited audience, including representatives from the UK Foreign Office and Arab diplomats.  

I started by presenting a broad outline of my paper Yemen: Fear of Failure and argued that Yemen appears to be in denial about its precarious future. I quoted CIA Director Michael Hayden who said earlier this month that Yemen is a “country of concern, a place where Al Qaeda is strengthening. We've seen an unprecedented number of attacks this year. Plots are increasing not only in number, but in sophistication, and the range of targets is broadening.” 

I talked about Yemen’s strategic location and pointed out that the infectious nature of state failure would make every problem in the region more intractable, should Yemen slide towards collapse. I argued that criminal networks on both sides of the Gulf of Aden have already forged close ties between Arabia and the Horn of Africa, and I cited the UN Monitoring Group on the arms embargo to Somalia, which lists Yemen as the source of a significant number of weapons in circulation in Somalia. 

Oman’s ambassador to the UK pointed out that the West has left Somalia to rot – I’m paraphrasing here – which has made Yemen vulnerable to problems that are not of it’s own making. And a representative from Yemen’s embassy in London rightly pointed out that Yemen is not yet a failed state. The discussion highlighted an urgent need for Western governments to engage Yemen’s Arab neighbours – Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States – to influence events in Sana’a.

I ended my presentation by arguing that policy-making towards Yemen must start from a realistic assessment about the true nature of power in Yemen. I said that a distinction must be made between the Yemeni government, which legislates fairly freely, without power, and a shadow elite, which is running the country as a private interest. I asked what leverage – if any – the West and Yemen’s neighbours can bring to bear over the shadow elite? 

I ended by quoting an Arab proverb – ‘Trust in God, but tie your camel first’. The West, Yemen and Yemen’s neighbours all seem to be leaving Yemen’s future to chance – but are we doing enough to tie Yemen’s camel before it's too late? 

The session raised plenty of questions, but not enough answers. 

Abu Jandal, In the name of Jihad

François-Xavier Trégan, special to the Pulitzer Center
Nasser al Bahri, 36 years old, calmly disclaims all names given to him: “terrorist” by the United States, “infidel” by Islamists, embarrassing persona for Yemeni authorities, and role model for the younger generation… “So which one would you like to talk to?” the Yemeni asks. The former bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden has come to terms with the entirety of his experiences, but taken one by one in the context of the path he's taken and the apprenticeship he’s received.
Born in Saudi Arabia to Yemeni parents, the young Nasser was molded by newspapers and television. During the 1980s the first Intifada engulfed the Palestinian territories, and the images taken together showed a continuous chain of killing and torture. From that moment on, Nasser decided to be the defender of "good deeds, guided by emotion". It is thus that one day in 1994 he told his incredulous father of his commitment to the Jihad, and soon after secretly left the family home after morning prayer. Destination: Bosnia.

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Obama's Yemeni Gitmo dilemma

Visiting Saudi Arabia for talks with Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed his host to accept some of the estimated 100 Yemeni detainees remaining in Guantánamo Bay. Gates wants the Yemenis to be transferred to Muhammad bin Naif's jihadi rehabilitation center, which mixes psychology with religious education.

Gates's request is an admission that the risk of sending Yemeni detainees home to a country where al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent is simply too high. In January, al Qaeda's branches in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged to create a single transnational organization: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Among those Yemenis still held in Guantánamo are several men with close family connections to active figures within Yemen's al Qaeda network. Although such ties alone are not proof of guilt, U.S. officials are worried that the brothers will "return to the fight" if they are sent home.

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Traditional Yemen Seeks to Move Forward

Yemen is a friendly and hospitable Middle Eastern country on the southern rim of the Arabian Peninsula place where U.S. assistance workers and their projects are welcomed. These friendly ties exist even though Yemen, birthplace of Osama Bin Laden's father, has seen important Al Qaeda operations such as training camps and the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.

From the crowded market in Old Sanaa to the spectacular mountains and deserts of the tribal regions, friendly shouts of "welcome" were offered to an American visitor by children, the elderly, and even the young men carrying traditional curved daggers or - outside the cities -- AK-47 assault rifles.

The ancient houses of Old Sanaa, dating back hundreds of years, are kept in excellent condition in part thanks to U.S.-funded drainage and infrastructure projects near the old city.

The 22 million Yemenis are quite religious Muslims and strong supporters of Arab causes such as Palestinian independence. Their traditional culture requires them to treat visitors from all countries as honored guests.

Another sign of the strength of traditional society in Yemen can be seen at the crowded Old Sanaa gold market, where shop after shop displays yellow 22 karat jewelry: the shop doors are wide open and not a single policeman or guard is needed to prevent theft.

In 2003, after an interruption of seven years, USAID restarted its assistance program, targeting five Governorates in the northeast of the country: Sadah, Al-Jawf, Amram, Marib and Shabwa. These remote areas lack adequate education, health and other services and are seen as prone to terrorist recruitment.

The focus of the aid program was on maternal and child health, basic education, income, food security and democracy.

In 2005, $14.8 million was budgeted for aid to Yemen. In 2006, USAID funding fell to $9 million after Yemen lost its standing as an applicant for Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) aid. This took place because of repression of journalists and failure to tackle corruption. In addition to the drop in USAID funds, Yemen lost $30 million in MCA support requested for 2007 as well as more than $100 million in World Bank aid.

A midwife training at a U.S.-supported program in Sanaa, Yemen, gives a vaccination injection to a newborn baby.

While Yemen is a delightful place to visit, with ancient cities and villages and peaceful markets that seem to come from the time of the Bible, much of the country is under the influence of tribal leaders who sometimes find it difficult to work together with other tribes or factions as a national team. In recent years, foreign diplomats and tourists have been kidnapped in tribal areas to pressure the government to provide benefits or release prisoners. The foreigners were all released after a few hours or days but those incidents discouraged tourists, investors and development.

Working in this country has proved fascinating and challenging and rewarding, to both USAID expatriates as well as the Yemeni aid staff. Teaching midwives to deliver babies and vaccinate them, keeping camels and goats free of disease, helping local councils take charge of their budgets and improving badly-needed schools are making a difference in the lives of the people of Yemen.