From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Sep 12 2009 - 04:43:34 EDT
Strife in Yemen - The world's next failed state?
Sep 12th 2009 | CAIRO
>From The Economist print edition
A beleaguered president is taking brutal measures to hold his country
together
SOLDIERS mostly aim better with bullets than with words, but Yemen's army
can claim unwonted accuracy in its latest offensive, Operation Scorched
Earth. Judging from reports of MiG fighter aircraft, helicopter gunships,
tanks and Katyusha rockets churning up the spectacular mountainscapes of the
country's rugged north-west, the description is fitting.
The UN says at least 50,000 people have fled since fighting began in August.
Thousands more may be trapped in remoter parts of the war zone, which
spreads across an area the size of Wales that borders Saudi Arabia and
protrudes south to within 50km (30 miles) of Sana'a, Yemen's capital. With
reporters banned and aid workers severely restricted, the overall casualty
count is unknown. What is certain is that the latest batch of refugees must
be added to the 150,000 civilians already uprooted during five previous
rounds of the conflict, which started in 2004.
The clashes pit regular government troops, backed by lighter-armed tribal
allies, against tribesmen loyal to the Houthi family, a powerful northern
clan. The Houthis style themselves mujahideen, in the manner of the
guerrillas who chased the Russians out of Afghanistan. Their slogan-"Death
to America! Death to Israel! Curse upon the Jews! Victory to Islam!"-would
suggest a link to global jihadists. But most of their adherents belong to
the Zaydi sect, a normally quietist branch of Shia Islam that is unique to
Yemen and which most Sunnis regard as quaintly schismatic.
Zaydis make up a third of Yemen's 30m people, and for centuries formed the
ruling elite in its mountain heartlands. They remain well represented in
government; President Ali Abdullah Saleh is one. But some provincial Zaydis
resent the republic that overthrew Yemen's last Zaydi monarch in 1962, and
which Mr Saleh, a former tank commander and relative commoner, has run since
seizing power in 1978.
Friction has mounted owing to pervasive corruption that favours Mr Saleh's
own clan, to his craftiness at playing Yemen's numerous gun-toting tribes
against one another, and to his perceived cravenness towards Saudi Arabia.
Many Yemenis, pointing to a surge in religiosity among their own Sunni
majority, see their rich, radically conservative Sunni neighbour as a
pernicious cultural influence.
Yet, as in a family feud, Yemenis struggle to explain what started the
Houthis' quarrel with the government. Its roots go back to the early 1990s,
when Saudi Arabia expelled nearly a million Yemeni workers to punish Mr
Saleh for backing Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the first Gulf war in 1991. This
influx drew recruits into a radical Zaydi cult, known as the Believing
Youth, that had been launched by a charismatic member of the Houthi family.
Building on perceived government neglect of the north, a deprived region
where the lucrative smuggling trade was badly hit by the squabble with Saudi
Arabia, and acting on the Zaydi doctrine of legitimate resistance to inept
rule, the group soon found itself in opposition to the government in Sana'a.
In a country awash with guns where central authority has always been weak,
such tensions tend to be expressed violently. In the first round of open
warfare in 2004, government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi
leadership. Yet, despite their small number, the Houthis have not only
survived repeated batterings, but thrived.
Much of the reason for their success lies with the army itself. Its aerial
bombing and artillery fire have proved better at enraging locals than at
subduing bands of guerrillas; and its induction of tribal allies has pushed
their traditional rivals into the Houthis' arms. The army's need to man
fixed positions in remote areas and to mount convoys on main roads has
provided plum targets. Most of the Houthis' heavy equipment is captured
booty, though they have bought more from corrupt officers or in the market
in Saada, the region's capital. With such things as rocket-propelled
grenades and anti-aircraft guns on open display, Saada is said to boast the
best-stocked arms bazaar west of Pakistan's Peshawar.
After the last round of clashes sputtered out in July 2008, Houthi forces
quietly regained possession of much of the country around Saada, positioning
themselves to block the few roads that give access to the rest of the
country. Despite the ferocity of the present onslaught, they do not appear
to have been dislodged. The government claims advances but Houthi videos
posted on YouTube show captured army tanks and soldiers. Each side accuses
the other of atrocities and of acting as a cat's-paw for foreign powers. The
government says the Houthis are fighting for Iran. The rebels say the
government truckles to the Saudis.
Such reasoning comforts Yemenis, many of whom prefer to blame their troubles
on regional power games. But although there is no proof of Iranian
involvement, Saudi Arabia does have a legitimate interest in helping Yemen's
government control its side of their mutual border. The kingdom is, in fact,
a reluctant ally of Mr Saleh, as are the Western donors whose aid has long
propped up his regime. But with even more perilous potential threats to
Yemen looming, such as growing unrest in the once-separate south and
menacing signs of a resurgence by affiliates of al-Qaeda, Mr Saleh can still
plausibly pose as the only man stopping the country from becoming the
world's next failed state.
Alamy
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