Defusing the revolution

Demonstrators in Yemen have the opposition parties' sympathy but not their physical presence, notes Nasser Arrabyee

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An anti-government protester sits on a billboard frame during a demonstration outside Sanaa University. The writing reads, "Leave, Oh Ali!", with reference to President Ali Abdullah Saleh

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh says he will never leave power because of the demonstrations of the young people who have been demanding his ouster over the last few weeks.

The opposition parties say they wanted only guarantees for "serious reforms". They stop short of calling for the ouster of President Saleh, even though they support the young people in the street who insist on Saleh's leaving.

A lot of intensive efforts are being exerted now to bring all parties to the negotiation table and defuse the crisis.

In such a conservative country like Yemen, where illiteracy is still more than 50 per cent of the 24 million population, the civil society and educated young people, who mainly contact with each other by Facebook and Twitter for their daily anti-regime protests, are not yet the most important players.

The tribal leaders and the religious scholars are the most effective players on the society of Yemen where 70 per cent of the population are living in the rural areas where basic services like education, health, electricity and communication are very poor.

Most of the religious and tribal leaders still support Saleh, or at least, have not yet called for taking to their disagreements to the streets.

The association of the Yemeni clerics held an exceptional meeting on Monday 21 February and issued a statement that President Saleh should remove all corrupt elements around him and take "serious steps" for reforms.

One of the most influential Yemeni clerics said the opposition must take to the streets only if Saleh has not accepted their conditions for a guaranteed peaceful transfer of power.

"A national unity government must be formed, with the most important ministries shared between the opposition and the ruling party, to prepare for elections within six month," said Sheikh Abdul-Majid Al-Zandani, a leader in the largest Islamist opposition party, and chairman of the religious university of Al-Eyman.

If the president does not accept this condition, then the people must take to streets peacefully until he accepts, said Al-Zandani.

Over the last two weeks, Saleh has held extensive meetings every day with the tribal leaders and their tribesmen from the Yemen's most influential two tribes Hashed and Bakil in the provinces of Sanaa, Amran and Hajja.

The opposition politicians considered the president's meetings with the tribesmen as a tactic of "divide and rule".

"It's a foreign agenda, and a conspiracy against security and stability of the nation," said Saleh in one of the big gatherings of tribesmen who came to Sanaa to express their support for him.

"He who wants to take the power should take it through polls, not through sabotage and chaos," he said. It's the citizens who will pay the price if the country collapses into a civil war. " Those who pay and push citizens to the streets will be hiding in their bedrooms, with their bags in their hands to go abroad where their bank accounts are."

President Saleh was obviously referring to Hamid Al-Ahmar, a politically ambitious businessman and Islamist leader, and also the son of the chief of Hashed, the late Abdullah Al-Ahmar. The Hashed tribesmen can be divided into at least two groups, one with Saleh and one with Hamid and his brother Hussein who says he will send his tribesmen to protect the demonstrators in Sanaa from the "thugs" of the government. Hamid Al-Ahmar has his own satellite TV station Suhail.

Under the influence of some people like Hamid, both the opposition coalition and tribesmen seem to be spilt over the question of what to do now: to accept Saleh's concessions and go for dialogue, or take to the streets.

" We'll join the young people in the streets soon, when everybody realises that the regime is not serious," Hamid Al-Ahmar incited the opposition and tribesmen in a meeting in Sanaa last week.

In the most recent official statement on 20 February, the opposition parties confirmed that they support the young people who demonstrate in the streets for the ouster of Saleh.

But those parties, which includes mainly the Islamists, Socialists, and Nasserites, did not say they would join them in the street and they have yet to call specifically for the ouster of the president. At most they say, "We support their peaceful protests against tyranny".

Meanwhile, the president repeatedly has said he is ready to meet all the "legal" demands of the opposition through dialogue. "We are ready to sit at the negotiation table and meet the demands of the opposition if they are legal. Dialogue is the best way, not sabotage, blocking roads, killing innocent people, and looting public and private properties," the president told 40,000 of his supporters in Sanaa on 21 February.

The Islamist-led opposition retorted: "No dialogue with bullets, batons, and thugs, no dialogue with the power who mobilises mercenaries to occupy the public squares."

President Saleh regretted for the violence that happened on Friday and Saturday in Aden, Taiz and Sanaa in which dozens were killed and injured. He also regreted the beating of journalists in Sanaa on Friday and Saturday by "hired thugs". "Those elements are not from the ruling party or its allies. They were hired thugs, and this will never happen again," Saleh vowed.

While President Saleh was speaking, two rival demonstrations were going on at Sanaa University. Hundreds of students were demanding Saleh's ouster, and hundreds of others were demanding dialogue, security and stability. Both ended peacefully after the security separated them metres away from each other.

Hundreds of anti-Saleh university students started a permanent sit-in at the gate of Sanaa University on Sunday like their colleagues in the province of Taiz where hundreds of young people started day and night sit-in about a week earlier.

Because of violence against demonstrators, 10 members of parliament from the ruling party said they would resign if the violence against demonstrators and journalists continued.

In the southern province of Aden the protesters demanded the separation of the south from the north which united in 1990. Small but violent demonstrations calling for the ouster of President Saleh started last Friday when at least five people were killed in clashes with security forces.

The new position of the southern separatist movement was viewed by some observers as an implicit agreement between the movement and opposition coalition to focus on toppling of the regime.

In Sadaa, for the first time, Al-Houthi Shia rebels, who are in a fragile truce after the six- year sporadic war with the government, staged demonstrations on Monday in cooperation with the opposition coalition in the province to support the young people in Sanaa, Taiz, Aden and other provinces.

Some of the opposition politicians say the angry young people will calm down if dialogue starts. "The young people protesting in the streets now will calm down when we start dialogue and show them guarantees, it is not like the previous times," Mohamed Kahtan, a senior Islamist opposition, said. But others are less sanguine.