Source: AP,06/11/2011
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen- Early in Yemen's uprising, about 20 women with banners demanding equal rights marched into the heart of the capital, joining the thousands who were calling for the ouster of the president. They were greeted with cheers.
The women settled into a spot below the stage in the middle of Change Square. But as the days passed, "the women's section" became off-limits to men. A fence went up around it. Then straw mats were slung over the fence to conceal the women. Policed by bearded males, Yemen's traditional gender segregation had insinuated itself into the center of the revolt.
Women are fighting to keep demands for their rights at the center of Yemen's uprising and resist efforts to sideline them. The main goal of the protests is an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his regime, in place for nearly 33 years. But the liberals who launched the campaign nine months ago have always had broader hopes for blanket social change in a country where tribe and religion dominate, no matter who is in power.
Women's role in the uprising was recognized globally when Tawakkul Karman, a female icon of the protest movement, won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. But here in Sanaa, the reality is that every woman who joins the rallies has to rebel against the heavy pressure of social codes.
They also face the growing influence of Islamic hard-liners at Change Square, as activists have named the intersection where they have set up their protest camp. Islamic movements are richer and better organized than the secular side. They dominate Change Square's organizational committee and have attacked tents where men and women were gathered, seeking to undo the gender mixing that has been fostered by the revolution.
"They are systematically excluding us women," said Wameedh Shaker, who wears the hallmarks of liberal Yemeni womanhood — jeans, knee-length coat and a scarf covering her hair.
She remembers the exhilarating welcome for that first march.
"We felt like everything we can dream of will come true," said Shaker, a 31-year-old mother of one. "Coming into the square was like going to a paradise of respect and compassion. It was like the best men and women of Yemen gathered at one place."
About a fifth of those taking to the streets every day in protests are women — a level of participation that in itself represents a revolution for Yemen, where women are discouraged from inserting themselves into the public eye, much less the public debate.
In a poor nation of mountains, desert and few resources, women have had the poorest lot: female illiteracy runs at 70 percent, an average of eight women die every day because of poor health services or total lack of them. Men across much of the country marry girls as young as 10, with no legal minimum age for marriage. Only 7 percent of Yemeni women earn a wage, though in most cases they raise the children, tend the land, graze sheep and cattle, cook and clean. Protest, or even participation in public debate, is rare.
Somaya al-Qawas embodies the change.
She used to wear the most conservative of women's attire in Yemen, the khymar — an all-black tent that covers the body and head and hides the eyes behind a semi-translucent piece of cloth. It was what God wants, she believed.
In her early 20s, she took a small step toward moderation: She switched to the niqab, in which the veil has a slit exposing the eyes. And last month, at age 30, she marched into the makeshift hospital at the Change Square protest camp in a head scarf that exposed her face and a broad smile to the world.
"I told you I would, didn't I? Maybe you didn't expect it so soon," the mother of two said. "Am I the same person still? Yes. But some look at me as if I have become morally loose."
It was a dramatic leap in a personal journey of disillusionment with the ultraconservative version of Islam her family ascribes to. Her sisters were married at ages 11, 13, 14 and 16. She was the rebel: She waited until she was 23.
She pushed the strict confines of her marriage arrangements. She spoke to her husband only twice before their wedding — both times by phone after they were engaged. In their second call, she nearly broke up with him, angry because he too easily bowed to her family's warnings not to phone her.
She joined the revolution, and the revolution accelerated the change in her.
Her sisters, she said, "don't oppose what I am doing at Change Square, but they are clearly dismayed by it." She writes for an online newspaper and occasionally does live commentary for a private, pro-revolution TV station.
She has also grown away from Islah, the Islamist group that is Yemen's largest party and was always her political compass. She says the party instilled her principles in her, for which she's grateful, but "our revolution is broader than just one ideology. I can no longer exclude anyone who has different beliefs."
She also wants Islah to explain why it was a key supporter of the regime for so long, even if now it has latched on to the protests.
Al-Qawas says her businessman husband, Hesham al-Hameiri, backed her decision to join the protests. But Yemeni men in general are her adversary. "The next revolution in Yemen is a revolution against men's oppression of women," she says.
If al-Qawas came to women's empowerment from the outside, Hooria Mashhour fought for it from within Saleh's government through the state-run National Committee for Women.
Mashhour knew the organization existed mainly as a ruling party tool to bring out the women's vote, but she believed change had to come through the system. The widow of a top security official, she has a comfortable lifestyle in a luxury high-rise apartment in Sanaa.
The government's turn to violence to crush the revolution was too much. In March, at age 56, she quit the organization and started giving speeches and workshops at Change Square.
Now she works with an independent women's group focused on two demands: setting a minimum marriage age of 17 and a 30-percent quota for women in parliament.
In past upheaval, she says, women's rights took a back seat to other nationalist goals, like ending British colonial rule and feudal monarchy in the 1960s and unification of the two separate countries of North and South Yemen in 1990.
Now, she insists women's time has come. The post-revolutionary state, she says, "will have to include women in numbers that mirror the magnitude of their role in the revolution."
Jihad al-Jafri grew up in the once-independent south, where a socialist government tried to instill a more secular, less tribal society.
When she moved to Sanaa for college, she had to come to terms with its much more conservative attitudes. Here, she says, women are viewed either as sex objects to be covered up in the street or slaves at home.
Now married and settled in the capital, the 41-year-old psychiatrist has learned to adapt. She wears the niqab, for example, though she insists it's by choice, not by pressure.
"As women in the south, we went out to socialize only after sundown. But in Sanaa, women are home by sundown," she said.
Saleh's regime sought to reverse liberalization in the south, sending militant clerics to preach there, introducing a less woman-friendly family law and promoting a stricter dress code.
For al-Jafri, the uprising is a chance to roll back those changes.
She and her husband, a physician, have both been suspended from their government jobs for joining the protests. Piece by piece, al-Jafri sells off her dowry of gold jewelry so the family can eat and pay rent.
During a protest in April, al-Jafri volunteered to be a human shield for male protesters when security forces opened fire with live ammunition.
"I ran to the area where the protesters were targeted hoping that my presence there as a woman would stop the firing," she recalled.
The men noticed, she says, and respected what she did. "I can walk alone at Change Square at 3 in the morning and no one will bother me, not one bit."
Still she knows there's a long way to go.
"It will take 40 years to create a clean society in Yemen," she said. "There may well be other revolutions to strike roots for change and build a new Yemen, really new."
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Yemen's ruling party urges opposition leaders abroad to return for power-transfer dialogue
Source: Xinhua , 05/11/2011
SANAA- Yemen's ruling party on Friday urged the opposition leaders, who have been touring Arab countries for two weeks to seek support, to return home for resuming power- transfer dialogue.
"Today we call on leaders of the opposition coalition Joint Meeting Parties' (JMP) to return to Sanaa to resume the dialogue of power transfer based on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2014, " the ruling party General People's Congress (GPC) said in a statement posted on its website.
The European Union ambassador to Yemen Michele Cervone d'Urso told the Yemeni state Saba news agency on Tuesday that Ali Abdullah Saleh has made a positive step to hand power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
"We hope that Eidal-Adha (Muslim holiday) will be an occasion to announce that Yemen has moved towards a new stage," d'Urso said, adding that "an agreement will be reached soon with the opposition. "
An official of the GPC said Saleh "finally agreed to move ahead in signing the GCC initiative to hand power to Hadi."
"But Saleh stipulates that he remains in office as honorary president until new president is elected, which is to be held in weeks after he signs the deal," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The GCC initiative, which was brokered in April, stipulated Saleh to quit in 30 days and hand over power to Hadi, who would then form an opposition-led national government and arrange presidential elections in 60 days. Saleh has backed out of signing the deal three times in the last minute.
The impoverished Arab country has been rattled by almost daily protest since late January to call for an end to the 33-year rule of Saleh.
Pro-and-anti government rallies by thousands of demonstrators continued on Friday in the capital Sanaa, Taiz and some other major provinces to repeat their demands for-and-against Saleh.
In response, spokeswoman of the opposition National Council, Houria Mash'hour, described Saleh's move as "a good progress."
"The JMP's leaders are now committed to the appointments with leaders of some Gulf countries and they will come back to Sanaa simultaneously with the return of the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal bin Omar, who is coordinating the power-transfer deal between the opposition and Saleh's ruling party," she told Xinhua.
"We have learned that bin Omar will arrive in Sanaa on Nov. 11 to follow up the implementation of the UN resolution," Mash'hour added.
SANAA- Yemen's ruling party on Friday urged the opposition leaders, who have been touring Arab countries for two weeks to seek support, to return home for resuming power- transfer dialogue.
"Today we call on leaders of the opposition coalition Joint Meeting Parties' (JMP) to return to Sanaa to resume the dialogue of power transfer based on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2014, " the ruling party General People's Congress (GPC) said in a statement posted on its website.
The European Union ambassador to Yemen Michele Cervone d'Urso told the Yemeni state Saba news agency on Tuesday that Ali Abdullah Saleh has made a positive step to hand power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
"We hope that Eidal-Adha (Muslim holiday) will be an occasion to announce that Yemen has moved towards a new stage," d'Urso said, adding that "an agreement will be reached soon with the opposition. "
An official of the GPC said Saleh "finally agreed to move ahead in signing the GCC initiative to hand power to Hadi."
"But Saleh stipulates that he remains in office as honorary president until new president is elected, which is to be held in weeks after he signs the deal," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The GCC initiative, which was brokered in April, stipulated Saleh to quit in 30 days and hand over power to Hadi, who would then form an opposition-led national government and arrange presidential elections in 60 days. Saleh has backed out of signing the deal three times in the last minute.
The impoverished Arab country has been rattled by almost daily protest since late January to call for an end to the 33-year rule of Saleh.
Pro-and-anti government rallies by thousands of demonstrators continued on Friday in the capital Sanaa, Taiz and some other major provinces to repeat their demands for-and-against Saleh.
In response, spokeswoman of the opposition National Council, Houria Mash'hour, described Saleh's move as "a good progress."
"The JMP's leaders are now committed to the appointments with leaders of some Gulf countries and they will come back to Sanaa simultaneously with the return of the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal bin Omar, who is coordinating the power-transfer deal between the opposition and Saleh's ruling party," she told Xinhua.
"We have learned that bin Omar will arrive in Sanaa on Nov. 11 to follow up the implementation of the UN resolution," Mash'hour added.
Friday, 4 November 2011
Yemenis determined to have real democracy despite non-democratic attempts of traditional forces
04/11/2011
In an online conference last week,
Nasser Arrabyee asked the US DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS TAMARA WITTES this question:
Political tyranny and corruption led to the current popular uprising in Yemen, but this uprising is now being exploited by traditional tribal and religious forces that may repeat the same political tyranny and corruption and maybe even worse. What would the U.S. government do to help Yemenis who want real democracy and not just changing the regime with a worse one?
And MS. WITTES answered: I think anytime there is an opening in society, there are going to be those who try and come in to work that change on behalf of their own interests. That’s politics. But the Yemeni people are determined, it seems to me, and they’ve demonstrated that determination through months and months of peaceful demonstrations, calling for political transition and calling for democracy in Yemen. To me, it’s the Yemeni people who will be the guarantors that in any political transition they will get the change they seek. The – it’s going to be Yemeni people who need to be able to hold their new leaders accountable for the promises that they’ve made.
Now in order to do that, you need good democratic rules, good institutions, and you need an environment in which rights are respected so that Yemeni citizens can speak freely about what’s going on and can hold their government to account. I think in all the work that the United States has tried to do diplomatically with others in the international community to promote a political transition in Yemen, we have held in mind these aspirations of the Yemeni people, but ultimately it will be Yemeni citizens who are going to have to enforce those expectations on their new leaders.
The whole transcript is:
STATE DEPARTMENT LIVE
WITH DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS TAMARA WITTES
November 1, 2011
MS. JENSEN: Good afternoon. Welcome to State Department Live, the State Department’s interactive online video platform for engaging international media. I’d like to welcome our participants from all over the world. Today we’ll be speaking with Tamara Wittes, our deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, and we’ll be discussing the Arab Spring and the uprisings in the Middle East.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you, you are welcome to start asking your questions in the lower left-hand portion of your screen. And if you would like to continue this conversation after today’s program, you can follow us on Twitter at @state, @USAbilAraby, @USAenFrancais, @USAdarFarsi, and @USMEPI. And with that, I will turn it over to Tamara Wittes. Thank you for joining us today.
MS. WITTES: Thank you so much. This is such a great opportunity for me to engage directly with all of you out in the region, to hear your questions, and to be able to respond directly and have a bit of a conversation. So even though I don’t get to travel as frequently as I might like out to the Arab world, it’s a great chance for us to interact virtually. I want to thank you very much for joining us.
We are here after a really historic week in what has been an incredibly historic year in the Middle East with the declaration of the liberation in Libya and the tremendous success of the Arab Spring’s first free, democratic elections in Tunisia a week ago Sunday. There is a long road for these countries in transition as they continue to move toward democracy. We’re committed to standing with them as they move down that road and to really ensuring that what’s at the heart of these events – the demands of citizens for dignity, for opportunity, for freedom – are at the heart of our response as well and to be guided by them.
So with that, let me open it up, and I look forward to your questions.
MS. JENSEN: Our first question comes from the Kuwait Times: I think there is a need for any new powers to be educated on how to reserve all the achievements and try to implement democratic polities. The question here is how to do so and how to help new powers – how to help new power to be democratic and reserve human rights.
MS. WITTES: This is a fantastic point, and thank you for bringing it up. As I think the Kuwaiti experience demonstrates, where you’ve had a parliamentary system for a number of years now and very open debate inside Kuwait, but it doesn’t come automatically. The skills inherent to democratic politics are something that everyone needs to learn and every society is constantly seeking to perfect. Even here in the United States, we’re constantly looking at our democratic system and what improvements we need to make to ensure that it really fulfills what citizens are looking for. So I think that this is something every democratic society faces.
We try to support democratic growth in the countries in the Middle East that are in transition, as we do around the world in a variety of ways. But I think that one of the most important ways that we can do that is by bringing those newly emerging democracies together with other democratic societies, whether they’re from Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Southeast Asia. The community of democracies is very diverse, and every democracy has its own experiences to offer.
So the Polish Government, for example, invited Tunisians and Egyptians and Libyans to come and observe their recent parliamentary elections. And facilitating those kinds of connections, I think is one of the ways that we can help cultivate quality democracy globally.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Mohamed Al-Bishi (ph): What’s your comment on the analysis which says U.S. intelligence failed to anticipate and track the Arab Spring?
MS. WITTES: Speaking as somebody who’s studied the region for my whole career, I think that many of us who have spent time in the region and have followed the politics of the Arab world understood that there were some deep underlying developments in the region that were creating pressures for change. And those include the demography, the fact that more than half the Arab world are young people under the age of 30; the developments in economics or, to be frank, the stagnation and concerns about corruption in many places; and then changes also in the information environment, the media environment, the fact that people had more access to information about what was going on in other countries so that they could compare their situations to others and really look at what it was they wanted to achieve.
All of these changes have been building for years, for a decade or more. And Secretary Clinton, in fact, made note of these changes just under a year ago, last January, before Ben Ali left Tunisia, before what became known as the Arab Spring really got underway. She said to Arab leaders gathered in Doha at the G-8 BMENA Forum for the Future that they needed to respond to the aspirations of their own citizens for change, and without that they would not be able to build strong foundations for their societies and for the region into the future.
So I think that these trends have been there for a lot of people to see, and certainly the debate on democratic reform in the region has been ongoing for some time. That, to me, says that the events of this year, dramatic as they are, have very deep causes. And that also means that the pressures for change we see are not going away anytime soon. And even if it takes some time for these events to play out, one way or another, I think we see these pressures evident in every society.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Nasser Arabi (ph) from Ahram Weekly in Yemen: Political tyranny and corruption led to the current popular uprising in Yemen, but this uprising is now being exploited by traditional tribal and religious forces that may repeat the same political tyranny and corruption and maybe even worse. What would the U.S. government do to help Yemenis who want real democracy and not just changing the regime with a worse one?
MS. WITTES: I think anytime there is an opening in society, there are going to be those who try and come in to work that change on behalf of their own interests. That’s politics. But the Yemeni people are determined, it seems to me, and they’ve demonstrated that determination through months and months of peaceful demonstrations, calling for political transition and calling for democracy in Yemen. To me, it’s the Yemeni people who will be the guarantors that in any political transition they will get the change they seek. The – it’s going to be Yemeni people who need to be able to hold their new leaders accountable for the promises that they’ve made.
Now in order to do that, you need good democratic rules, good institutions, and you need an environment in which rights are respected so that Yemeni citizens can speak freely about what’s going on and can hold their government to account. I think in all the work that the United States has tried to do diplomatically with others in the international community to promote a political transition in Yemen, we have held in mind these aspirations of the Yemeni people, but ultimately it will be Yemeni citizens who are going to have to enforce those expectations on their new leaders.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes Abusheik Bayav (ph) from Muscat Daily: The United States has cut off funding from UNESCO after the UN agency admitted Palestine as a full member. Why is the U.S. not adhering to the principles of democracy when an overwhelming number of nations have voted in favor of the Palestinian membership?
MS. WITTES: Thank you for that question. I think it’s very important to understand that the United States, along with a very wide majority in the international community and along with countries in the region and Israelis and Palestinians, all of us agree on the core goal, which is a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine live side by side in dignity and sovereignty and peace. The question is how do we get to that goal?
It’s been our view that trying to achieve symbolic gains in international institutions is not going to get Palestinians any closer to their goal of sovereignty and statehood. This is a symbolic move at UNESCO. It doesn’t make a difference to the lives of any Palestinians on the ground. What we’ve been focused on in our own work has been bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, where they can settle the remaining issues between them and achieve that negotiated two-state solution that is the only path to lasting stability and peace for both peoples, the peace that they both so richly deserve.
So the vote at UNESCO yesterday, in our view, was unfortunate and a diversion in many ways from the real work that need to get done at the negotiating table.
MS. JENSEN: This is another one from Abusheik (ph): Many nations, including the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – have accused NATO of exceeding the UN mandate in Libya. Subsequently, the BRICS have also blocked the UN resolution against Syria, which was being strongly pushed by the U.S. and its Western allies. What do you think a substantial part of the world – why do you think a substantial part of the world do not agree with the West on its policies in the Middle East?
MS. WITTES: I would look at the Libya situation in its specific context. I think what you had there was an uprising that began peacefully, that was met with intense violence from Qadhafi’s government and, faced with that brutality, began to respond to defend the citizens of Libya. Those who were engaged in that uprising asked for international protection to defend their own citizens. The Arab League voted for international intervention to protect civilians, and then the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for measures by the international community to protect civilians.
The NATO mission was restricted to that mission and that goal. That’s what it was about. It was about preventing Qadhafi and his military forces from carrying out what surely would have been massacres against their own citizens. I believe NATO succeeded in that mission, and I believe the Libyan people on the ground succeeded in liberating their own country with the support and protection provided by that NATO mission. That is a set of policies that I believe had very wide support in the international community, and you see today the wide number of countries who are welcoming the emergence of a new, free Libya and working to support it as it moves toward democracy.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Sami al-Duwani (ph) from KUNA Kuwait: What role do you expect from surrounding regional countries like Kuwait in organizations like the Gulf Cooperation Council in the time to come?
MS. WITTES: Great question from Kuwait. In fact, I think Kuwait has a special role to play this year in working together with its brother countries all around the region, both at the level of government and at the level of civil society to talk about the Arab Spring, to talk about these demands for change, and how governments can respond.
Why does Kuwait have a special role? Because this year Kuwait will be hosting the Forum for the Future, which is an annual meeting of the G-8 governments and the governments from the region, along with civil society organizations from all across the Middle East. It’s an annual opportunity for government and citizens to dialogue together about the need for reform, about setting priorities, and about how to advance the process together, working as partners.
So I’m delighted that Kuwait will be hosting that meeting. We look forward to participating, and I hope to see you there in a few weeks.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Abusheik (ph) again: In Tunisia, the polls have put the hardline Ennahada in a position of power. Egypt has been marred by sectarian and religious violence. Do you think that there’s a danger of hardline political groups with extremist views benefitting in the ensuing chaos in the nations facing the so-called Arab Spring?
MS. WITTES: I think that’s a very important question to ask. There’s no doubt that political transitions are uncertain, and we have seen at previous periods of history that revolutions that began with great promise, like the Iranian revolution for example, were hijacked by those with an extreme agenda, who then pushed others out of the political sphere and began trampling on democratic rights and values. All of us who care about the fate of the region and the fate of these new democracies need to pay attention and do what we can to try and ensure that the aspirations of citizens are respected in the way these transitions move forward.
What does that mean? That means that the political marketplace needs to be open. People should be able to express their ideas freely, but if you want to be an actor in democratic politics, there are some core principles to which you must adhere. You have to commit yourself to not using violence to achieve your political goals, to working peacefully through the system. You have to commit yourself to the democratic rules of the game, whether you win or whether you lose. And you have to commit yourself to treating all citizens of the state equally – equality under the law, a core principle of democracy. So I think these are essential elements for any new political actor who wants to participate in the democratic system.
Those are certainly the ideas that we bring into our conversations with all of these new political actors, and we ask: What is your stance on these issues? How can you demonstrate to the citizens that you’re really going to fulfill their aspirations for democracy? Ultimately, it’s going to be the citizens of these states who are going to shape their own future and decide whether these new political parties win or lose at the polls. But the election itself is not the end of democratic development. In many ways, it’s just the beginning. And it’s how these political actors play their roles in accordance with democratic principles that will ultimately demonstrate whether they can play a constructive role in democratic politics.
MS. JENSEN: I’d just like to remind you that if you would like to continue this conversation after today’s program, you can do so on Twitter, @USMEPI, which is the Middle East Partnership Initiative, or you can do it on USAdarFarsi or USAenFrancais or USAbilAraby.
Our next question comes from Mustafa Al Arab from CNN Arabic: The Iranian foreign minister is planning for a visit soon to Libya and Tunisia, and Tehran is trying to rebuild relationships with Egypt while the U.S. is pulling troops from Iraq. How do you see the new balance of power in the region, specifically if the moderate Islamic parties in these Arab Spring countries decided to build relationships with Tehran?
MR. WITTES: In many ways, I think that the young people who drove the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya have demonstrated more clearly than I think anything else could the hypocrisy behind Iranian policy in the region. They have said that they’re not waiting for anyone else to give them their turn to participate; they’re demanding their right to participate. They’re demanding rights for themselves and their fellow citizens. And they’re also rejecting the notion that the only way to achieve change in the region is through some unending confrontation with outside powers.
They’re doing it for themselves. They’re taking ownership over their own future. To me, that’s a tremendously positive development. And it’s also, in my view, I think, a real response to others in the region who preach confrontation as the only path to change. So I think that Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans are taking control of their own fate. They’re going to make their own decisions about the relationships they want to have in the region.
I think that Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans also have clear priorities that relate to their own situation at home. They want equal opportunities in the economy, they want dignity and rights from their government, they want a government that’s accountable to them and that operates transparently. And they want peace and stability in their neighborhood so that they can benefit economically and have the future that they desire. Iran’s role in the region has not advanced those goals. Iran has been a destabilizing actor and an actor that is provoking tension rather than stability and opportunity. So to me, I think that these citizens and these countries are going to have to look at where their interests lie.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from the Middle East post in Palestine. Bear with me. It’s long: The Quartet attempts to bring both the Israelis and the Palestinians to the negotiation table, and it failed until this moment. The current Israeli leadership threatens to build hundreds of new settlements in the West Bank as a reaction to the UNESCO recognition of Palestine, while the Palestinian leadership is determined to continue its effort in diplomatic channels to gain a global recognition of the Palestinian state. Palestinians see, in their efforts, a part of the Arab Spring. The U.S. refuses the UN bid for a Palestinian state and is not succeeding in bringing the two sides to the negotiation table again. What would be the American reaction and policy, especially that the Palestinians stated today that they will apply for other tens of UN organizations to recognize them while Israel is threatening to cut relations with the PA?
MR. WITTES: Okay. Well, I think you’ve captured a lot of the recent developments in your question, and so let me say a couple of things in response. Number one, as you noted, we are very focused – the United States – working with the Quartet on trying to get the two parties back to direct talks. But we’re not only doing that in the interim. We’re engaged in discussions separately with the Israelis and with the Palestinians on a couple of core issues – on security and on land, and both parties are bringing their proposals to us, and we’re sharing information back and forth. So we’re engaged in indirect negotiations.
We think that’s very important to try and advance this process, because it’s only through working through these very difficult, very painful issues that Palestinians will get the self-determination that they are seeking and that they deserve. And you noted that in that sense, the Palestinian quest for statehood is a part of the Arab Spring because it’s about self-determination, and I think you’re right. President Obama spoke to this in May when he laid out his principles for a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and recognizing that Palestinian self-determination is a part of our regional picture, and that Palestinians need to get to statehood.
I think it’s important, though, to recognize that these moves at the United Nations are not, in fact, bringing Palestinians closer to the day when they can exercise real self-determination and sovereignty over their lives in an independent state. These are symbolic moves. They do not change the situation on the ground. They do not alter the equation between the parties. What’s needed to do that are negotiations, and that’s why our efforts are focused on that goal.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Jane’s Defense Weekly: Policy-wise, is it possible to extract a model for NATO’s future operations based on its missions in Libya, where only a few allies carried out the bulk of the burden? Or does the current financial crisis and defense spending trend of most of the 28 allies suggest that NATO is fated to patch together only in ad hoc groups of allies well into the future?
MR. WITTES: Wow. That’s a very important strategic question and I am not a NATO expert. But what I’ll say is that NATO is an alliance of strong partners, each of whom brings their own unique resources to the table. I think that in a number of NATO operations, not only in Libya but elsewhere in the world, you’ve seen significant sharing of burdens among the various allies in different ways, dependent on the situation and the mission at hand.
So I think that NATO really is a group of peers who each bring their own unique capacities to bear, and we take it case by case.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question is: What is the U.S. involvement in countries of the Arab Spring presently? Is the U.S. funding political parties or organizations? And how does the U.S. decide what groups or projects to fund?
MS. WITTES: Thank you so much for asking this question. I think it’s important that I make something very clear. It is not U.S. policy to fund any political party, not in the Arab world and not anywhere else in the world. In fact, it’s against our policy to fund political parties.
What we do in our efforts to support democratic development are to provide training and assistance on a nonpartisan basis to political parties, political candidates, campaign managers, who want to learn how they can be more effective in the electoral process. But we provide that assistance in a nonpartisan way through NGOs that open their programs to all parties that reject violence and embrace the democratic process. That’s our policy. We are very interested in promoting a quality democratic process. We are not pushing for a particular outcome.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Hallah Mohamed (ph) from Iraq: Do you know – or do not you think the United States that the security situation in Iraq is not suitable for Iraq not able to stay alone now? Did you get the gist of that?
MS. WITTES: As I understand the question, you’re asking about the security situation in Iraq and the possible consequences of our decision to withdraw our forces by the end of the year in line with the agreement that we have with the Iraqi Government and the discussions that we’ve been having with them.
In that decision, as we’ve said from the outset, we are guided and we will be guided by the wishes of the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi people. We made a commitment in that agreement with the Iraqi Government a few years ago to withdraw our forces by the end of this year, and we are fulfilling the terms of that agreement.
That does not mean that Iraq is on its own. Iraq has friends and partners around the region and around the world, and the United States will remain a close friend of Iraq and an important partner, I hope, with the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government in continuing to help Iraq build its democracy, to help Iraq play the important role in the region that we know it will continue to play, and to develop all the institutions it needs to bring security and services to its citizens.
So we will be there, but we will not be there with military boots on the ground. We’re going to have a civilian partnership with Iraq. And to us, this is a very exciting opportunity to have a relationship with Iraq, with the government and the people, much more like the relationship we have with other governments around the region and around the world.
MS. JENSEN: We have time for two more questions. The next one is: What is the U.S. doing about countries where the regimes are not listening to the demands of significant numbers of people, namely Syria?
MS. WITTES: I think that all of us watching what’s been taking place in Syria in these months since March are tremendously impressed and inspired by the determination of the Syrian citizens maintaining their demands for freedom in the face of incredible brutality at the hands of their own government. It is incredibly distressing. It’s also dangerous. The actions of the Syrian Government in responding to its citizens legitimate demands with violence instead of with change, these actions are destabilizing not only for Syria but for its neighbors and for the region.
And that’s why we think it is absolutely imperative that the international community as a whole continue to work together to increase pressure on the Syrian Government to make clear to Bashar Asad the negative consequences of the choices he’s making, and hopefully to turn them in a different direction.
We know that the for the Syrian people, there is no going back. And we know that even if Bashar Asad is working to resist change, change is coming to Syria. We would like to see that change come as peacefully as possible, and we would like to see the Syrian people have the opportunity to exercise their voice and to build the democratic future that they are demanding.
MS. JENSEN: All right, this is our last question: What important things would you like to see countries doing once they have ridded themselves of the dictator and want to start a democracy?
MS. WITTES: I think that the most important thing for citizens in these emerging democracies is that they have taken ownership over their future and they’re not letting anyone else make decisions for them. And so this is exciting and it’s also what needs to be preserved. The Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans, the citizens themselves, are the ones who are making decisions about their future.
In Tunisia, the elections last week, I think demonstrated this wonderfully, that upwards of 70 percent of Tunisians went out to vote, in some places more than 90 percent, to choose the representatives who will draft their new constitution for a democratic Tunisia. The process still has a long way to go, and so working through Tunisia’s new constituent assembly, working through the new interim government, and also working through civil society organizations, Tunisian citizens need to stay involved. They need to stay vigilant. They need to maintain that sense of ownership over their own democracy so that they can shape the process as it goes forward.
We seek to support them in doing that. We’re providing support to Tunisian civil society. We’re providing technical assistance to the new Tunisian constituent assembly, and we are looking forward to working with the government and the people going forward. But it’s going to be the citizens themselves who determine their future.
MS. JENSEN: All right. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, and thank you for joining us on State Department Live. I know there were a lot of additional questions in the queue, and we are going to work really hard to making sure that we get an answer to all of those questions.
I also want to let you know that this is officially the very last State Department Live. We are re-branding and coming back as Live@State, so please stay tuned. We will have a fancier set and a new name, so please stay tuned. And if you would like to continue this conversation on the Arab Spring, please make sure you can follow us on Twitter at @state – that’s the main State Department Twitter feed – or @USAbilAraby, USAdarFarsi, USAenFrancais. And if you would like to follow the Middle East Partnership Initiative, you can do so on @USMEPI. Thanks for joining us today.
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In an online conference last week,
Nasser Arrabyee asked the US DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS TAMARA WITTES this question:
Political tyranny and corruption led to the current popular uprising in Yemen, but this uprising is now being exploited by traditional tribal and religious forces that may repeat the same political tyranny and corruption and maybe even worse. What would the U.S. government do to help Yemenis who want real democracy and not just changing the regime with a worse one?
And MS. WITTES answered: I think anytime there is an opening in society, there are going to be those who try and come in to work that change on behalf of their own interests. That’s politics. But the Yemeni people are determined, it seems to me, and they’ve demonstrated that determination through months and months of peaceful demonstrations, calling for political transition and calling for democracy in Yemen. To me, it’s the Yemeni people who will be the guarantors that in any political transition they will get the change they seek. The – it’s going to be Yemeni people who need to be able to hold their new leaders accountable for the promises that they’ve made.
Now in order to do that, you need good democratic rules, good institutions, and you need an environment in which rights are respected so that Yemeni citizens can speak freely about what’s going on and can hold their government to account. I think in all the work that the United States has tried to do diplomatically with others in the international community to promote a political transition in Yemen, we have held in mind these aspirations of the Yemeni people, but ultimately it will be Yemeni citizens who are going to have to enforce those expectations on their new leaders.
The whole transcript is:
STATE DEPARTMENT LIVE
WITH DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS TAMARA WITTES
November 1, 2011
MS. JENSEN: Good afternoon. Welcome to State Department Live, the State Department’s interactive online video platform for engaging international media. I’d like to welcome our participants from all over the world. Today we’ll be speaking with Tamara Wittes, our deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, and we’ll be discussing the Arab Spring and the uprisings in the Middle East.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you, you are welcome to start asking your questions in the lower left-hand portion of your screen. And if you would like to continue this conversation after today’s program, you can follow us on Twitter at @state, @USAbilAraby, @USAenFrancais, @USAdarFarsi, and @USMEPI. And with that, I will turn it over to Tamara Wittes. Thank you for joining us today.
MS. WITTES: Thank you so much. This is such a great opportunity for me to engage directly with all of you out in the region, to hear your questions, and to be able to respond directly and have a bit of a conversation. So even though I don’t get to travel as frequently as I might like out to the Arab world, it’s a great chance for us to interact virtually. I want to thank you very much for joining us.
We are here after a really historic week in what has been an incredibly historic year in the Middle East with the declaration of the liberation in Libya and the tremendous success of the Arab Spring’s first free, democratic elections in Tunisia a week ago Sunday. There is a long road for these countries in transition as they continue to move toward democracy. We’re committed to standing with them as they move down that road and to really ensuring that what’s at the heart of these events – the demands of citizens for dignity, for opportunity, for freedom – are at the heart of our response as well and to be guided by them.
So with that, let me open it up, and I look forward to your questions.
MS. JENSEN: Our first question comes from the Kuwait Times: I think there is a need for any new powers to be educated on how to reserve all the achievements and try to implement democratic polities. The question here is how to do so and how to help new powers – how to help new power to be democratic and reserve human rights.
MS. WITTES: This is a fantastic point, and thank you for bringing it up. As I think the Kuwaiti experience demonstrates, where you’ve had a parliamentary system for a number of years now and very open debate inside Kuwait, but it doesn’t come automatically. The skills inherent to democratic politics are something that everyone needs to learn and every society is constantly seeking to perfect. Even here in the United States, we’re constantly looking at our democratic system and what improvements we need to make to ensure that it really fulfills what citizens are looking for. So I think that this is something every democratic society faces.
We try to support democratic growth in the countries in the Middle East that are in transition, as we do around the world in a variety of ways. But I think that one of the most important ways that we can do that is by bringing those newly emerging democracies together with other democratic societies, whether they’re from Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Southeast Asia. The community of democracies is very diverse, and every democracy has its own experiences to offer.
So the Polish Government, for example, invited Tunisians and Egyptians and Libyans to come and observe their recent parliamentary elections. And facilitating those kinds of connections, I think is one of the ways that we can help cultivate quality democracy globally.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Mohamed Al-Bishi (ph): What’s your comment on the analysis which says U.S. intelligence failed to anticipate and track the Arab Spring?
MS. WITTES: Speaking as somebody who’s studied the region for my whole career, I think that many of us who have spent time in the region and have followed the politics of the Arab world understood that there were some deep underlying developments in the region that were creating pressures for change. And those include the demography, the fact that more than half the Arab world are young people under the age of 30; the developments in economics or, to be frank, the stagnation and concerns about corruption in many places; and then changes also in the information environment, the media environment, the fact that people had more access to information about what was going on in other countries so that they could compare their situations to others and really look at what it was they wanted to achieve.
All of these changes have been building for years, for a decade or more. And Secretary Clinton, in fact, made note of these changes just under a year ago, last January, before Ben Ali left Tunisia, before what became known as the Arab Spring really got underway. She said to Arab leaders gathered in Doha at the G-8 BMENA Forum for the Future that they needed to respond to the aspirations of their own citizens for change, and without that they would not be able to build strong foundations for their societies and for the region into the future.
So I think that these trends have been there for a lot of people to see, and certainly the debate on democratic reform in the region has been ongoing for some time. That, to me, says that the events of this year, dramatic as they are, have very deep causes. And that also means that the pressures for change we see are not going away anytime soon. And even if it takes some time for these events to play out, one way or another, I think we see these pressures evident in every society.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Nasser Arabi (ph) from Ahram Weekly in Yemen: Political tyranny and corruption led to the current popular uprising in Yemen, but this uprising is now being exploited by traditional tribal and religious forces that may repeat the same political tyranny and corruption and maybe even worse. What would the U.S. government do to help Yemenis who want real democracy and not just changing the regime with a worse one?
MS. WITTES: I think anytime there is an opening in society, there are going to be those who try and come in to work that change on behalf of their own interests. That’s politics. But the Yemeni people are determined, it seems to me, and they’ve demonstrated that determination through months and months of peaceful demonstrations, calling for political transition and calling for democracy in Yemen. To me, it’s the Yemeni people who will be the guarantors that in any political transition they will get the change they seek. The – it’s going to be Yemeni people who need to be able to hold their new leaders accountable for the promises that they’ve made.
Now in order to do that, you need good democratic rules, good institutions, and you need an environment in which rights are respected so that Yemeni citizens can speak freely about what’s going on and can hold their government to account. I think in all the work that the United States has tried to do diplomatically with others in the international community to promote a political transition in Yemen, we have held in mind these aspirations of the Yemeni people, but ultimately it will be Yemeni citizens who are going to have to enforce those expectations on their new leaders.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes Abusheik Bayav (ph) from Muscat Daily: The United States has cut off funding from UNESCO after the UN agency admitted Palestine as a full member. Why is the U.S. not adhering to the principles of democracy when an overwhelming number of nations have voted in favor of the Palestinian membership?
MS. WITTES: Thank you for that question. I think it’s very important to understand that the United States, along with a very wide majority in the international community and along with countries in the region and Israelis and Palestinians, all of us agree on the core goal, which is a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine live side by side in dignity and sovereignty and peace. The question is how do we get to that goal?
It’s been our view that trying to achieve symbolic gains in international institutions is not going to get Palestinians any closer to their goal of sovereignty and statehood. This is a symbolic move at UNESCO. It doesn’t make a difference to the lives of any Palestinians on the ground. What we’ve been focused on in our own work has been bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, where they can settle the remaining issues between them and achieve that negotiated two-state solution that is the only path to lasting stability and peace for both peoples, the peace that they both so richly deserve.
So the vote at UNESCO yesterday, in our view, was unfortunate and a diversion in many ways from the real work that need to get done at the negotiating table.
MS. JENSEN: This is another one from Abusheik (ph): Many nations, including the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – have accused NATO of exceeding the UN mandate in Libya. Subsequently, the BRICS have also blocked the UN resolution against Syria, which was being strongly pushed by the U.S. and its Western allies. What do you think a substantial part of the world – why do you think a substantial part of the world do not agree with the West on its policies in the Middle East?
MS. WITTES: I would look at the Libya situation in its specific context. I think what you had there was an uprising that began peacefully, that was met with intense violence from Qadhafi’s government and, faced with that brutality, began to respond to defend the citizens of Libya. Those who were engaged in that uprising asked for international protection to defend their own citizens. The Arab League voted for international intervention to protect civilians, and then the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for measures by the international community to protect civilians.
The NATO mission was restricted to that mission and that goal. That’s what it was about. It was about preventing Qadhafi and his military forces from carrying out what surely would have been massacres against their own citizens. I believe NATO succeeded in that mission, and I believe the Libyan people on the ground succeeded in liberating their own country with the support and protection provided by that NATO mission. That is a set of policies that I believe had very wide support in the international community, and you see today the wide number of countries who are welcoming the emergence of a new, free Libya and working to support it as it moves toward democracy.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Sami al-Duwani (ph) from KUNA Kuwait: What role do you expect from surrounding regional countries like Kuwait in organizations like the Gulf Cooperation Council in the time to come?
MS. WITTES: Great question from Kuwait. In fact, I think Kuwait has a special role to play this year in working together with its brother countries all around the region, both at the level of government and at the level of civil society to talk about the Arab Spring, to talk about these demands for change, and how governments can respond.
Why does Kuwait have a special role? Because this year Kuwait will be hosting the Forum for the Future, which is an annual meeting of the G-8 governments and the governments from the region, along with civil society organizations from all across the Middle East. It’s an annual opportunity for government and citizens to dialogue together about the need for reform, about setting priorities, and about how to advance the process together, working as partners.
So I’m delighted that Kuwait will be hosting that meeting. We look forward to participating, and I hope to see you there in a few weeks.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Abusheik (ph) again: In Tunisia, the polls have put the hardline Ennahada in a position of power. Egypt has been marred by sectarian and religious violence. Do you think that there’s a danger of hardline political groups with extremist views benefitting in the ensuing chaos in the nations facing the so-called Arab Spring?
MS. WITTES: I think that’s a very important question to ask. There’s no doubt that political transitions are uncertain, and we have seen at previous periods of history that revolutions that began with great promise, like the Iranian revolution for example, were hijacked by those with an extreme agenda, who then pushed others out of the political sphere and began trampling on democratic rights and values. All of us who care about the fate of the region and the fate of these new democracies need to pay attention and do what we can to try and ensure that the aspirations of citizens are respected in the way these transitions move forward.
What does that mean? That means that the political marketplace needs to be open. People should be able to express their ideas freely, but if you want to be an actor in democratic politics, there are some core principles to which you must adhere. You have to commit yourself to not using violence to achieve your political goals, to working peacefully through the system. You have to commit yourself to the democratic rules of the game, whether you win or whether you lose. And you have to commit yourself to treating all citizens of the state equally – equality under the law, a core principle of democracy. So I think these are essential elements for any new political actor who wants to participate in the democratic system.
Those are certainly the ideas that we bring into our conversations with all of these new political actors, and we ask: What is your stance on these issues? How can you demonstrate to the citizens that you’re really going to fulfill their aspirations for democracy? Ultimately, it’s going to be the citizens of these states who are going to shape their own future and decide whether these new political parties win or lose at the polls. But the election itself is not the end of democratic development. In many ways, it’s just the beginning. And it’s how these political actors play their roles in accordance with democratic principles that will ultimately demonstrate whether they can play a constructive role in democratic politics.
MS. JENSEN: I’d just like to remind you that if you would like to continue this conversation after today’s program, you can do so on Twitter, @USMEPI, which is the Middle East Partnership Initiative, or you can do it on USAdarFarsi or USAenFrancais or USAbilAraby.
Our next question comes from Mustafa Al Arab from CNN Arabic: The Iranian foreign minister is planning for a visit soon to Libya and Tunisia, and Tehran is trying to rebuild relationships with Egypt while the U.S. is pulling troops from Iraq. How do you see the new balance of power in the region, specifically if the moderate Islamic parties in these Arab Spring countries decided to build relationships with Tehran?
MR. WITTES: In many ways, I think that the young people who drove the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and Libya have demonstrated more clearly than I think anything else could the hypocrisy behind Iranian policy in the region. They have said that they’re not waiting for anyone else to give them their turn to participate; they’re demanding their right to participate. They’re demanding rights for themselves and their fellow citizens. And they’re also rejecting the notion that the only way to achieve change in the region is through some unending confrontation with outside powers.
They’re doing it for themselves. They’re taking ownership over their own future. To me, that’s a tremendously positive development. And it’s also, in my view, I think, a real response to others in the region who preach confrontation as the only path to change. So I think that Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans are taking control of their own fate. They’re going to make their own decisions about the relationships they want to have in the region.
I think that Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans also have clear priorities that relate to their own situation at home. They want equal opportunities in the economy, they want dignity and rights from their government, they want a government that’s accountable to them and that operates transparently. And they want peace and stability in their neighborhood so that they can benefit economically and have the future that they desire. Iran’s role in the region has not advanced those goals. Iran has been a destabilizing actor and an actor that is provoking tension rather than stability and opportunity. So to me, I think that these citizens and these countries are going to have to look at where their interests lie.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from the Middle East post in Palestine. Bear with me. It’s long: The Quartet attempts to bring both the Israelis and the Palestinians to the negotiation table, and it failed until this moment. The current Israeli leadership threatens to build hundreds of new settlements in the West Bank as a reaction to the UNESCO recognition of Palestine, while the Palestinian leadership is determined to continue its effort in diplomatic channels to gain a global recognition of the Palestinian state. Palestinians see, in their efforts, a part of the Arab Spring. The U.S. refuses the UN bid for a Palestinian state and is not succeeding in bringing the two sides to the negotiation table again. What would be the American reaction and policy, especially that the Palestinians stated today that they will apply for other tens of UN organizations to recognize them while Israel is threatening to cut relations with the PA?
MR. WITTES: Okay. Well, I think you’ve captured a lot of the recent developments in your question, and so let me say a couple of things in response. Number one, as you noted, we are very focused – the United States – working with the Quartet on trying to get the two parties back to direct talks. But we’re not only doing that in the interim. We’re engaged in discussions separately with the Israelis and with the Palestinians on a couple of core issues – on security and on land, and both parties are bringing their proposals to us, and we’re sharing information back and forth. So we’re engaged in indirect negotiations.
We think that’s very important to try and advance this process, because it’s only through working through these very difficult, very painful issues that Palestinians will get the self-determination that they are seeking and that they deserve. And you noted that in that sense, the Palestinian quest for statehood is a part of the Arab Spring because it’s about self-determination, and I think you’re right. President Obama spoke to this in May when he laid out his principles for a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and recognizing that Palestinian self-determination is a part of our regional picture, and that Palestinians need to get to statehood.
I think it’s important, though, to recognize that these moves at the United Nations are not, in fact, bringing Palestinians closer to the day when they can exercise real self-determination and sovereignty over their lives in an independent state. These are symbolic moves. They do not change the situation on the ground. They do not alter the equation between the parties. What’s needed to do that are negotiations, and that’s why our efforts are focused on that goal.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Jane’s Defense Weekly: Policy-wise, is it possible to extract a model for NATO’s future operations based on its missions in Libya, where only a few allies carried out the bulk of the burden? Or does the current financial crisis and defense spending trend of most of the 28 allies suggest that NATO is fated to patch together only in ad hoc groups of allies well into the future?
MR. WITTES: Wow. That’s a very important strategic question and I am not a NATO expert. But what I’ll say is that NATO is an alliance of strong partners, each of whom brings their own unique resources to the table. I think that in a number of NATO operations, not only in Libya but elsewhere in the world, you’ve seen significant sharing of burdens among the various allies in different ways, dependent on the situation and the mission at hand.
So I think that NATO really is a group of peers who each bring their own unique capacities to bear, and we take it case by case.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question is: What is the U.S. involvement in countries of the Arab Spring presently? Is the U.S. funding political parties or organizations? And how does the U.S. decide what groups or projects to fund?
MS. WITTES: Thank you so much for asking this question. I think it’s important that I make something very clear. It is not U.S. policy to fund any political party, not in the Arab world and not anywhere else in the world. In fact, it’s against our policy to fund political parties.
What we do in our efforts to support democratic development are to provide training and assistance on a nonpartisan basis to political parties, political candidates, campaign managers, who want to learn how they can be more effective in the electoral process. But we provide that assistance in a nonpartisan way through NGOs that open their programs to all parties that reject violence and embrace the democratic process. That’s our policy. We are very interested in promoting a quality democratic process. We are not pushing for a particular outcome.
MS. JENSEN: Our next question comes from Hallah Mohamed (ph) from Iraq: Do you know – or do not you think the United States that the security situation in Iraq is not suitable for Iraq not able to stay alone now? Did you get the gist of that?
MS. WITTES: As I understand the question, you’re asking about the security situation in Iraq and the possible consequences of our decision to withdraw our forces by the end of the year in line with the agreement that we have with the Iraqi Government and the discussions that we’ve been having with them.
In that decision, as we’ve said from the outset, we are guided and we will be guided by the wishes of the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi people. We made a commitment in that agreement with the Iraqi Government a few years ago to withdraw our forces by the end of this year, and we are fulfilling the terms of that agreement.
That does not mean that Iraq is on its own. Iraq has friends and partners around the region and around the world, and the United States will remain a close friend of Iraq and an important partner, I hope, with the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government in continuing to help Iraq build its democracy, to help Iraq play the important role in the region that we know it will continue to play, and to develop all the institutions it needs to bring security and services to its citizens.
So we will be there, but we will not be there with military boots on the ground. We’re going to have a civilian partnership with Iraq. And to us, this is a very exciting opportunity to have a relationship with Iraq, with the government and the people, much more like the relationship we have with other governments around the region and around the world.
MS. JENSEN: We have time for two more questions. The next one is: What is the U.S. doing about countries where the regimes are not listening to the demands of significant numbers of people, namely Syria?
MS. WITTES: I think that all of us watching what’s been taking place in Syria in these months since March are tremendously impressed and inspired by the determination of the Syrian citizens maintaining their demands for freedom in the face of incredible brutality at the hands of their own government. It is incredibly distressing. It’s also dangerous. The actions of the Syrian Government in responding to its citizens legitimate demands with violence instead of with change, these actions are destabilizing not only for Syria but for its neighbors and for the region.
And that’s why we think it is absolutely imperative that the international community as a whole continue to work together to increase pressure on the Syrian Government to make clear to Bashar Asad the negative consequences of the choices he’s making, and hopefully to turn them in a different direction.
We know that the for the Syrian people, there is no going back. And we know that even if Bashar Asad is working to resist change, change is coming to Syria. We would like to see that change come as peacefully as possible, and we would like to see the Syrian people have the opportunity to exercise their voice and to build the democratic future that they are demanding.
MS. JENSEN: All right, this is our last question: What important things would you like to see countries doing once they have ridded themselves of the dictator and want to start a democracy?
MS. WITTES: I think that the most important thing for citizens in these emerging democracies is that they have taken ownership over their future and they’re not letting anyone else make decisions for them. And so this is exciting and it’s also what needs to be preserved. The Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans, the citizens themselves, are the ones who are making decisions about their future.
In Tunisia, the elections last week, I think demonstrated this wonderfully, that upwards of 70 percent of Tunisians went out to vote, in some places more than 90 percent, to choose the representatives who will draft their new constitution for a democratic Tunisia. The process still has a long way to go, and so working through Tunisia’s new constituent assembly, working through the new interim government, and also working through civil society organizations, Tunisian citizens need to stay involved. They need to stay vigilant. They need to maintain that sense of ownership over their own democracy so that they can shape the process as it goes forward.
We seek to support them in doing that. We’re providing support to Tunisian civil society. We’re providing technical assistance to the new Tunisian constituent assembly, and we are looking forward to working with the government and the people going forward. But it’s going to be the citizens themselves who determine their future.
MS. JENSEN: All right. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, and thank you for joining us on State Department Live. I know there were a lot of additional questions in the queue, and we are going to work really hard to making sure that we get an answer to all of those questions.
I also want to let you know that this is officially the very last State Department Live. We are re-branding and coming back as Live@State, so please stay tuned. We will have a fancier set and a new name, so please stay tuned. And if you would like to continue this conversation on the Arab Spring, please make sure you can follow us on Twitter at @state – that’s the main State Department Twitter feed – or @USAbilAraby, USAdarFarsi, USAenFrancais. And if you would like to follow the Middle East Partnership Initiative, you can do so on @USMEPI. Thanks for joining us today.
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Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Ancient City Anchors Political Standoff in Yemen
Source, New York Times, By LAURA
Kasinof, 03/11/2011
TAIZ, Yemen — This ancient city among the steep cliffs of central Yemen, once known as the commercial and intellectual hub of this south Arabian nation, has emerged as the violent center of a long political standoff between a president who refuses to step down and demonstrators who want him out.
The government has attacked here with a ferocity not seen in Sana, the capital; on Wednesday, government forces shelled residential neighborhoods after local fighters took over a ministry building. Seven civilians were killed, including two children.
But this is not a one-way battle, not in Taiz, where the tribes have united, organized and fought back. Five soldiers were killed, too, on Wednesday.
For all of the attention focused on the capital, where demonstrators have camped out for 10 months in the streets and many have died in sporadic fighting, this is the front line, or at least that is the way President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his allies seem to see it. They fear that Taiz could become the equivalent of Benghazi in Libya, a makeshift capital for the opposition, where forces seeking to oust the president can coalesce, organize and recruit supporters.
“The opposition parties thought that if Taiz falls, they could make it into a Benghazi, and use that to put pressure on the president,” Hamoud al-Sofi, the governor of Taiz Province, said from his home, where he was protected by an armed guard. “This isn’t a conflict between protesters and the government. It is a war, from all senses of the meaning. Each party has its own weapons.”
Buildings throughout the city are pockmarked from bullets and explosions. The shops are closed, apartments are abandoned and graffiti denouncing President Saleh is everywhere. The intense fighting in Taiz eclipsed the protests, with only about 1,000 of the most hard-core, but unarmed, demonstrators braving the violence to stay on the streets. Government forces have stepped up their operations in recent weeks, killing at least 30 civilians in October.
“For the government, Taiz is an important governorate,” said Shawqi Hail Saeed, a prominent resident and businessman. “They think it is a very serious case. They have to make sure Taiz is secured, that it doesn’t fall.”
Taiz is a city apart in Yemen, where it long ago earned a reputation as a place where law, order and civil society flourished. Residents took pride in creating a more peaceful environment than existed in much of Yemen, a nation where men routinely carry around weapons and wear a large dagger on their belt as part of their daily dress, much like a tie in the West. In Taiz, both customs were frequently rejected.
“In Taiz, we had reached a stage when you didn’t see people carrying even a dagger,” Mr. Saeed said. Now its common to see a man on the streets of Taiz with a Kalashnikov on his back.
But there is another fact about Taiz, one Mr. Saleh knows well, having once been the regional military commander. Taiz is the birthplace of political opposition in Yemen. Residents of Taiz were instrumental in establishing the largest Islamic party, and the Socialist Party was founded in the city. With civil society came civic involvement.
When anti-Saleh protests broke out in Yemen, setting off the protracted political standoff, they moved quickly to Taiz. But as has often happened in Taiz, the city carried the idea forward; where demonstrators marched in Sana, they camped out in Taiz. The government immediately saw the threat and sent its forces to Taiz.
Unlike in Sana, where officials had plainclothes gunmen fire at unarmed protesters, in Taiz the government allowed uniformed forces to shoot at and kill demonstrators. Those same forces also beat women who were demonstrating, something that had not happened in other cities.
In late May, government forces set fire to a demonstrators’ tent camp in Taiz. At the same time, soldiers sacked a nearby hospital treating protesters. By the end of the day, at least 12 people had been killed, according to a local doctor.
At that point, tribal leaders from the surrounding countryside gathered at the residence of Sheik Hamoud Saeed al-Mikhlafi and decided to fight back. They sent armed fighters to attack government buildings, military installments and soldiers.
“Taiz has always been ‘Yes, sir’ to the authorities,” said Sheik Mikhlafi, who has become the leader of the armed rebellion in the city. “All of Taiz went out on the streets. They stopped being obedient and they revolted.”
He said that if he chose to, he could mobilize thousands of tribal fighters in two days, but that so far he had decided to hold back. “People with the government are only fighting for the salary,” he said. “We are fighting for belief.”
Sheik Mikhlafi is a member of the Islamist party and is a cousin of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman, who was one of the first people calling for Mr. Saleh’s downfall.
“I respect Sheik Hamoud because he brought us back our dignity,” said Abdul Rahman al-Alimi, an employee of an optical shop in Taiz. “I don’t know him personally, all I know about him is that he respects us,” he added.
Taiz’s population is often described as the most educated in Yemen, but the people here complain that they are treated as second-class citizens, and that the culture of Yemen has been dominated by the northern tribes since Mr. Saleh came to power.
Not that far away from Mr. Alimi’s home is a civilian apartment badly damaged last week by artillery fire. The owner of the house is in Saudi Arabia with his family, and his brother, Mansour Abdul Wahab, was trying to manage the situation. “I’ll go to the government and ask for repayment for this,” he said standing just outside the rubble of what once was a bedroom for his brother’s three children.
“When will that be? After one year?” asked Omar al-Sarmi, who lives in the house next door, as he stood next to Mr. Abdul Wahab. “We don’t want money, we want to be safe.”
Yemenis fear that anger will linger, even if there is a political solution and even if peace returns to Taiz and the weapons are once more stored away.
“Even if the change comes, and I am sure the change will come, it will take a longer time because of the amount of suffering we have had as a people in Yemen, and in Taiz particularly,” Mr. Saeed said.
“The number of houses and shops that have been attacked, or people who have been killed, it will take a long time for the mentality of people to change in the future to forget what has happened,” he said.
Kasinof, 03/11/2011
TAIZ, Yemen — This ancient city among the steep cliffs of central Yemen, once known as the commercial and intellectual hub of this south Arabian nation, has emerged as the violent center of a long political standoff between a president who refuses to step down and demonstrators who want him out.
The government has attacked here with a ferocity not seen in Sana, the capital; on Wednesday, government forces shelled residential neighborhoods after local fighters took over a ministry building. Seven civilians were killed, including two children.
But this is not a one-way battle, not in Taiz, where the tribes have united, organized and fought back. Five soldiers were killed, too, on Wednesday.
For all of the attention focused on the capital, where demonstrators have camped out for 10 months in the streets and many have died in sporadic fighting, this is the front line, or at least that is the way President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his allies seem to see it. They fear that Taiz could become the equivalent of Benghazi in Libya, a makeshift capital for the opposition, where forces seeking to oust the president can coalesce, organize and recruit supporters.
“The opposition parties thought that if Taiz falls, they could make it into a Benghazi, and use that to put pressure on the president,” Hamoud al-Sofi, the governor of Taiz Province, said from his home, where he was protected by an armed guard. “This isn’t a conflict between protesters and the government. It is a war, from all senses of the meaning. Each party has its own weapons.”
Buildings throughout the city are pockmarked from bullets and explosions. The shops are closed, apartments are abandoned and graffiti denouncing President Saleh is everywhere. The intense fighting in Taiz eclipsed the protests, with only about 1,000 of the most hard-core, but unarmed, demonstrators braving the violence to stay on the streets. Government forces have stepped up their operations in recent weeks, killing at least 30 civilians in October.
“For the government, Taiz is an important governorate,” said Shawqi Hail Saeed, a prominent resident and businessman. “They think it is a very serious case. They have to make sure Taiz is secured, that it doesn’t fall.”
Taiz is a city apart in Yemen, where it long ago earned a reputation as a place where law, order and civil society flourished. Residents took pride in creating a more peaceful environment than existed in much of Yemen, a nation where men routinely carry around weapons and wear a large dagger on their belt as part of their daily dress, much like a tie in the West. In Taiz, both customs were frequently rejected.
“In Taiz, we had reached a stage when you didn’t see people carrying even a dagger,” Mr. Saeed said. Now its common to see a man on the streets of Taiz with a Kalashnikov on his back.
But there is another fact about Taiz, one Mr. Saleh knows well, having once been the regional military commander. Taiz is the birthplace of political opposition in Yemen. Residents of Taiz were instrumental in establishing the largest Islamic party, and the Socialist Party was founded in the city. With civil society came civic involvement.
When anti-Saleh protests broke out in Yemen, setting off the protracted political standoff, they moved quickly to Taiz. But as has often happened in Taiz, the city carried the idea forward; where demonstrators marched in Sana, they camped out in Taiz. The government immediately saw the threat and sent its forces to Taiz.
Unlike in Sana, where officials had plainclothes gunmen fire at unarmed protesters, in Taiz the government allowed uniformed forces to shoot at and kill demonstrators. Those same forces also beat women who were demonstrating, something that had not happened in other cities.
In late May, government forces set fire to a demonstrators’ tent camp in Taiz. At the same time, soldiers sacked a nearby hospital treating protesters. By the end of the day, at least 12 people had been killed, according to a local doctor.
At that point, tribal leaders from the surrounding countryside gathered at the residence of Sheik Hamoud Saeed al-Mikhlafi and decided to fight back. They sent armed fighters to attack government buildings, military installments and soldiers.
“Taiz has always been ‘Yes, sir’ to the authorities,” said Sheik Mikhlafi, who has become the leader of the armed rebellion in the city. “All of Taiz went out on the streets. They stopped being obedient and they revolted.”
He said that if he chose to, he could mobilize thousands of tribal fighters in two days, but that so far he had decided to hold back. “People with the government are only fighting for the salary,” he said. “We are fighting for belief.”
Sheik Mikhlafi is a member of the Islamist party and is a cousin of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman, who was one of the first people calling for Mr. Saleh’s downfall.
“I respect Sheik Hamoud because he brought us back our dignity,” said Abdul Rahman al-Alimi, an employee of an optical shop in Taiz. “I don’t know him personally, all I know about him is that he respects us,” he added.
Taiz’s population is often described as the most educated in Yemen, but the people here complain that they are treated as second-class citizens, and that the culture of Yemen has been dominated by the northern tribes since Mr. Saleh came to power.
Not that far away from Mr. Alimi’s home is a civilian apartment badly damaged last week by artillery fire. The owner of the house is in Saudi Arabia with his family, and his brother, Mansour Abdul Wahab, was trying to manage the situation. “I’ll go to the government and ask for repayment for this,” he said standing just outside the rubble of what once was a bedroom for his brother’s three children.
“When will that be? After one year?” asked Omar al-Sarmi, who lives in the house next door, as he stood next to Mr. Abdul Wahab. “We don’t want money, we want to be safe.”
Yemenis fear that anger will linger, even if there is a political solution and even if peace returns to Taiz and the weapons are once more stored away.
“Even if the change comes, and I am sure the change will come, it will take a longer time because of the amount of suffering we have had as a people in Yemen, and in Taiz particularly,” Mr. Saeed said.
“The number of houses and shops that have been attacked, or people who have been killed, it will take a long time for the mentality of people to change in the future to forget what has happened,” he said.
US targets two more top Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, after killing Al Awlaki
Source: WSJ,02/11/2011
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
WASHINGTON—U.S. counterterrorism officials have set their sights on the top bomb maker of al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, whom the officials have identified as a central figure in at least three new potential terror threats involving Americans or American targets.
Ibrahim Hassan Tali al-Asiri, the bomb maker, poses a lower-profile but more lethal threat to the U.S. than the group's prominent propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, whom the Central Intelligence Agency killed last month, U.S. and international counterterrorism officials said.
Mr. Asiri is one of the top Qaeda operatives in the crosshairs of the CIA's new drone program in Yemen, which the agency inaugurated with the Sept. 30 strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the charismatic, American-born face of al Qaeda's Yemen branch, officials said.
The Hunt for Al Qaeda
With Mr. Awlaki dead, U.S. counterterrorism officials have turned their attention to other imminent threats such as Mr. Asiri and Nasir al Wahishi, Osama bin Laden's former secretary in Afghanistan, who now heads Al Qaeda's Yemen branch.
Mr. Asiri has been involved in all of the group's major plots in the past two years, U.S. officials say, including an August 2009 attempt to kill a Saudi prince, the botched 2009 Christmas Day airliner bombing, and a foiled 2010 cargo plane plot, U.S.
U.S. officials investigating Mr. Asiri say he has been scouting out U.S. airline and other domestic targets on the Internet, researching the security measures taken and devising ways to circumvent them. The officials wouldn't describe further details of the new threats, which they indicated were in early stages.
Alleged role: Leading bomb maker for al Qaeda's Yemeni branch
Education: Studied chemistry at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia
Radicalization: Reportedly turned to extremist Islam as a teenager after the death of his oldest brother in a car accident
Alleged criminal acts: Failed tries in 2009 to kill a Saudi prince and bomb a passenger jet on Christmas Day, and blow up a cargo plane in 2010
Mr. Asiri has been working to develop mechanisms to stealthily deploy explosives, as well as chemical and biological weapons, the senior counterterrorism official said. He allegedly played a key role in developing plans to deploy so-called belly-bombs, surgically implanted in the bomber's abdomen.
"He is a greater operational threat than al-Awlaki," the official said. "He's pretty imaginative."
In the days following the Sept. 30 strike, some U.S. officials were unsure whether Mr. Asiri was in a car with Mr. Awlaki when a missile struck the vehicle. U.S. intelligence officials knew the identity of only one of the four occupants of the car: Mr. Awlaki. They now say they believe Mr. Asiri wasn't in the car and remains at large.
None of the 2009 or 2010 explosives plots hit their targets, but U.S. counterterrorism officials say Mr. Asiri remains a top concern because the bombs he has designed have been successful at evading detection. "All three proved that his particular brand of explosives could foil the countermeasures currently in place," said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the United Nations' al Qaeda Taliban Monitoring Team. Officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen has offered these bomb-making techniques to other terrorist groups, he said.
A Saudi native believed to be 29 years old, Mr. Asiri is skilled in martial arts and studied chemistry at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, where he began building his technical knowledge about explosives.
His nickname is Abu Salah, which means "success" in the Islamic sense, said Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Mr. Asiri appears to have turned toward extremist Islam as a teenager after the death of his oldest brother in a car accident around 2000, according to Saudi newspaper interviews with Mr. Asiri's parents. Mr. Asiri and another brother, Abdullah, began following extremist propaganda, and his support was galvanized by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He was arrested in 2005 by Saudi authorities as he sought to travel to Iraq to join the al Qaeda branch there, a U.S. counterterrorism official said. He was jailed for nine months, and upon his release he spent four months with his family and then disappeared to Yemen in 2006, according to Saudi news accounts. There, he connected with local Yemeni radicals and other al Qaeda sympathizers who were leaving Saudi Arabia.
"He and some other guys went to Yemen, because their safe haven was closing in on them," the U.S. counterterrorism official said. Both parents reportedly have condemned their son's jihadist path.
By 2007, Mr. Asiri had connected with al Qaeda members, who tutored him in explosives work, the U.S. counterterrorism official said. He later became a top al Qaeda trainer in bomb-making, and possibly martial arts.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Final solution delayed but still valid
By Nasser Arrabyee , 02/10/2011
Two things happened last week and delayed the final solution for the 10-month long political crisis of Yemen.
The Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was supposed to authorize his deputy to sign a Gulf-brokered deal and implement all its steps until a new president is elected.
However, vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi left last week to United States for necessary medical checks.
And so did the political advisor of President Saleh, Dr Abdul Kareem Al Eryani, who is the chief negotiator with the opposition forces about the GCC deal.
The UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Bin Omar,consequently, delayed his trip to Yemen after the vice President Mr Hadi had coordinated with him and told how long he would take for medical checks in US.
Both Mr Hadi and Mr Al Eryani are scheduled to return to Sanaa on November 4 and 3 respectively.
According to reliable sources in government and opposition, the UN envoy Bin Omar,will arrive on February 10 to attend the final consultations meeting with both sides before the GCC is signed by the vice President Mr Hadi.
Some of the opposition politicians confirmed Tuesday February 1st that they were informed by the US ambassador that Saleh had agreed to authorize his deputy to act for him until a new president is elected within three months maximum after the GCC deal is signed.
The authorization decree will stipulate that Saleh will remain president until a new president is elected and that the authorized deputy should not cancel him. This is a kind of guarantee.
Immediately, after the GCC deal is signed by Mr Hadi, and the implementation mechanism is approved by both sides , the UN Security Council would issue a resolution binding all conflicting parties to implement the mechanism step by step and the UN envoy Bin Omar would be monitoring all steps and performance of all parties.
After being authorized by President Saleh, vice president Mr Hadi,would entrust someone nominated by the opposition to form a national unity government from the opposition coalition and the ruling party.
The opposition-chaired government would form a military and security committee chaired by Mr Hadi, to control the army and security.
The son and three nephews of President Saleh will remain in their positions as important commanders in army and security until the end of the transitional period.
Then, the vice president would call for presidential elections within three month.
Mr Hadi himself would be the candidate of both the ruling party and the opposition as a man of national consensus.
Hadi would elected as a transitional president for two years during which all political and constitutional issues are supposed to be solved.
However, the situation on the ground remains tense and escalation continues. The protesters refuse the GCC and insist on the ouster president Saleh without conditions, despite the fact that more than 90 percent of them belong to the opposition parties who are involved in the GCC deal and negotiations with the ruling party.
The armed opposition tribesmen supported by defected troops are still in almost daily confrontations with the government forces inside the capital and other places.
))))
Yemen Nobel peace prize winner described as criminal and traitor
A fundamentalist cleric described the Yemeni noble peace prize winner as a " criminal, and traitor" calling her for repentance.
" Tawakul Karman was given the prize of Jews and Christians as a reward for her major treason of Islam, State and the People," said The Salafi cleric Mohammed Al Emam in a lengthy lecture on Ms Karman.
On September 30th, 2011, the Yemeni political activist Tawakul Karman was announced as a co-winner of the Nobel peace prize with two other Liberian women.
" This woman corrupted the women and men, and she and those like her need to repent to Allah Almighty before they die," said Al Emam in his lecture which was widely distributed in Yemen by followers this week.
Mohammed Al Emam, heads one of the largest and most famous and extremist Salafi schools in Yemen.
In addition to his School, located in town of Mabar, some 70 km south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, there are about 4,000 other similar Salafi schools scattered all over the poor country.
Gulf Salafi businessmen and other religious groups, especially from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, financially and logistically support these schools.
"This woman called for rebellion against Allah, and his Messenger and Hejab, and this a criminal call," said the Salafi cleric who has tens of thousands of followers in Yemen.
Al Emam also blasted Tawakul's party, the Islamist party, Islah and called its leaders to repent to Allah Almighty as well for dealing with the enemies, in a clear reference to Americans and Westerners in general.
Two things happened last week and delayed the final solution for the 10-month long political crisis of Yemen.
The Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was supposed to authorize his deputy to sign a Gulf-brokered deal and implement all its steps until a new president is elected.
However, vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi left last week to United States for necessary medical checks.
And so did the political advisor of President Saleh, Dr Abdul Kareem Al Eryani, who is the chief negotiator with the opposition forces about the GCC deal.
The UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Bin Omar,consequently, delayed his trip to Yemen after the vice President Mr Hadi had coordinated with him and told how long he would take for medical checks in US.
Both Mr Hadi and Mr Al Eryani are scheduled to return to Sanaa on November 4 and 3 respectively.
According to reliable sources in government and opposition, the UN envoy Bin Omar,will arrive on February 10 to attend the final consultations meeting with both sides before the GCC is signed by the vice President Mr Hadi.
Some of the opposition politicians confirmed Tuesday February 1st that they were informed by the US ambassador that Saleh had agreed to authorize his deputy to act for him until a new president is elected within three months maximum after the GCC deal is signed.
The authorization decree will stipulate that Saleh will remain president until a new president is elected and that the authorized deputy should not cancel him. This is a kind of guarantee.
Immediately, after the GCC deal is signed by Mr Hadi, and the implementation mechanism is approved by both sides , the UN Security Council would issue a resolution binding all conflicting parties to implement the mechanism step by step and the UN envoy Bin Omar would be monitoring all steps and performance of all parties.
After being authorized by President Saleh, vice president Mr Hadi,would entrust someone nominated by the opposition to form a national unity government from the opposition coalition and the ruling party.
The opposition-chaired government would form a military and security committee chaired by Mr Hadi, to control the army and security.
The son and three nephews of President Saleh will remain in their positions as important commanders in army and security until the end of the transitional period.
Then, the vice president would call for presidential elections within three month.
Mr Hadi himself would be the candidate of both the ruling party and the opposition as a man of national consensus.
Hadi would elected as a transitional president for two years during which all political and constitutional issues are supposed to be solved.
However, the situation on the ground remains tense and escalation continues. The protesters refuse the GCC and insist on the ouster president Saleh without conditions, despite the fact that more than 90 percent of them belong to the opposition parties who are involved in the GCC deal and negotiations with the ruling party.
The armed opposition tribesmen supported by defected troops are still in almost daily confrontations with the government forces inside the capital and other places.
))))
Yemen Nobel peace prize winner described as criminal and traitor
A fundamentalist cleric described the Yemeni noble peace prize winner as a " criminal, and traitor" calling her for repentance.
" Tawakul Karman was given the prize of Jews and Christians as a reward for her major treason of Islam, State and the People," said The Salafi cleric Mohammed Al Emam in a lengthy lecture on Ms Karman.
On September 30th, 2011, the Yemeni political activist Tawakul Karman was announced as a co-winner of the Nobel peace prize with two other Liberian women.
" This woman corrupted the women and men, and she and those like her need to repent to Allah Almighty before they die," said Al Emam in his lecture which was widely distributed in Yemen by followers this week.
Mohammed Al Emam, heads one of the largest and most famous and extremist Salafi schools in Yemen.
In addition to his School, located in town of Mabar, some 70 km south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, there are about 4,000 other similar Salafi schools scattered all over the poor country.
Gulf Salafi businessmen and other religious groups, especially from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, financially and logistically support these schools.
"This woman called for rebellion against Allah, and his Messenger and Hejab, and this a criminal call," said the Salafi cleric who has tens of thousands of followers in Yemen.
Al Emam also blasted Tawakul's party, the Islamist party, Islah and called its leaders to repent to Allah Almighty as well for dealing with the enemies, in a clear reference to Americans and Westerners in general.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Yemen Nobel peace prize winner described as criminal and traitor
By Nasser Arrabyee,31/10/2011
A fundamentalist cleric described the Yemeni noble peace prize winner as a " criminal, and traitor" calling her for repentance.
" Tawakul Karman was given the prize of Jews and Christians as a reward for her major treason of Islam, State and the People," said The Salafi cleric Mohammed Al Emam in a lengthy lecture on Ms Karman.
" This woman corrupted the women and men, and she and those like her need to repent to Allah Almighty before they die," said Al Emam in his lecture which was widely distributed in Yemen by followers this week.
Mohammed Al Emam, heads one of the largest and most famous and extremist Salafi schools in Yemen.
In addition to his School, located in town of Mabar, some 70 km south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, there are about 4,000 other similar Salafi schools scattered all over the poor country.
Gulf Salafi businessmen and other religious groups, especially from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, financially and logistically support these schools.
"This woman called for rebellion against Allah, and his Messenger and Hejab, and this a criminal call," said the Salafi cleric who has tens of thousands of followers in Yemen.
Al Emam also blasted Tawakul's party, the Islamist party, Islah and called its leaders to repent to Allah Almighty as well for dealing with the enemies, in clear reference to Americans and Westerners in general.
A fundamentalist cleric described the Yemeni noble peace prize winner as a " criminal, and traitor" calling her for repentance.
" Tawakul Karman was given the prize of Jews and Christians as a reward for her major treason of Islam, State and the People," said The Salafi cleric Mohammed Al Emam in a lengthy lecture on Ms Karman.
" This woman corrupted the women and men, and she and those like her need to repent to Allah Almighty before they die," said Al Emam in his lecture which was widely distributed in Yemen by followers this week.
Mohammed Al Emam, heads one of the largest and most famous and extremist Salafi schools in Yemen.
In addition to his School, located in town of Mabar, some 70 km south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, there are about 4,000 other similar Salafi schools scattered all over the poor country.
Gulf Salafi businessmen and other religious groups, especially from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, financially and logistically support these schools.
"This woman called for rebellion against Allah, and his Messenger and Hejab, and this a criminal call," said the Salafi cleric who has tens of thousands of followers in Yemen.
Al Emam also blasted Tawakul's party, the Islamist party, Islah and called its leaders to repent to Allah Almighty as well for dealing with the enemies, in clear reference to Americans and Westerners in general.
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