Battles for survival in power [Archives:2006/980/Opinion]
Ali Al-Sarari
Leaders of the General People's Congress election campaign are trying to create a link between the picture of Hassan Nassrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and President Saleh's picture.
While Nassrallah's image represents the Lebanese pride and the bravery of the Lebanese resistance, the picture of President Saleh beside Nassrallah reflects electoral ambitions trying to get the president some popularity by creating a mistaken impression that makes the president a partner in the Lebanese resistance and achievement.
By studying the backgrounds of the two men you see a disharmony in their relationship. Nassrallah is a warrior fought all his battles against Israeli occupation in south
Lebanon and he did not fight one internal war where victims would be from the other Lebanese factions though he has differences with many Lebanese parties, but he did not target his weapons or threaten anyone of them. It's a different story for President Saleh – he is also great but all his wars are internal and the victims are Yemeni and there is no war he has fought against an eternal enemy in confronting external adversaries. He uses reason and wisdom to solve conflicts with them peacefully but he did not find that reason and wisdom for finding peaceful settlement with his internal adversaries, among them the group of al-Houthi on which a fierce battle rages on in Sa'ada.
What appears to be a national stance by the Yemeni president on more than one occasion are no more than verbal displays meant to challenge some Arab rulers. However, the reality is that those stances by the Yemeni president are no more real than the stands of those Arab rulers who he appears to criticize. In addition, the vulnerability that Yemen suffers because of his policies makes Yemen unable to provide much support to the Arabs, especially in Palestine and Lebanon for instance.
With regard to initiatives the Yemeni government periodically announces great Arab issues, such as the call for holding an Arab summit during the Israeli aggression Lebanon. The ideas are launched for propaganda goals let alone and they confuse the political movement by some big Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
There is a large difference between the content of Nassrallah's battles and Saleh's battles. The first fights battles for the national liberation while the second fights them for the sake of staying in power or for satisfying the pride of the one who is sitting on the seat of power and development of his feelings of domination and greatness.
During his 28 year term of rule in Yemen the internal military battles by President Saleh did not stop and in all of them he managed to bury their real reasons represented by staying in power or preparing to bequeathing it or to satisfy the whims of the in power. Now he is determined to convince his people they are wars for the revolution and the republic and reaped the heads of unionists and democrats.
A study of those wars and their outcomes will reveal how the goals of the revolution have been defeated, the republic changed into a regime of family domination and preparation of circumstances for bequeathing it and how the voluntary unity changed into a kind of conquer imposed by weapons.
The most outstanding matter of those wars is that they have become a comprehensive program with which the state managed in all the walks of its life and cause a stop to development, education and providing of respectable levels of human life for the Yemenis. Throughout 28 years of his rule Yemen has achieved limited success on those fronts if measured to the time and available potentials and Yemen remains an outside player on the world stage.
For President Saleh it seems time has not come for him to come out of those wars and indulge in the battles of construction. In his election he mustered all his previous battles in the preamble of the platform. And in threatening language it seems that Yemen is going to experience a new cycle of the wars of the revolution, unity and democracy and this time the regime will fight them as one batch. Indicators point towards the ruling General People's Congress being one of the targets in the coming war. That appears clear in three indicators. One is the president's accusation of his party's corruption during sessions of its latest conference, the second is his refusal to be nominated by his party for the presidential elections and accepted his candidacy before citizens rather than his party and the third is the presentation of the task of fighting corruption as part of his platform and that may mean the victims will be many heads of the ruling party. But even this battle will practically mean a battle not against corruption rather than for more individual power and an enhancement of the family structure.
Ali Al-Sarari is a Yemeni Journalist and a well-known politician. He is the head of the information department at the Yemeni Socialist Party.
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[archive-e:980-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-09-11-p:opinion]
