Independence anniversary, a call to end corruption [Archives:2006/1004/Opinion]

Ashraf Al-Rifi
Last Thursday was the 39th anniversary of the Independence Day and the evacuation of the last British soldier from southern Yemen territories on Nov. 30, 1967.

This anniversary coincides with frustrations and bitter disappointments caused by the chaos of a rule which has destroyed every great deed by the honorable of the country who have sacrificed their blood for the 39 years that have elapsed since the heroic battles that kicked the remnants of British colonization out of the country and both the revolutions of September and October triumphant. Four decades have passed during which the goals of the Yemeni revolution and directions of building the state of order and law were assassinated.

Between November 1967 and November 2006 there is a distance of deep sorrow where values and principles retreated, tendencies of reform assassinated and the homeland got strangled with a large pincers because of legacies of corruption and battles for the protection of power at the expense of the project of the state and rights of the people The regrettable thing is that the national occasion and days of the revolution have become uncountable by usual celebrating of the life of the citizen who is fatigued of deteriorating living conditions.

In the past the citizen's battles were against colonization and regimes usurping power and many of them sacrificed their lives and properties until the revolution was achieved and the colonialist went out. Today the citizens are preoccupied in fighting poverty and confronting the ills of the regime represented by illiteracy, diseases and hunger. There is nothing new compared to the situation in 1967 and the situation at present except the change in causes of the source of the bad situation. In the past we were accusing the Imamate regime and colonization for backwardness, disease and poverty and at present we confront the ruling regime with the same accusations for which the revolution broke out.

This occasion should not pass while denying its heroes with silence against corruption and chaos prevalent in the country. Those heroes had offered all what is expensive for the establishment of a national just state supporting the people and leading the country to a bright future. It is unfair to let this occasion pass without refusing all the policies of submission through which the colonialist has returned through the windows of security cooperation and agreements of fighting terror. It is also illogical to celebrate toppling the state of the high commissioner while the American ambassador to Sana'a has become a high commissioner giving orders and moving in various parts of the country without any restraint or condition. What independence do we celebrate today while the ruling system has handed over destinies of the country and the people to the White House and the Yemeni citizen has become a terrorist in the eyes of America, to be beaten and killed under American supervision and implementation, as what happened with Abu Ali Al-Harthi and others?

If the occasion of independence is an natural extension of the September and October revolutions then the achievement of the Yemeni revolution goals is an urgent necessity in support for the revolution that deviated from its course since 1978 despite attempts by the Joint Meeting Parties to save the homeland and take it out of its choking impasse through the initiative of the comprehensive political and national reform

Ashraf Al-Rifi columnist and writer at Al-Wahdawi newspaper.

Source: Al-Wahdawi newspaper.
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