Military pensioners demand radical solutions [Archives:2007/1069/Local News]
ADEN, July 18 ) In a statement released on Saturday, the Supreme Coordinating Council for Military and Civil Pensioners in the southern and eastern governorates called its affiliates and their supporters as well as civil society and human rights organizations to stage a sit-in for supporting pensioners on August 2.
The statement also denounced the provocations practiced by the authorities during the pensioners' demonstrations staged on July 7 in Aden including firing at the demonstrators, blocking roads, and arresting the council's chairman Brig. Nasser Al-Noubah as well as other eight officers.
Further, a counter-demonstration with supervising slogans was organized and some security elements were foisted into the demonstrators in order to sow sedition as well as to prevent media cars from entering the festival yard.
According to the statement, the President Selah's recent resolution, dictating reinstatement and promoting hundreds of military and security officers, is good but not enough.
It also accused unnamed parties of implementing resolutions in a wrong way through distributing forms randomly, reinstating officers with ranks granted to them before unity, and forming committees excluding the leaders of the pensioners' associations, labeling such a step as a way for incubating the associations.
Moreover, the Supreme Coordinating Council assured that the partial solutions are useless and will not help resolve the issue but rather complicates it, calling on all its affiliates and supporters as well as human rights organizations to uphold pensioners for the sake of making their forthcoming set-in a great success.
Similarly, Military and Security Pensioners Association in Al-Dhale' called on its affiliates to be dressed in military uniform so as to take part in the grand festive due to be held on July 24, coinciding with the open demonstration in its sixth month.
It also noted that the solution for pensioners' issue can not be made but only through a collective and comprehensive resolve involving all pensioners.
Over 5000 pensioners from all southern and eastern governorates congregated in Aden's Festival Yard on July 7 within the frame of peaceful demonstrations, demanding their reinstatement to service after they had been forced to leave their jobs following 1994 civil war, assuring that their forced retiring was illegal.
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