Press Review [Archives:2001/38/Press Review]
Although the Yemeni press this week have tackled in articles and commentaries many internal issues but there is an apparent focus on the dramatic developments that had taken place in the U.S. last Tuesday represented in the suicidal attacks on World Trade Centre Towers in New York and official targets in Washington.
Here is a review of excerpts from articles published in some Yemeni press this week.
RAY weekly organ of Sons of Yemen League Party, 11 September 2001
The newspaper’s editorial confirms that members of armed forces and security are Yemeni citizens having full civilian rights guaranteed by the constitution. The foremost right is that of nomination and election which no one can take it away from them.
Using these people for the service of a certain political party as fuel in political conflict with the aim of attacking the democratic experiment, is a matter contradicting all concepts of democratic action and stabs dignity of the army and security. This policy also means depriving them of their constitutional right and render them liable to be falling under dictation and instruction. On the other hand this situation introduces the military establishment as a big stick living a state of enmity with civilian life and its institutions, practicing falsification of the masses will in favor of this party or that.
Al-Jamaheer weekly, organ of the Arab Baath Socialist party, 9 September 2001
Talal Jamel has written an article on illiteracy characterizing it as an epidemic affecting science and has to be eradicated or at least try to limit its dissemination particularly that our country is afflicted with a high rate of illiteracy. As it is the umbrella under which they hide, the corrupt would like to enhance dissemination of illiteracy among sectors of the people. Therefore elimination of corruption should be a priority and consequently eradicate illiteracy. Illiteracy could not be eradicated with decisions but through mechanisms and persistent effort and comprehensive reform of the entire infrastructure.
Mr Jamel maintains that illiteracy is not only an unhealthy case as much as a product of a political reality that is closed economically, culturally and socially. For instance the doses imposed on the people due to the economic situation, raising the prices of diesel, smuggling large quantities of expired flour, corruption of officials and dialogue of the government with opposition parties while the society is unaware of what is machinated against it, are forms and parts of illiteracy. Illiteracy is not only ignorance of how to write or read but rather more dangerous than that. It is that the human is unable to take the proper decision within the scope of changeables around him. Al-Wahdawi weekly, 11 September 2001.
Mr Mansour Ha’el writes that in Yemen, poverty and impoverization is engineered in a maddening speed and program with which the number of people segments trodden with poverty are on the increase and thousands of people are sent to states of unemployment, hunger and tramping.
While official reports indicate the deterioration characterizing services of health, education, water, electricity, living conditions and high rates of poverty and unemployment, the government usually ascribe this to consequences of the reform program that it has taken the destructive aspect of it. It did not commit itself to the aspect that encircles poverty and its results or the one that combats corruption and its centers.
Thus the government is used to consider defeats and failures as achievements and victories and takes them a material for dialogue with major donors whom it warns of explosion of the situations in Yemen and collapse of democracy. Al-Ayyam weekly, 12 September 2001
Mr Ayyash Ali Mohammed says in an article that all indications point out that Yemen’s economy is heading for being at the bottom of the list of backward countries. It is no longer bearing characteristics of a national economy and in its current form it doesn’t represent a living entity and the Yemeni citizen can hardly sense it. Each of Yemen’s economy sectors works in a manner not having any integration with other sectors. Each sectors subject to individual domination as if it is a personal property run by mentalities raised on love of getting rich and boasting of wealths that they originally do not possess but rather wrung out from certain victims who came under the policy of impoverishment.
The present situation of the Yemeni economy proves backwardness of the country and its failure to in introducing its political reformative program through which political differences could be overcome.
Al-Mithaq weekly, organ of the People’s General Congress party, 10 September 2001
Columnist Dr Adulaziz al-Maqalih says in an article that by American administration’s fomenting stand against the world conference against racism and its death-defying defense of the zionist entity, it unveils fully its racial identity and in doing so it is as if taking off the last fig leaf it has been covering its racial image.
Its history reveals how they had put an end to millions of red Indians and the suffering of millions of American black and colored people under the tyranny of racism and racial discrimination. The U.S. has not got embroiled in any conference as it has been the as of Durban conference against racism. When adopted hardline stands the U.S. was not only defending the zionist racial entity, but also defending itself and world racial order it is working hard to make it prevail over humanity.
The most apparent example of that is its unlimited backing up of the zionist entity which adopts the same stands and follows suit of its policy of annihilating the Palestinians and displacing them, as the U.S. had done against the Indians in order to have them being replaced by the new white immigrants, ” advocates of freedom and democracy and leaders of the new world order.”
ATTARIQ weekly, 11 September 2001
Mr Khalid Ali Tuaiman writes a comparison between the force of law and the law of force. Many observers and followers of Yemeni affairs miss some significant points and aspects related to kidnapping incidents. The most important of them is that such an abnormal condemned act has reflecting in its essence that existence of an apparent defect in the relationship between central authority and some remote areas. The failure is especially following a negative social action having uncivilized traits because of its lacking of positive social action that can be understood within channels depending on a system of laws. Instead it has come to surface the prevalence of the law of force, which the authority has unintentionally contributed to its production. The authority could not realize that its narrow-sphered dealing with those remote areas would not provide the minimum degree of stability in the relationship between the centre and those areas, but after it has begun to undergo shocks as beginning from the early 1990’s that witnessed the phenomenon of kidnappings. The authority tried to deal with it in order to block the way for its then political adversaries in the region and to abort goals of external parties suspected to their being involved in kidnapping incidents. Not having confronted kidnapping incidents with resoluteness since their beginnings and the mistaken estimation of their objectives and actual motives have contributed greatly to their spread and widening of their scope. Kidnappings have become therefore a social phenomenon the continuation of which arouses many questions . Ashumou weekly 15 September 2001
The newspaper’s editorial says that America, since the mid of the 1970’s till the end of the 1980’s, has endeavored to support the Afghans against the former Soviet Union as part of its cold war. Among those who received such support is the legend of this time, Osama Bin Laden. Through that support the U.S. policy has succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union there. No long time passed on bitterness suffered by the Soviet due to the Afghan war than the United States has drunk from the same cup. This is if we take into consideration the theory Bin Laden had announced in the early eighties in that he would use the U.S. and the Saudi Arabia backing in fighting whom he described as enemies of the Islamic nation and that he would invest that money for that purpose. After the dismantle of the Soviet Union he turned to face the allies of yesterday. Though it is difficult to buy the idea regarding the capabilities of Ben Laden as the United States claims, it in this case puts him as its equivalent in power of mentality and tactics and rather superior to abilities of the American mentality, if it is true that he is behind the latest airplanes suicidal attacks.
If reality is contrary to that, which is the most probable supposition, the nature of scandal the United States has been exposed to, would push the U.S. to create a parallel to hang on its political, military, intelligence and information technology failure to prevent similar operations. These acts are the product of the American politicians’ maltreatment of most of the world nations particularly the Arabs and Muslims whom America looks at their problems through an Israeli binoculars.
Based on the lesson of what has happened we think that any barbaric behavior by the United States, similar to its former acts against Libya in 1986, the Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998 would face similar retaliations.
Saut Al-Mua’aradha weekly, organ of the Opposition National Council, 12 September 2001
The political editor of the newspaper says although we and all peoples of the world condemn terrorism and reject it as an option for settling accounts among peoples and nations, especially that most of the victims are from innocent civilians, we consider what has happened in Washington and New York last Tuesday as exceeded all prospects regarding the accuracy of planning and implementation as well as the size of destruction.
A speedy follow-up of the American policy, internally and externally, since its coming out of its isolation in the wake of taking part in the world war ll, Internally the American society is not a unified one where all are equal before law in term of rights and duties and not politically homogeneous.
At the foreign policy level, America has been implementing a policy of oppression and hegemony against many of the world nations.
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