Return our army to us!The nation fragments while JMP watches [Archives:2007/1059/Opinion]
By: Ahmad Saleh Al-Faqih
In the northern province of Sa'ada, innocent civilians are randomly attacked and forced to evict their homes while flagrant crimes are committed during the government's war on citizens. During the war, the government use aircrafts, rockets, and other heavy weapons that killed thousands of people and troops and displaced tens of thousands in an unprecedented human tragedy in the country.
It is in this war that tribal contractors have turned out to be officers in the First Armored Contingent, according to probes conducted by the Street Newspaper in its zero issue. These contractors are triggering prospected tribal conflicts between the mercenaries summoned by contractors, faked officers and sheikhs, who claim to be Bashmarqa, and Sa'ada inhabitants. The conflict may be between Hashid and Bakil tribes. It is the 'Policy of Divide and Rule' that threatens a nationwide catastrophe.
In the southern areas of Yemen where citizens' sufferings and living standards exacerbate over time, people turned to talk about invaders who came from the north part of the country. In the meantime, there is the emergence of the Movement of Sa'eed Shahtoor, who claims that either both parts of the country (south and north) should be equal in terms of wealth and jobs in the various government institutions or the invaders, who came from the North, have to leave their land. Such a movement, which appeared for the first time in the country, was preceded by several political parties and movements outside the country that advocated full independence of South Yemen and deportation of the occupiers.
The military and security forces behave as if they are invaders because they open fire on any demonstrators or protestors and then negotiate with them after they have already arrested and jailed large numbers of demonstrators and protestors. The media publishes news stories revealing the son of the President's brother went to Moscow to purchase weapons for his paternal uncle. This is a striking fact because the army and security forces tend not to be concerned about the Yemeni people a long time ago. The army and security forces turned to be two institutions belonging to only a single social group and they are used for imposing the order of massive oppression and poverty.
The Yemeni army was privatized and dominated along with the security forces in a way contravening the constitution, which stipulates that “Using or exploiting the armed and security forces and any other forces in favor of a particular party, certain groups, or individuals is banned. These forces should be protected from the images of partisan, sectarian, ethnical, regional, and tribal fragmentations in order to ensure that they are neutral and perform their duties in the ideal way.”
The problem, which Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) faced is that the regime is elected but via vote fraud. Also, these opposition parties realize that the regime has institutions, which do not work, laws that are violated, and therefore stretches the rope to hang itself. The real problem is that the regime leads the nation to an unprecedented catastrophe by exploiting the army and security forces for private purposes that has nothing to do with the nation or the public interest.
JMP and all Yemeni citizens have the right to claim respect for the Constitution, as well as advocate the President and his tenure to return the military and security forces to the people because what the people are suffering violates the country's Constitution. Otherwise, Mr. President and his ruling party have to drop the above-stated article from the constitution and replace it by another article reading that the armed forces are the possession of the president and his family. All of us should take to streets to put a stop to such misconducts and malpractices and exert serious efforts to rescue the nation from fragmentation and collapse. The issue is not merely cancelling the mobile messages, shutting down newspapers, threatening journalists, and assaulting them. Rather, the problem is that of the nation to be or not to be.
Source: Al-Thawri weekly.
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[archive-e:1059-v:15-y:2007-d:2007-06-14-p:opinion]
