Tribocracy in Yemen…?! [Archives:2002/04/Law & Diplomacy]

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January 21 2002

Mohammed Hatem Al-Qadhi
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I was completely scared when I heard a statement by the US Assistant Secretary of Defense saying that the Yemeni and Somali governments are relatively weak and need support to be able to control their countries.
Do you know why? It is because of his comparing the situation in Yemen to that in Somalia and even equalizing both of them. Somali is a country that has been embroiled into the turmoil of civil wars for over 10 years. It has been without government for a long time and governed by chaos and disorder that ruined its infrastructure. However, Yemen has had a government claiming to control the whole country, able to protect its land.
I dont want here to say the American official is untrue and unjust. He is,on contrary, right. What is more saddening is that the public have lived a big lie that they have a hard-headed government able, with the support of the military which consumes most of the countrys budget, to control the whole country and protect its sovereignty.
The US News Week was right when it described the political regime in Yemen as tribal based on nepotism . That is completely true.
The political regime still runs the country in a tribal manner, cherishing norms of the tribe instead of law and order. Tribesmen and Sheikhs are more powerful and influential than intellectuals and opinion makers. Educated people are even looked down upon. Tribal Sheikhs can get whatever they like from the government. Instead of downsizing their influence the political regime boosted the power of Sheikhs in their areas and provided them with military as well as financial support, a behavior which enhanced the power of the tribe in the community. This brought about a sort of what can be called tribocracy in the country.
After the unification in 1990, the political leadership adopted a pluralistic system as a best means to run the unified Yemen. It started blowing the trumpet for democracy, human rights, civil society and other sorts of such stuff.
No considerable change has taken place. Everything remained under the grip of influential tribesmen. The leadership has not taken it seriously to civilize tribal areas. Rather, it has been trying so to say to ”tribalize” the whole country, generalizing its fossilized norms and the culture of carrying weapons, and violence and lawlessness. The good values of the tribes have disappeared.
I agree that tribal revenge is an old-aged headache but during the last 12 years it has spread like a fire in a wild, even in non-tribal areas.
Kidnapping is a newly-invented method used by tribesmen to blackmail the government which dealt with in a very negative and lenient way. It fulfilled demands of the tribesmen and that has consequently boosted the ”business” of kidnapping of foreigners in the country. Hundreds of cases of kidnapping have taken place during the last 12 years. Cynically, the government tried to show up the traumatized experience of kidnapping as exciting and happy through its media.
In other words, the political regime showed its inefficiency and incompetence to handle the tribal revenges and random kidnappings, it has most of the time kept mute and on the fence when tribal clashes took place as it has nothing to do with them. This is because it still favors some tribes to others. It has even provided them with weapons of different types. In short, it can never say no to influential tribal figures because the political fabric constitutes of tribal influential figures who want the country go this way to ensure their interests.
The cronies at the power center have marginalized the power of the law and installed the establishment of an institutional community. The president has even to urge the government to take care of cleaning the streets or build schools etc.
I feel truly worried about the situation and where our country is heading for. This is because the law is absent, security is not there, and corruption has been made legal and something ordinary.
To me it seems that our institutions have been perverted to a good deal. Education is on the wane. Our universities are producing ignorants having no knowledge.
Education has turned to mere certificates, given to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Given rise to this situation, we can conclude that lawlessness has been intentionally boosted in all walks of our life.
To drive the point home, if tribal lawlessness is to be brought to an end, we should start with the tribal political mentality that runs the country and represents a stronghold to defend lawless acts of their fellowmen. I believe tribesmen will not kidnap a foreigner, for example, if they know their act will be faced firmly and be brought to justice. They kidnap because they believe their tribes, constituting the basis of the political fabric, will veto any harsh punishment against them.
The political regime doesnt do justice to all people and still deals with them on the basis of their regionalist affiliations. If you have a strong tribe to protect you, you can infringe the law. In this way, the regime has boosted the chaotic and lawless state-of-the art. In other words, once, the regime has a strong belief in law enforcement and justice, it will be able to tame all outlaws and crackdown on lawlessness and disorder. But because of the absence of the power of the political regime, people have lost confidence in its competence to enforce law and do them justice. Accordingly, they take the law into their hands. This state of lawlessness breeds terrorism and helps create perpetrators of this infamy of various colors and hues. That state of lawlessness brings about a good motive for terrorism to grow. And this is why tribal as well as political regimes lawlessness must end.

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