Why does the authority attempt to abort peaceful struggle? [Archives:2008/1149/Opinion]

By: Adel Ameen
Dr. Yasin Sa'eed Nu'man, Secretary General of Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), is famous for his being more able to describe Yemen's status quo, analyze and diagnose its constituents, as well as explore its real reasons and potential consequences in an incomparable style. One hardly sees other experienced politicians in Yemen follow more or less the same style of Nu'man while dealing with pressing national issues.

During one of his meetings with YSP leaders and grassroots in Al-Dhale' governorate, Nu'man provided the attendees with his personal interpretation and analysis of Yemen's status quo and why it continues to worsen. He also unveiled his vision with regard to furious actions in the southern governorates, plus the relevant threats.

“The current turmoil in the nation is the result of an authority lacking the required capacity to adopt or discuss a successful national project,” he said. “This authority has no national project, except for pursuing poor policies that encourage property theft and official oppression until the extent of making some people search for ethnical and sectarian strife to defend themselves and protect their property.”

Regarding the furious actions in South Yemen, he noted that the authority wants to make such moral and peaceful actions go indecent and violent so that it will be easier for it to ban them. Lacking an effective national project, the authority turned to behave in an extremist manner in dealing with issues of South Yemen, thus producing unprecedented aftermath in the Yemeni history, according to Numan.

Nu'man held the authority accountable for breeding extremism after its poor policies made people lead a miserable life, thus becoming pessimistic about the possibility of building a democratic state based on the National Unity's principles, ratified on May 22, 1990. He also blamed it for making the national crisis more complicated, confirming that this crisis will continue to worsen with the passage of days.

What happens in the south?

The South part of Yemen experiences a difficult security situation, having become a ground for endless conflicts between the authority and citizens protesting against their government's failed policies and arbitrary practices on a daily basis. The authority has no good policy due to lacking a national project. Ongoing clashes in the southern cities, which first broke out in Al-Dhale' and led to the excessive deployment of troops and tanks in these cities, aimed to force legal actions go violent so that they can be easily prevented.

Claiming constitutional rights via peaceful protests, oppressed citizens of South Yemen strongly rejects all the forms of violence and rioting. Strong determination to continue the peaceful struggle until demands listed by oppressed citizens are met is why protesters gain increasing popular support, and at the same time perplex the authority.

How one can imagine that an authority, claiming to enhance democracy and respect human rights and public freedoms, confronts peaceful and legal actions with crackdown and oppressive military operations. This authority can not behave in a way contravening the Constitution and Law unless it fabricates pretexts and inauthentic reasons justifying why it uses force and atrocity in dealing with such actions. This is what actually happened in Al-Dhale', Radfan, Al-Hawta, Al-Habelain and Tawr Al-Baha.

Away from the apparent and direct causes of clashes between citizens and government troops, what happens these days in the southern governorates is a process through which protests were transformed from peaceful struggle into scenes of violence, rioting and destruction. It is a malicious attempt machinated by the authority to restrict peaceful and legal protests, and place protestors in dock in order to get rid of them and their intolerable protests.

In the same context, one of the Islah Party leaders, requesting to remain unnamed, confirms that mobilization of military troops and equipment to the protest scenes is meant to change legal actions into rioting and peaceful struggle into chaos. However, the YSP Secretary General describes what is happening in the southern governorates as an official attempt to abort peaceful struggle and bury alive an emerging democracy in a critical moment.

According to politicians and political analysts, what is currently happening in the southern governorates is an indicator of a regime on the way to losing its legitimacy. They hold the view that the authority mobilized military troops and equipment to the scenes of peaceful protests, thereby making protests go violent, in an attempt to escape addressing pressing economic issues – which continue to worsen – and responding to legal demands listed by oppressed citizens.

Other opposition leaders accused the authority of preplanning such apparently violent events in order to justify any subsequent action it may take to abort peaceful struggle and crack down on protestors. They described the events as 'a micro war', which is projected to magnify.

What is done by the security and military forces can be understood only from the viewpoint that notable procedures, taken by the government to eliminate peaceful struggle, had been prepared for months ahead of the bloody events.

Source: Al-Sahwa Weekly
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