Everybody is dying

So I’ve noticed a few things in the two protests that I’ve attended at the UN, calling for an end to the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime.  The first protest took place on February 25^th 2011, a few hours after the killing of over 20 peaceful protesters in Aden.  This protest at the UN was last minute and the majority of the protesters were of southern Yemeni descent.  I can tell because I understood their dialect of (southern Yemeni) Arabic and the fact that I knew a lot of the people there on a more personal basis.

The second protest was held on Friday March 18^th 2011, a few hours after the morning massacre in Sanaa in which the army killed over 56 peaceful protesters and injured well over 300.  During this protest, which was also sort of last minute-ish, had an overwhelming majority of northern Yemenis.  I would say all of them but I saw some friends and family of mine from the South there.

When I asked a southerner friend of mine as to why he didn’t join us in protest in March 18^th he emphatically replied, “When we protested, they pointed at us and scoffed, calling us ‘seccionists’ and the ‘conspirators against the unity of Yemen.’ Let’s see how they like it when their children and friends are shot and killed in peaceful protest.  How do they feel when they go protest and no southerner goes with them?  It’s a small taste of the pain that we’ve been through during the past four years.  We will protest with them, in due time.  But they first have to taste the bitter taste of betrayal.  They have to feel the same pain that we’ve felt.”

Everybody is dying; Northerners and Southerners.  The problem is that people haven’t awakened to realize that the animosity that was stirred between the two sides arose from Ali Saleh’s tricky ways to have us hate each other.  And out of that hate for each other, he distracted us from the real enemy, himself.  It may not be easy to put aside years of carefully grown and planned out hatred, but I’m sure it can be done.  It’s easy to forge an alliance with this person that you’ve called an “enemy” when the real threat arises, especially if that threat is the one that pit you against each other.

Finger Pointing

Some southern Yemenis nowadays are talking about the Yemeni freedom revolution against the tyranny of Ali Abdullah Saleh being a little bit too late.  They feel as if the north has usurped the southern land and have left the south crippled economically.  The fact that the majority of the oil is in the southern lands and the south never reaps any of the benefits is a major contributing factor.  To be a major oil exporting country and to have the majority of the citizens be under the poverty line takes a lot of stealing.

In 2005, Ali Abdullah Saleh landed a critical blow in damaging the economic stance of Aden.  The leasing of the port of Aden to its number one competitor, Dubai Ports International for $83 million for 30 years was a stab at the economic opportunity that lies in the strategic positioning of the port city of Aden, which for hundreds of years was one of the most important ports and gateways of the shipping world.  The port of Aden was second in importance to Boston harbor for most of the 20^th century.  And as Jane Novak excellently put it, it is a “blatant act of economic malfeasance.” 

  (http://www.worldpress.org/print_article.cfm?article_id=2282&dont=yes)

Anyone willing to invest in companies in Yemen, specifically the south cannot open a major business or enterprise without the exclusive inclusion of Ali Abdullah Saleh or his family members.  Just ask all of the prominent Yemeni business men that are living abroad in Saudi Arabia that wish to invest in their homeland of Yemen.  Ali Abdullah Saleh will not allow any business to run without him getting a cut of the business or profits.

The cotton gin in Abyen in the middle of the city of Ga’ar has been emitting toxic fumes that has caused many people who live around there to get sick for years.  Had this factory been in any other place in the world it would have been shut down due to the health hazards and risks it poses to its neighbors.  However it remains open even after all of these years only because the president’s nephew owns the company and could care less of the health of the residents of the city.

These are just some of the sources of income that Ali Abdullah Saleh has stolen.  The South has survived for generations on its oil and its port and now, no one is surviving because everything is being taken away.  However, after all of these years of theft, who are the ones that are seeing the money?  Is it the poor people of the north?  No.  Granted they might have had the benefits reinvested (and I use that term VERY loosely) into their cities, but they are not the ones that stole it.  They are not the ones that are keeping the billions of dollars from oil revenues.  They are not the ones that sold out their country for a profit.  It was Ali Abdullah Saleh and his mafia crime family that did it for his own personal benefit.  

So to the common southerner that believes that the unification can’t exist because the south has been sold out, I say, yes the south has been sold out.  But the south was not sold out by the north.  It was sold out by Ali Abdullah Saleh.  The unification can exist in harmony.  Many people have pointed to a government like that of the United States of America or the United Arab Emirates.  Each province would be its own state and would be under one federal rule and would be responsible for its own economic growth.  But that’s for another blog for another day.

Unclaimed Baggage

I’ve heard people recently tweeting about putting the differences aside from the north and the south and banding together in unison against Ali Abdullah Saleh and his family of thugs and to the common southerner that might be just too little, too late.  Consider this scenario:  you are a southerner living in Aden and you feel that you have been treated unfairly and in and unjust way by the government.  You are peacefully protesting.  Other people from around Aden empathize and peacefully protest with you.  Five of them get shot dead.  You turn to your brothers at the north, who you know are not being treated well either, to join you in your peaceful protests for changes in the regime and for justice.  They ignore you and more of your friends get killed in peaceful protests.  This same scenario goes on for four years and the death toll has risen to over 600 innocent people. 

What do you think is going on in the mind of the common southerner as his plea for his brother in the north for help gets ignored?  It’s a feeling of betrayal.  It is a feeling that they weren’t really unified in our struggles but just unified in our borders.   If your neighbors and brothers from the other side who are suffering as well do not stand up with you during your time of need, then who needs them?  Secession was the only answer.

But one man in Tunisia burned himself and two dictators got overthrown by the people and…

So now when they average northerner says “well let’s band together and overthrow the regime as one voice, one Yemen in solidarity,” you will have to excuse the jubilation that comes from the southerner as the unification can be saved.  But you will also have to excuse the southerners for being a little bit angry at the blood that had already been spilled from their side in the past four years. 

The Start of the Herak (Movement)

It seems odd to me that the story of the southern Yemeni over the course of the past four years has been ignored, not just by media outlets such as Al Jazeera, the BBC or CNN, but more so by our northern brethren.  The suffering of injustices of the southern Yemeni has gone on long enough.   And without anyone to hear their cries it will continue to go on longer.  For this reason, I decided to blog about and try to reach out to those that care to listen - Yemenis and non Yemenis alike.

It all started in July 2007 when retired army personnel of the army (of southern descent and lineage) were refused their due pensions from the Yemeni government.  Those from the north were given their pensions without questions and without delay (some northerners even receive multiple pensions under fake names and multiple fake jobs with the government.  But that will be left for a different blog on a different day).  I was in Yemen at the time and remember seeing the protests in Abyan (outside of the bridge to Zinjibar).  The protests were small in number but they were constant.  Their voices were heard and they were being ignored.  Any northerner with any influential government authority or power that looked at their situation thought of them as peasants begging for money.

After months of protesting, the realization that peaceful protesting was not going to work had set in and the Herak (the Movement) started.  The movement towards secession from North Yemen and for an independent South Yemen to exist again began.  Once this movement started and gained a strong number of people in the south, Ali Abdullah Saleh gave in to the demands of the retired army personnel of the south and released their pensions to them.  It seems as if giving them their due pay was to be a “bribe” to shut them up from their talks of seceding or at least to get the southerners to curb their anger.

In those months that the retired army people protested for their rightfully due pensions, the tensions heated up in the south.  Why should a person who served their country loyally for all of these years deserve to be treated like a second class citizen?  Is the true meaning of unification that the northerner gets to reap the benefits while the southerners strive to get justice?  What has the unification showed us in the past 17 years in the means of justice?  Equality?  Economic growth?  Advancements in the quality of life?

Negative responses to each and every one of the previous questions boiled the blood of the common southerner.  The southerner that yearned for unification for over 300 years was now regretting the entire time under the unification.  The southerner that was once proud to have the most advanced Middle Eastern nation in the mid 20^th century was now ashamed to be known as a Yemeni.  They are so ashamed of the tarnished name of Yemeni that they wish to secede and to be called South Arabians.  The new country to be called South Arabia.