Yemen in the Wake of Saleh's Departure: Ongoing Updates from San'a

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Jun 5, 2011 Yemen
[Celebrations in San`a. Image from monstersandcritics.com] [Celebrations in San`a. Image from monstersandcritics.com]

Yemen in the Wake of Saleh's Departure: Ongoing Updates from San'a

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Follow our ongoing reports from our affiliates in San`a, Yemen below as well on our Twitter feed here (hashtag: #JadYemen). Click here for updates from Friday (June 3) and Saturday (June 4). For historical and contemporary background to today`s event, visit Jadaliyya`s Yemen Page.

Below is what we have so far on the feed for today. If electricity holds where our reports are coming from, we`ll keep at it.

Jadaliyya Updates/Tweets from San`a, Yemen

[As of late Saturday night, early Sunday morning]

What we know for sure is that President Ali Abdallah Saleh is in Saudi Arabia and VP Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is in charge (AJ reports he is currently both Acting President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces). Unconfirmed reports (though likely) are that the VP has convened a meeting with certain ruling party officials to discuss next steps. Unconfirmed rumors that Ali Mohsen has submitted his resignation to the VP as per the "if you go I go" agreement he had with Saleh. Al-Arabiya reported that the President Saleh has suffered injuries but walked off the plane himself. Reports are that he was accompanied by 35 people on his plane and that a second plane with 24 members of his family is following behind.

Otherwise, fighting is still ongoing in Hasaba District in Sana`a and in Taiz. Yemen TV is still reporting their usual stuff. Sana`a is still pretty tense. Many roads are blocked, with armed soldiers and tribesmen still maintain a heavy presence. I know of one reported looting in Sana`a (a friend`s house was looted) but no other reports of looting in Sana`a. So it may be isolated incident.

While people in Change Square are celebrating, it`s also very confusing. Saleh the man may be gone but what about Saleh the regime? And what`s next? On the bright side, since the bombing yesterday, we`ve had uncharacteristically long periods of uninterrupted electricity.

In Taiz, the Khalid Bin Walid barracks, the largest barracks in Taiz, defected today. Central Security forces have also completely pulled out of the city`s streets, though the Republican Guard still maintains a presence. After news of Saleh`s departure, Taiz broke out in celebrations and fireworks. There are reports of looting in Taiz and that the protesters are now organizing committees to address security issues.

With respect to the bombing of the mosque in the Presidential Palace, it is unconfirmed but likely that it was planted rather than projectiled into the mosque. I don`t know the level of sophistication of the bomb, but understand that when it exploded it released nails and other shrapnel. Many of the injuries sustained are a result of these projectiles, including the rumored shrapnel that is lodged near Saleh`s heart. Supposedly, that`s the reason he needed to leave to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment (as opposed to plastic surgery for his disfigured face; or someone sticking a gun to his head and making him leave).


Sunday, June 5

[4:25 PM San`a Time, 6:25 AM EST]

I just came back from the square where people had been celebrating since morning. When I left, they were taking a break for lunch (which is provided every day for the whole square by various anonymous donations). People are very happy, but aware that we are still in a very transitional period.

My understanding is that Saleh`s sons and nephews are still in Sana`a, likely to negotiate Saleh`s amnesty and transition out of power. A government official said that Saleh will be returning to Sana`a in a few days. We`ll see how that plays out.

Taiz continues to be attacked. Today, a tank went into the middle of Freedom Square and started shooting at the protesters. One report is that 11 people were killed. Protesters are pleading for donations of medical supplies.

The VP supposedly ordered a cessation of force (as had Saleh the day of the attack on the Presidential Palace), but the violence continues. It might be because Saleh`s sons/nephews have continued to order the attacks. I hope this will earn them and the Minister of Interior a criminal trial.

Gasoline is still very hard to find and costs six times more than usual when it can be found. This is one of people`s most pressing concerns.  But electricity has been on since yesterday!

There are still checkpoints in town. But all the soldiers seem to be smiling. At one checkpoint a Central Security officer asked us with a big smile, "So, where did he go?!" and we responded, "he`s gone!" and then he let us through.


[4:45 PM San`a Time, 9:45 AM EST]

Al-Arabiyya just reported that Ahmed, Saleh`s son and head of the Republican Guard, is in control of the affairs of the country.


[11:20 PM San`a Time, 4:20 PM EST]

Jadaliyya has just received word from a highly trusted source that Saleh is in Riyadh Military Hospital. He is in bad shape: had plastic surgery for his face; chest surgery to remove shrapnel; and both his lungs have collapsed and thus he is on an artificial breathing machine (respirator).


[1:30 AM San`a Time, 6:30 PM EST]

The mood in Change Square today was optimistic and happy. People danced, sang and lit fireworks all day long. Outside the square, the biggest news in Sana`a is that electricity has been on continuously for over 24 hours. It seems like someone at the switch is trying to make a point about what life will be like after Saleh`s departure. The streets of the city were crowded, either with people who have ventured out of their homes for the first time since Thursday, or people who have returned from the villages. There are reports that towns previously off limits to foreigners are now open and safe, including Sa`ada in the far north (site of the Houthi rebellion).

Starting late this afternoon and continuing through the evening, gunfire is being heard throughout Sana`a. Rumors include that fighting in al-Hasaba has resumed, that the house of Himyar al-Ahmar (another one of the al-Ahmar brothers) in Hadda is being attacked and that the house of Vice President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Siteen St. is being attacked. The opposition newspaper Mareb Press is reporting that Ali Mohsen`s First Armored Division has moved to protect Hadi`s house.  Rumors that Ali Mohsen submitted his resignation appear to be false.

There is no doubt that in-fighting and power struggles among the elite continue behind closed doors (or in street gun fights). The biggest fear is that Ahmed Ali, Saleh`s eldest son and head of the Republican Guard, will lash out at the protesters or Sana`a while his father is away. He is known to be somewhat unpredictable and uncontrollable, and he together with Saleh`s nephews are likely the ones who pressured Saleh not to sign the GCC Initiative. Ahmed is also likely behind the continued attacks on protesters in Taiz.

The GCC Initiative has been resurrected for the fourth time.  Previously, the opposition had insisted that Saleh sign it though his signature is not technically required (since other ruling party officials would signed it). Now that Saleh is gone, the parties are arguing over whether the initiative, which has already been executed by all the parties except Saleh, is now effective. If so, the 60-day transitional period with Vice President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi as head of the interim government, began as of the day of Saleh`s departure. The protesters, who have generally been opposed to the GCC Initiative, are advocating for a transitional council in addition to the mechanisms provided for by the GCC Initiative. The protesters are also still working to organize a group of individuals who represent the over 100 protester groups who have occupied Change Square (let alone protesters in other parts of the country).

With respect to the President, government officials emphasized that Saleh will be returning to Yemen in a few days, though Saudi sources later confirmed that he would need about two weeks of recovery time in Saudi Arabia. As another Jadaliyya source reported earlier, we understand that Saleh is in Riyadh Military Hospital recovering from plastic surgery on his face and chest surgery to remove shrapnel. He is said to now be recovering with the assistance of artificial breathing tubes as he has also suffered from collapsed lungs.

In other news, Yemen TV announced today that the Yemeni government suspects Al-Qaida is behind the attack on the Presidential Palace.


[To be updated . . . ]

 
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Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412