Youth groups leading protests to oust Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on Gulf Arab states on Saturday to withdraw a plan which has failed so far to remove him from power.
Yemen’s main opposition said on Friday the deal, proposed by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to end months of unrest, had been modified to allow Saleh to sign as party leader rather than president, a condition that nearly derailed the deal last week. “We call on the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council to stop any initiatives that result in alienating the Yemeni people,” said the groups, under the banner Youth Revolution. “We call on the United States, the European Union and the permanent Security Council members to assume their moral responsibility and stop … meddling directed against the will of the Yemeni people to ensure freedom and democracy,” the groups said in a statement.
Many demonstrators, who include students, tribesmen and activists, have vowed to stay in the streets until Saleh steps down. They are not affiliated to opposition parties, comprised of Islamists, Arab nationalists and leftists, who have cooperated with Saleh in the past. The plan requires the Yemeni leader, until recently backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States as a bulwark against al Qaeda and regional instability, to resign 30 days after signing. Critics saw Saleh’s refusal to sign as president as a clear sign that the shrewd political survivor had no intention of stepping down quickly. Sceptical opposition leaders said on Friday it appeared the GCC had acceded to demands by the ruling party. But GCC Secretary General Abdullatif al-Zayani denied on Saturday any change had been made to the plan. Asked in Abu Dhabi if there were any changes to the initiative, Zayani said: “None whatsoever. It is the same GCC initiative. We added the names of people to sign the agreement.”
In continued unrest in the south, gunmen shot dead the director of a branch of a state-run cooperative bank on Saturday, a Defence Ministry website said. A Yemeni tribal source said on Saturday that Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born al Qaeda propagandist known for encouraging attacks on the United States, was not hit by a US drone aircraft attack that killed two mid-level al Qaeda militants in Yemen on Thursday. “We believe they targeted him. But he was not hurt,” the source, a kinsman of Awlaki, told Reuters by telephone from the cleric’s home province of Shabwa where the attack occurred. Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s neighbour, are eager to see peace return to Yemen, a poor state struggling to deal with internal rebellion and home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The group has claimed responsibility for a foiled 2009 attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound plane. It was also blamed for bombs found in cargo en route to the United States in 2010. Many worry that Yemen could quickly descend into further violence — half of its 23 million people own a gun. Protests for and against Saleh attracted large crowds in the capital on Friday. In cities throughout Yemen, anti-Saleh protesters were out in force. Saleh has defied three months of protests and on Friday called his opponents “outlaws” and “forces of terror”. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon vowed on Friday to continue pressing for change in Yemen, but sounded a note of exasperation at the slow progress. “It is unfortunate and frustrating that all these agreements which were presented by the GCC and the international community have not been fully accepted and agreed and implemented,” he said.
