Pulitzer Center Untold Stories

Obama's Yemeni Gitmo dilemma

Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center and posted at Foreign Policy

Visiting Saudi Arabia for talks with Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed his host to accept some of the estimated 100 Yemeni detainees remaining in Guantánamo Bay. Gates wants the Yemenis to be transferred to Muhammad bin Naif's jihadi rehabilitation center, which mixes psychology with religious education.

Gates's request is an admission that the risk of sending Yemeni detainees home to a country where al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent is simply too high. In January, al Qaeda's branches in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged to create a single transnational organization: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Among those Yemenis still held in Guantánamo are several men with close family connections to active figures within Yemen's al Qaeda network. Although such ties alone are not proof of guilt, U.S. officials are worried that the brothers will "return to the fight" if they are sent home.

“Abu Jandal, In the name of Jihad…”

François-Xavier Trégan, special to the Pulitzer Center

Nasser al Bahri, 36 years old, calmly disclaims all names given to him: “terrorist” by the United States, “infidel” by Islamists, embarrassing persona for Yemeni authorities, and role model for the younger generation… “So which one would you like to talk to?” the Yemeni asks. The former bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden has come to terms with the entirety of his experiences, but taken one by one in the context of the path he's taken and the apprenticeship he’s received.

Born in Saudi Arabia to Yemeni parents, the young Nasser was molded by newspapers and television. During the 1980s the first Intifada engulfed the Palestinian territories, and the images taken together showed a continuous chain of killing and torture. From that moment on, Nasser decided to be the defender of "good deeds, guided by emotion". It is thus that one day in 1994 he told his incredulous father of his commitment to the Jihad, and soon after secretly left the family home after morning prayer. Destination: Bosnia.

Yemen: ‘Trust in God but tie your camel first’

Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center

The British think-tank Chatham House (also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs) published my paper on Yemen last week. Claire Spencer, head of Chatham House’s Middle East programme, chaired a round-table discussion for an invited audience, including representatives from the UK Foreign Office and Arab diplomats.  

I started by presenting a broad outline of my paper Yemen: Fear of Failure and argued that Yemen appears to be in denial about its precarious future. I quoted CIA Director Michael Hayden who said earlier this month that Yemen is a “country of concern, a place where Al Qaeda is strengthening. We've seen an unprecedented number of attacks this year. Plots are increasing not only in number, but in sophistication, and the range of targets is broadening.” 

I talked about Yemen’s strategic location and pointed out that the infectious nature of state failure would make every problem in the region more intractable, should Yemen slide towards collapse. I argued that criminal networks on both sides of the Gulf of Aden have already forged close ties between Arabia and the Horn of Africa, and I cited the UN Monitoring Group on the arms embargo to Somalia, which lists Yemen as the source of a significant number of weapons in circulation in Somalia. 

Oman’s ambassador to the UK pointed out that the West has left Somalia to rot – I’m paraphrasing here – which has made Yemen vulnerable to problems that are not of it’s own making. And a representative from Yemen’s embassy in London rightly pointed out that Yemen is not yet a failed state. The discussion highlighted an urgent need for Western governments to engage Yemen’s Arab neighbours – Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States – to influence events in Sana’a.

I ended my presentation by arguing that policy-making towards Yemen must start from a realistic assessment about the true nature of power in Yemen. I said that a distinction must be made between the Yemeni government, which legislates fairly freely, without power, and a shadow elite, which is running the country as a private interest. I asked what leverage – if any – the West and Yemen’s neighbours can bring to bear over the shadow elite? 

I ended by quoting an Arab proverb – ‘Trust in God, but tie your camel first’. The West, Yemen and Yemen’s neighbours all seem to be leaving Yemen’s future to chance – but are we doing enough to tie Yemen’s camel before it's too late? 

The session raised plenty of questions, but not enough answers. 

Hostility on the streets of Yemen

By Ginny Hill, for BBC News

The day I was stoned in public happened to be my birthday.

I was walking along a quiet side street, close to the parliament building in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

I was alone, but I did not think twice when a battered old pick-up truck drove towards me.

It was just like hundreds of other pick-up trucks that I saw every day in Yemen. There were two tribesmen in the driver's cabin and a handful of young men standing in the flat-bed, holding onto the side rails to keep upright.

They wore long white robes, curved daggers on belts around their waists and red and white head-dresses. Normal day wear for the average Yemeni man about town.

The truck had almost travelled past me when a rock hit me in the stomach, hurled from the back of the vehicle as it passed.

Indignant and furious, I whirled round on the spot and shouted after them: "Laish?" - an Arabic word for 'why'.

But the truck was already out of earshot and there were no witnesses to answer my question. So I dusted myself down and carried on...

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Yemen: The rhythms of Ramadan

Ramadan mornings are strangely muted. When I left Yemen last Friday at 8am, the streets were deserted. Even at midday, the shops are quiet and government ministries are running on empty.

The normal swing of things doesn’t really get going til afternoon when workers in the juice bars and restaurants pull back the shutters, string up their bunches of mangoes and start setting out tables and chairs in preparation for the evening meal.

Around 4pm, a scrum forms outside the shops selling fresh samosas (see left). Samosas cost three for 50 riyals (25 cents) – but you got five for the same price last year. Dates and samosas are the first morsels that Yemenis eat at dusk.

Yemen: Raindrops

Here’s the husband and wife team that’s taking Yemen’s water sector by storm.

Rowyan is the brainchild of hydrogeologist Dr Michael Klingler, who runs the Integrated Water Resources Management Project for German development organization GTZ. Dr Klinger’s team worked closely with Yemen’s National Water Resources Authority to bring the cartoon characters to life and build a comprehensive national awareness strategy, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme.

Rowyan emerged as an idea in 2006. The first images were hand-drawn by Mohammed as-Shaibani, a satirical newspaper cartoonist. Rowyan started off standing on his own two feet, wearing a traditional curved dagger favoured by the northern tribes. But his legs were abandoned in later drafts, and the jambiyya was removed as a northern symbol that might alienate residents of the south. Rowyan and his wife, Rowyana, are now drawn and designed on a computer.

Comic answer to Yemen water crisis

By Ginny Hill

BBC News

SANAA - Yemen is projected to be the first Arab country that will use up all of its groundwater, but no-one knows exactly when the water table will dry out or fall beyond a viable level for human use.

In a race to shape public opinion, the government has developed a national mascot to encourage water conservation.

Rowyan is an animated raindrop, a cheery cartoon character with moustache and headdress. His wife, Rowyana, has curling eyelashes. She carries a handbag and wears a veil and full-length black robes.

"Rowyan is one of the tools we're using to promote public awareness," says Salim Bashueib, chairman of the National Water Resource Authority - which issues licences for new water wells and uses a satellite tracking system to monitor the movements of drill rigs.

"People won't respect the laws on water use if they don't understand the scale of the problem and the reason for compliance."

Photo by Ginny Hill

Continue reading at BBC News.com

Yemen: Doctors on the beaches

By Ginny Hill

Night after night, from September to May, Yemen’s wild, remote southern beaches provide the backdrop for a slow-burn humanitarian crisis.

Somali refugees stagger from the black sea in weak starlight. Some collapse on the sand flats, weak and exhausted. Others paddle in the silvery surf looking for plastic bags – thrown from the boat – containing their few belongings.

Shocked, hungry and dehydrated, these men and women are survivors of a gruelling and dangerous journey across the Gulf of Aden. They pay $100 to sail from Bossaso, on Somalia’s north coast, in tiny fishing vessels.

Passengers are loaded onto the boats like cattle and forced to squat for 36 hours on the open sea. They can only eat and drink what they can hold in their hands or carry in their pockets. If they move, they are beaten by brutal smuggling crews, who use random violence to control their human cargo.

Many passengers suffocate in the overcrowded hold or drown when they’re forced to jump from the boats and swim to the shoreline. Dead bodies wash up on the beaches and Yemeni fishermen bury the dead in the sand dunes.

Yemen: Fake beards

By Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center

I went to chew qat with the actors who play terrorists in a new feature film called ‘The Losing Bet’. Ahmed was the first to wander in to the production offices. He had left his shoes outside and was wearing socks, Yemeni-style. He sat down next to me.

Ahmed plays Murad in the film – an unemployed youth turned suicide bomber. “What’s in your bag?” I joked. “Don’t worry. You’re safe,” he laughed. “I won’t detonate.”

Yemen's fight against resurgent Al Qaeda

Ginny Hill, for the Pulitzer Center

The government is backing a feature film to warn young Yemenis against radical jihad.

The Christian Science Monitor, photo by Ginny Hill

Antiterror film: - The LandCruiser snaked along a desert road driven by a suicide bomber toward his target – unwitting tourists. "God is great," he shouted before carrying out the destructive mission.

It's a terrifying scene that is part of the new government-backed movie, "The Losing Bet," that premièred last Sunday to educate the public about the consequences of Islamist extremism.

The movie comes at a time when Yemen is seeing a new generation of homegrown radicals ramp up attacks against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime and Western targets in the country.

"Terrorists are outnumbered by millions of Yemenis who love their country," says Interior Minister Mutahar al-Masri, speaking after the première. "The film is part of our efforts to enlist the help and cooperation of the Yemeni people."

The plot follows two Yemeni jihadis, who return from years living abroad. They were sent home by an Al Qaeda leader to recruit new members to carry out deadly operations in Yemen. Austere and intolerant, they clash with their families who make a living by selling goods and services to tourists.

Continue reading at the Christian Science Monitor...