See Ya, Saleh Yemen's embattled president struggles on the brink of collapse. BY GREGORY JOHNSEN | MARCH 23, 2011 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/23/see_ya_saleh
The writing has been on the wall in Yemen for weeks. In Taiz, a highlands city of half a million, people painted it on huge banners; in Sanaa they baked it into bread; and everywhere they chanted it: Irhal. Go. That single Arabic word has united Yemen's fractured political opposition, turning old enemies into temporary allies and pushing President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime to the brink of collapse. The protest movement against Saleh's 32 years of rule has been growing since Feb. 11, when Hosni Mubarak stepped down in Egypt. That day, for the first time, student activists and pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets outside the umbrella of Yemen's largest opposition grouping, the Joint Meeting Parties. In much the same way Egypt's 1952 revolution shaped and inspired Yemen's own uprising a decade later, so too has Egypt's January 25 Revolution found an echo in Yemen. In addition to demanding Saleh's resignation, protesters are also calling for key members of his family to surrender their positions in the military. In fits and starts, for the past six weeks, the protests have gradually incorporated most of Saleh's domestic opponents into their ranks. Across the south, in Aden, Lahj, and al-Mukalla, pro-secessionists have slowly dropped their calls for a separate state, at least for the moment, and gone on the record stating that their only wish is for Saleh to go. In the far north, where the president has been waging a brutal seven-year civil war against a group known popularly as the Houthis, the rebels added their voice to the mix, marching for the fall of the regime. Many of Saleh's parliamentary allies have deserted him as well. Some resigned with open letters to the press, while others, like influential tribal leader Sheikh Hussein al-Ahmar, arranged their announcements for maximum publicity. On Feb. 26, Ahmar joined several other sheikhs from the powerful Hashid confederation at a conference in the northern governorate of Amran. In a fiery speech, the young tribesman denounced Saleh as a corrupt ruler no better than the imams that ruled north Yemen for much of the past millennium. Behind him other men threw their membership cards from Saleh's ruling GPC party in the dust as proof of their resignation. The president, who has remained in power for more than three decades largely by deftly playing opposition groups off one another, attempted to stem the tide of tribal defections by doling out bags of cash and distributing complimentary cars. Hussein al-Ahmar, Hamid al-Ahmar, and the rest of their eight brothers countered Saleh by opening their own bank accounts to tribesmen. As the auction for tribal support continued in the north, the protests continued to grow across the rest of the country. In Taiz, the intellectual and activist capital of the country, protesters gathered in the thousands, camping out downtown and entertaining each other with poetry and chants as they waited for Saleh to get the message. The president tried to stay ahead of the protesters by anticipating potential moves. Like Cairo, Sanaa has a Midan al-Tahrir -- Liberation Square. Worried about the precedent from Egypt and the optics of thousands of people demonstrating in the square, Saleh dispatched paid supporters to occupy the area. Undeterred, the protesters set up a tent city outside Sanaa University, dubbing it Sahat al-Tagheer -- the Square of Change. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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