Stop Yemen´s Hidden Darfur – Recognize the Yemenite Republic of Saada!
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
November 24, 2008
Al Qaeda hates the tolerant Islamic ideology of the Houthi family, and in this the lewd and uncouth dictator Ali Abdallah Saleh, by fighting against his own citizens and compatriots, executes orders and policies of Osama Bin Laden, and rejoices the support of the Saudi Wahhabis.
The titles of and the links to the previous articles are the following:
"Devastating Human Rights Watch (HRW) Report on Yemen"
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/devastating-human-rights-watch-hrw-report-on-yemen.html
"Enforced Disappearances in Yemen Exposed in the HRW Report"
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/enforced-disappearances-in-yemen-exposed-in-the-hrw-report.html
"Arbitrary Arrest and Detention in Yemen – Ali Abdallah Saleh´s Tyranny Denounced in HRW Report"
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/arbitrary-arrest-and-detention-in-yemen-ali-abdallah-saleh-tyranny-denounced-in-hrw-report.html
"Restrictions on Free Expression and Information Exchange in Yemen, Unveiled in HRW Report"
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/restrictions-on-free-expression-and-information-exchange-in-yemen-unveiled-in-hrw-report.html
So brutal, so overwhelming, and so inhuman the terrorist regime of Ali Abdallah Saleh has been that recording the appalling practices and the shameful deeds of the president´s guards (called ´soldiers´ and ´officers´) and the supervising Mafia (called ´government of Yemen´) would fill an encyclopedia far larger than wikipedia itself.
The appalling terrorist regime of the sergeant Ali Abdallah Saleh applies similarly horrible policies throughout the country, which turned out to be an immense jail and a desolate realm run by traitors and anti-patriotic elements ready to behave as serfs to the Yemen-unfriendly, barbaric regime of the Saudi Wahhabis.
A few days ago, HRW issued another Report focused again on the undeservedly and incomparably tyrannized Yemenite North, and more specifically the Governorate of Saada. There, a Shia revolution, supported by the entire local population, became the target of Ali Abdallah Saleh´s ferocity and monstrosity.
I will republish the new HRW Report which, under the meaningful title "Invisible Civilians", describes the challenge of humanitarian access in Yemen´s "Forgotten War". In the present article, I republish the Contents, the Summary and the Methodology.
It has by now become necessary for Northern Yemenite expatriates, Najrani Yemenites from Saudi Arabia, political activists and Human Rights advocates from allover the world to make a formal appeal to the international instances, demanding an international intervention in Yemen´s Darfur, and the subsequent recognition and secession of the Yemenite Republic of Saada.
Invisible Civilians
The challenge of humanitarian access in Yemens Forgotten War
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/11/18/invisible-civilians
Contents
Yemen Map
I. Summary
II. Methodology
III. Background
One war, five rounds
The Huthis
Tribes supporting the government
Causes of the conflict
The war in northern Yemen: a non-international armed conflict
IV. The Information Blackout
V. Fighting and Civilian Losses in Mid-2008
VI. Displacement During 2008
Displacement during the fifth round of fighting (May 10 to July 17, 2008)
Displacement into Sada town
Displacement outside Sada town
Ongoing displacement
VII. Lack of Humanitarian Access
Humanitarian law relating to access
Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement relating to access
Lack of humanitarian access between the fourth and fifthrounds of fighting (June 18, 2007 to May 10, 2008)
Lack of humanitarian access during the fifth round of fighting (May 10, 2008 to July 17, 2008)
Closure of the SanaSada road: blocking necessities to civilians
Access to health care
Humanitarian access since the end of fighting
Attacks on humanitarian agencies
VIII. The United Nations and International Donors
The United Nations
International Donors
IX. Recommendations
To the government of Yemen
To the Huthis
To the United Nations
To International Donors, including the European Union and its Member States, the Arab League and its Member States, and the United States
XII. Acknowledgments
Summary
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76086/section/3
Since June 2004 an armed conflict in northern Yemen all but ignored outside the country has displaced up to 130,000 people, a great many of whom remained out of the reach of humanitarian agencies as of October 2008. Caught between the government and an armed group known as the Huthis, these displaced civilians are among the invisible victims of war.
Particularly since 2007, when international aid agencies sought to reach all parts of the northern Sada governorate, Yemeni authorities have severely restricted humanitarian access to tens of thousands of civilians in need. After a fifth round of fighting erupted in May 2008, the government blocked the movement of all commercial goods, including staple foods and fuel, an act that appears to constitute an illegal collective punishment.
By mid-July 2008, when the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared an end to the fighting, 60,000 displaced persons had found refuge in Sada town, where they received limited assistance in seven camps serviced by national and international aid agencies. However, tens of thousands of otherspossibly as many as 70,000 personshad been displaced in remote areas or urban areas other than Sada town, where government restrictions meant they remained largely inaccessible to aid agencies.
Furthermore, between February 2007 and July 2008 the government imposed a total information blackout on Sada governorate. It has clamped down on media coverage, banning local and international journalists from traveling anywhere in the governorate, threatening journalists covering the conflict, and arbitrarily arresting internet webmasters and others with information on civilian casualties. The government cut off most mobile phone subscribers, allowing only a few government-vetted individuals access to the network.
The result of the governments systematic, sustained, and non-transparent policy of limiting access and information is that tens of thousands of civilians directly affected by the war have been left to suffer, their plight hidden from the rest of Yemen and the outside world. The denial of humanitarian access is in contravention of international humanitarian law that provides that a civilian population is entitled to receive humanitarian relief essential to its survival.
Since the declared end of fighting in July 2008, the government has told international humanitarian agencies that they have full and unrestricted access to the whole of Sada governorate. However, the reality is different. Many agencies must ask separate Interior Ministry permission for each and every trip, an almost impossible operational requirement. By the end of September 2008, the government allowed aid agencies access to a limited number of towns in Sada governorate, but well into October this expanded access was insufficient to reach many of those who have long gone without assistance and who remain at risk.
The governments tight restrictions on access for humanitarian agencies and journalists, even after the conflict was declared over, has meant thatonly limited information is available on the extent of civilian displacement, the degree of insecurity faced by the population, and the conduct of the fighting. The government asserts that insecurity requires it to broadly restrict humanitarian accessbut the restrictions themselves have made it difficult to either confirm or challenge this position. However, international humanitarian law is clearonly imperative military necessity can justify restrictions on humanitarian access, and then only strictly temporarily.
The Huthi rebels have also failed to facilitate humanitarian access to areas under their control.
For fear of losing the limited access they do have, non-governmental humanitarian organizations have understandably been reluctant to put significant behind-the-sceneslet alone publicpressure on the government or the rebels to reverse their limitations on humanitarian access.
United Nations agencies in Yemen made some discrete approaches to the government to increase access, with very limited success. The UN apparently did little, even discreetly, to press either the government or the Huthi rebels to respect their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law to protect the war-affected population, including the tens of thousands of displaced.
Similarly, international donors, including the European Union (EU) and its member states, have kept a very low profile over the conflict since it erupted in 2004. Almost certainly due to their concerns about political stability in a country with a large Al-Qaeda presence as well as significant development challenges, donors have been reluctant to press the government on its conduct of the fighting and on the issue of humanitarian access. In July 2008 EU states attempted to formulate a unified approach to government on the issue of access but were unable to reach an agreement.
Although on July 17, 2008, President Saleh declared the fifth round of fightingand effectively the entire armed conflictto be over, many who witnessed the end of previous rounds of fighting fear that without a written and monitored peace agreement, modeled on an agreement mediated by Qatar in 2007, further fighting will engulf Sada governorate in the near future.
Even if the armed conflict does not resume, international humanitarian law requires access for humanitarian assistance linked to the conflict, and international human rights law ensures the right to freedom of movement, including that of aid workers.
Human Rights Watch calls on the government of Yemen and the Huthis to take immediate steps to ensure that impartial aid agencies have safe, reliable, and sustained access to all parts of Sada governorate in order to assist the many civilians desperate for assistance.
Human Rights Watch also calls on the UN Resident Coordinator to urge the government and the Huthis to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, and on international donors to play a concerted and meaningful role in pressing the government and the Huthis to grant unhindered access to all war-affected civilians.
Methodology
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76086/section/4
This report is based on research carried out in Yemens capital Sana from July 13 to July 31, 2008 by two Human Rights Watch researchers and a consultant who conducted 97 interviews with victims and eyewitnesses of human rights violations, journalists, human rights activists, staff of humanitarian agencies, academics, political leaders, and government officials. For this report we conducted additional phone interviews and correspondence with humanitarian agencies through October 21, 2008.
Human Rights Watch published a related report, Yemen: Disappearances and Arbitrary Arrests in the Armed Conflict with Huthi Rebels, on October 24, 2008.
Organizations that helped Human Rights Watch to contact individuals with knowledge about the conflict area include local human rights organizations and members of the Socialist Party, the Islah Party, the Haqq Party, and the ruling General Peoples Congress.
Most interviews were conducted in Arabic. Two Yemenis interpreted for one of the researchers and the consultant. The third researcher conducted interviews in Arabic. All interviews were conducted in Sana. We are grateful to the Yemen Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Human Rights for promptly accommodating our requests to meet with them in Sana. However, despite Human Rights Watchs requests, by telephone on July 23 and in writing on July 28, we did not receive official permission to travel to Sada governorate.
In this report Human Rights Watch refrained from citing the names of many agencies and individuals who were interviewed because of their concerns that disclosure of their identity might expose them to adverse consequences from the Yemeni authorities.