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Most comprehensive guidebook in
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Background Report on
Yemen
© 2000 Dianne Durante
Revised
MAP OF
1. The Bombing of the USS Cole
2. National Character of the Yemenis
2.1 Violence
2.2 Drugs: qat
5. North Yemen and South Yemen, 1960-1990
5.1
5.2 South
6.1 Unification of
6.2 Law and Human Rights
6.3 Violence and Terrorism
6.4 President Ali Abdallah Saleh
6.5 Relations with
6.6 Economy
7. Summary
8. Bibliography
1. THE BOMBING OF THE USS COLE Back to Table of Contents
On
QUESTION: Why was a US ship routinely refueling in a
country that the US Department of State still lists as a safehaven and
training ground for terrorists? The answer to that lies in US relations with
Admittedly, there appear to have been some minor lapses in the Cole's security, but that's a side issue: the real question is, who masterminded and funded this attack, and who else was involved?
The terrorists who attacked the Cole were not amateurs
with a grudge against the
Due to the FBI's experience in the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, FBI agents were immediately sent to help find out who was behind the attack. For nearly two months the Yemeni government denied them direct access to witnesses and suspects, giving agents only summaries or edited transcripts of interviews. It also denied agents timely access to key sites such as terrorist safe houses, for collection of physical evidence such as fingerprints and fibers.
Why does this matter? Because once the chain of evidence is compromised - if there's a chance it has been tampered with or contaminated - such evidence is not admissible in a US court. (Remember the debates over OJ Simpson's socks and blood samples?) Furthermore, no statements extracted by torture are admissible in a US court. Yemen is known for its use of torture during interrogations. Since FBI agents were not present during interrogations, they cannot swear that torture was not used. Effectively, therefore, due to the way the investigation was initially run, the US could not try any suspects in the US. The investigation would end when the Yemenis held trials.
One hundred fifty FBI agents were initially sent to Aden; within a month, all but 20 had been sent home, due to lack of work and disputes between the FBI and Yemeni investigators.
Why were Yemeni authorities being so uncooperative? The New York Times (in a full-page article 11/1/00) suggested several possibilities.
A. Inexperience or confusion about the Yemenis regarding modern investigative techniques - the explanation favored by the State Department.
B. Touchy pride about having outsiders operate on their turf - the equivalent of a toddler's "I can do it myself."
C. Fear that an investigation might reveal Yemeni links to terrorist organizations.
Several other factors are at least as important, given the history and current state of Yemen:
1. Violence is extraordinarily common in Yemen, in relationships between individuals, between tribes, and between tribes and the central government. To Yemenis, the Cole bombing is not particularly shocking. (See 2.1.)
2. Widespread drug use in Yemen leads to gross inefficiency. (See 2.2.)
3. The Yemenis do not like the United States, not surprising in a country that has historically been theocratic and later Communist. (See 6.5.)
2. NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE YEMENIS: Violence and drugs Back to Table of Contents
Is there such a thing as "national character"? Not in the sense of inborn personality traits, but yes, in the sense of ways of thought and action that are followed uncritically by the majority of the populace, simply because nearly everyone else thinks or acts that way. Such elements as rituals and costume can reveal ideas that are prevalent throughout the country.
In books and reports on Yemen, two themes continually recur: violence and qat.
2.1 Violence
In the 1990s, one defense analyst estimated that Yemen had more weapons per capita than any other country in the world. His figures were two rifles per adult male, two jambiyas (a 10-inch dagger worn as part of Yemeni tribal costume by everyone from farmers to taxi drivers), as well as an array of submachine guns, grenades and mortars. Some tribal rulers own tanks and command troops that, if unified, could easily wipe out the Yemeni army.
Tribes frequently take foreigners hostage in order to force the government to negotiate with them on routine matters such as schools and water supplies. One hundred fifty-nine hostages have been taken since 1990, although usually they are released physically unharmed.
Revenge killings have been a tradition for centuries and are still common. Rather than waiting for the judicial process, Yemeni men kill the men or the family of those they believe (rightly or not) have harmed or insulted them. A dispute over a property line or a well can be fatal.
Bombings are frequent and apparently pointless. Quite often no one claims responsibility or makes demands: the bombs just go off.
QUESTION: Why is there so much violence in Yemen? The fundamental reason is that Yemen has been ruled for centuries mostly by warring tribes. Tribes operate on a collectivist premise: birth matters, the mind does not; the group matters, the individual does not. In the separate or combined history of the Yemens, there has never been a strong central government that operated on clear, written principles (as, for instance, the US Constitution), that took justice out of the hands of the tribes, and that was able to repress the initiation of force or negate the constant need for self-defense. "There is no surer way to infect mankind with hatred - brute, blind, virulent hatred - than by splitting it into ethnic groups or tribes. If a man believes that his own character is determined at birth in some unknown, ineffable way, and that the characteristics of all strangers are determined in the same way - then no communication, no understanding, no persuasion is possible among them, only mutual fear, suspicion and hatred." (Ayn Rand, "Global Balkanization," The Voice of Reason, p. 128; available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.)
2.2 Drugs: qat
Another possible reason for the lack of progress in the Cole investigation is gross inefficiency due to drug use. The universal afternoon activity in Yemen is the chewing of qat, a plant that has the combined effects of a mild amphetamine and a mild relaxant, so that the user feels brilliantly focused but has no inclination to act. The Yemeni ritual, developed over the course of several hundred years, is for men and women to chew qat in separate rooms (Yemeni houses have rooms specifically for this purpose) every afternoon from about 2 p.m. until 6 or 7 p.m. The main draw is the socializing: chewing qat with others is a way to reaffirm one's place in the family and tribe. Those who do not chew qat are alienated from Yemeni social life, and because many business decisions are made at qat parties, anyone who abstains is also at a business disadvantage.
Even though chewing qat is not physically addictive, it has decided disadvantages. One is the cost: about $20 per day in the early 1990s, plus the cost of bootleg Scotch to help one wind down after a qat session. In a country where average per capita income is less than $1000, it is a mystery how people support this habit.
Another problem: the demand for qat means that it has replaced coffee as the most significant cash crop in Yemen. Since qat deteriorates within 24-36 hours of being cut, it cannot be exported. The economy of Yemen has therefore been moving steadily from a crop that can be exported in return for food and other necessities, to a crop that is consumed internally within a day or two of production.
Finally, qat-chewing leaves little time for work. Since qat is perishable, people purchase it in the late morning; then they chew throughout the afternoon and doze off (with or without the assistance of Scotch) in the evening. No one reports Yemenis putting in a hard evening's work after the drug wears off, so the working day for a Yemeni is a few morning hours. This must account in part for the lack of prompt results in the USS Cole investigation.
3. GEOGRAPHY AND POPULATION Back to Table of Contents
Yemen (about the size of California and Pennsylvania combined) borders Saudi Arabia on the north, Oman on the east. Its significance lies in its position at the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula. Aden, its chief port, has been important in European trade since ancient times, because it is the best harbor on the Arabian peninsula. This is one reason the US Navy authorized ships to refuel there, despite the fact that the State Department still lists Yemen as a safehaven for international terrorists.
Yemen is also important because of its situation on the east coast of the Bab el Mandeb strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Ships coming from the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal pass out of the Red Sea through the Bab el Mandeb, into the Gulf of Aden, and thence into the Arabian and Indian Oceans. Aden serves as a port for ships coming through the strait, as well as ships sailing the long route around Africa.
Yemen's population of about 15 million is mostly Arab and Muslim, with some admixture of Asians and Africans due to its long history as a trading center. Yemenis are less nomadic than the population of the rest of the Arabian peninsula. Since only 3-5% of land in Yemen is arable, their sedentary life has unfortunately not had much effect on agricultural production. Yemenis have a rigid class structure in which local tribes (at 70% of the population) play an important role. Life expectancy is 59.83 years, and literacy a depressing 38%.
4. HISTORY OF YEMEN TO 1960 Back to Table of Contents
Yemen (as a geographical area, not an independent state) was home of the Biblical Queen of Sheba. For the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans it was the source of frankincense and myrrh, aromatic gums valued for funereal and medicinal purposes. For centuries it was also a transfer point for goods from the Far East, which came by ship to Aden and then were sent overland to the Mediterranean Sea, Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Many Yemenis had converted to Islam by 630, and most of the rest had also become Muslims by the end of the 9th century. From the 16th century until 1918, parts of Yemen came sporadically under the rule of the (Muslim) Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman rulers had little influence outside a few cities, and bargained with, rather than ruled, the fiercely independent local tribes of the interior.
The British became involved in Yemen in 1839, when the British East India Company seized Aden after Yemenis plundered a ship flying the British flag. Aden became strategically significant after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. (See 3.) In the 20th c. the British attempted to form a federation of tribes around Aden. Like the Ottoman Turks, they found that the tribes were too independent to submit to any form of central government.
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: Is all foreign domination equally good or bad? What were the long-term results of the Ottoman rule in Yemen, as opposed to the British occupation?
5. NORTH YEMEN AND SOUTH YEMEN, 1960-1990 Back to Table of Contents
Yemen has only existed in its present L-shaped form since 1990. Before that, the western side of the "L" and the southern side were politically separate, and went through many changes of name. We will refer to them respectively as North Yemen and South Yemen.
5.1 North Yemen, 1960-1990
In North Yemen, imams ruled for 1100 years (from the late 9th century) as absolute spiritual and political rulers, often deliberately keeping Yemenis from contact with the "corrupting influence" of the West. After the last imam was overthrown in 1962 the Yemen Arab Republic was established, although the imam's supporters were only defeated after 8 more years of civil war. The founding of the Republic was mostly the work of townsmen who had been influenced by foreign ideas. The tribes in the mountains had never accepted a central government before, and still did not do so.
The rulers of North Yemen relied heavily on the military for support, and were often assassinated while in office. The longest-lived of them is the current President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Saleh, who came to power in 1978 and became president of the unified Yemen in 1990. (See 6.4 for more on Saleh.)
North Yemen received substantial financial support from the USSR, but retained close ties to the anti-Communist monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and allowed some free enterprise.
5.2 South Yemen, 1960-1990
In the 1960s, two violent organizations battled for control of South Yemen: the Front for the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY) and the National Liberation Front (NLF). The NLF had gained control by 1967, and the British officially handed the reins of government over to them late that year.
Two years later the radical wing of the NLF took power, renamed the country the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, and set up a tyrannical and oppressive Communist regime on the Soviet model. The PDRY had closer ties to the USSR than any other Arab state, as well as close relations with China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Libya and the Palestinians. Thousands of East Germans, Soviets and Cubans worked as officials in the South Yemen government.
Aden is in South Yemen, which means that until 10 years ago it was under a Marxist-Leninist regime that despised the United States. The bombing of a US ship in the harbor of Aden is not surprising; what's surprising is that it didn't happen earlier.
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: What were the characteristics of the Soviet model followed by Yemen, in terms of who held power, how they acquired it, what they could demand of Soviet citizens, and what economic policies were enforced? (The USSR is history now; that doesn't mean it's irrelevant to present events.)
6. CURRENT STATUS OF YEMEN Back to Table of Contents
6.1 Unification of Yemen, 1990
The two Yemens were united in 1990 for the first time since the 5th or 6th c. AD. Why? One source cited mutual economic interests, specifically the hope of finding more oil reserves, but the two countries could have sponsored oil exploration separately. Nationalism is not a persuasive explanation either. For millennia Yemen has been even more tribal than the Balkans, with the tribes only uniting in the face of a common enemy such as the British.
In fact, South Yemen didn't want to be part of unified Yemen. President Saleh only defeated the Communists there by using Islamic terrorist units as shock troops. These were the "Arab Afghans," Yemenis who fought the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s and later returned to Yemen. (The most notorious of the Afghan Arabs is millionaire terrorist Osama bin Laden, whose family comes from eastern Yemen.) When they stormed Aden in 1994, 10,000 civilians are said to have died. Saleh rewarded his terrorist helpers by offering them positions in his government. American intelligence reports suggest that links between terrorists and the Yemeni government still exist. Saleh's half-brother, for example, an army general, is said to have been Osama bin Laden's paymaster in Yemen during the early 1990s.
Today many tribes in mountainous areas of Yemen still do not acknowledge the authority of the Yemeni government, and have private armies large and well equipped enough to fight the government. They have been wooed with money and military equipment both by the Yemeni government and by the Saudi Arabians, who would prefer not to have a strong nation on their southern border. The tribes take money from both sides and continue to do just as they please.
6.2 Law and Human
Rights in Yemen
The Yemeni legal system is a hodge-podge of Islamic law, Turkish law, British common law and local tribal law, with no distinction between religious and secular jurisdiction. The present constitution affirms free elections, a multi-party system, the right to own private property, equality under the law, and respect for basic human rights. In practice, the judiciary is known to take bribes and to cave in to pressure from the executive branch. There is little freedom of speech or of the press. One example: the only senior government officials authorized to discuss the Cole bombing are the President and the Prime Minister.
Security forces run by the executive branch have wide and unchecked powers: the ability to perform searches and seizures without warrants, to arrest and imprison without due process, and to torture and abuse prisoners.
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: How is Islamic law different from the US Constitution, particularly regarding the separation of Church and State? Which provisions of the Yemeni constitution reflect Islamic law, and which reflect British common law (also seen in the US Constitution)?
6.3 Violence and
Terrorism in Yemen
While it was under Marxist rule and maintaining close ties with the USSR, China and Cuba, South Yemen provided sanctuary and material support, including training facilities, to a wide range of international terrorists. Among those known are the PLO, Hadas, the IRA, the PFLP, PIJ, and assorted terrorists from West Germany, Egypt, Libya and Algeria. Islamic terrorists who helped suppress the revolt in South Yemen during the early 1990s still have ties with high government officials. According to the latest State Department report, Yemen is still considered a safehaven for terrorists, due to lax enforcement of counter-terrorist laws and the central government's inability to control tribes in remote regions.
The US has lately been helping train Yemenis in counter-terrorist activities. Until the Yemeni government takes effective action against terrorists within its borders, this is as nonsensical as teaching the fox how farmers protect the chicken coop.
6.4 Ali Abdallah Saleh, President of Yemen
Saleh was a senior army officer and provincial military governor with limited education and experience until 1978, when he became president of North Yemen following the assassination of his predecessor. In 1983 he won the presidency by election, although coup attempts continued even after the election.
When Yemen was unified in 1990, Saleh was named president. In 1994 he was confirmed as president by vote of Parliament, and in 1999 was elected president by a large majority in the first direct presidential election in Yemen's history. It should be noted that although there are more than a dozen political parties in Yemen today, no significant opposition was offered to Saleh. While his regime is apparently not a thoroughly repressive military dictatorship, his control of national security forces and the lack of freedom of speech and press make his overwhelming electoral victory less impressive. After 22 years in office, he has filled all high-ranking positions with his relatives and cronies.
Saleh is considered a moderate Arab nationalist, although his support of Saddam Hussein has alienated Yemen for a decade from the Arab world. (See 6.5.)
6.5 Relations of
Yemen with the United States
At the beginning of this report, we raised the question of why a US ship was refueling in a country that the State Department still lists as a safehaven for terrorists. We are now ready to address that question.
The short version of US-Yemeni relations is: the Yemenis don't like us, and they only put up with us for the sake of foreign aid and the payments brought in by ships stopping at Aden. Historically, Yemen has been ruled as a theocracy (under the imams) or a Communist country: its principles are therefore diametrically opposed to those of the US, where the emphasis is on individual rights, separation of church and state, and capitalism.
The United States had little contact with Yemen under the rule of the imams in North Yemen and the Marxist-Leninists in South Yemen. South Yemen broke off relations with the US in 1967, and didn't revive them until 1990.
Since 1988 Yemen has had close ties with Iraq, which provided it with economic assistance and the training of military personnel. Soon after the unification of Yemen in 1990, Yemen became the only Arab country to vote in the UN against imposing an embargo on Iraq; it argued that the Iraqi-Kuwaiti dispute should be settled within the Arab world.
Due to its vote in the UN, Yemen lost all economic assistance from the Gulf Cooperation Council (an association of Arab states in the Gulf region), and 850,000 Yemenis who had been working in the oil fields of neighboring Arab states were sent home. This was a severe blow to Yemen's economy: in North Yemen in the 1980s income from expatriate workers was a quarter of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and in South Yemen it was half the GDP. Unemployment doubled, and inflation soared.
Despite this, Yemen has not backed down on its support of Iraq. "For the siege [of Iraq] to be prolonged indefinitely and the Arab Iraqi people to suffer is not [right]. They are my brothers, and I must sympathize with them and call for lifting the siege," said President Saleh (reported in the Washington Post 10/24/00.) Many Yemenis were shocked and angry to learn that US ships such as the Cole, which were helping blockade Iraq, were refueling at Aden.
Why did the Navy clear Aden as a refueling port for US ships in the area in 1998? There is, of course, the convenience: Aden is a major port in a critical area of the world. Also, officials in the Pentagon, State Department and American intelligence agencies wished to wean Yemen away from its support of Iraq by giving it indirect aid in the form of income at Aden. Even now, barely a month after the Cole attack, the US State Department has been scathing about FBI demands to the Yemeni government during the investigation, criticizing the FBI's insensitivity to foreign cultures and claiming it has allowed the urgency of the investigation to override its judgement.
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: Does providing income and foreign aid to states with hostile governments give the US leverage over them? By what standards and measurements would you determine whether foreign aid was having any effect? Is giving foreign aid to countries that explicitly oppose US aims different in kind or in degree from paying extortion to a bully?
6.6 Economy
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. The latest per capita GDP figure is $750 (CIA World Factbook, 1999 estimate). Unemployment is about 30% (1995 estimate).
Only 3-5% of Yemeni land is considered arable; the country does not produce enough to feed its people. Until the 18th century, Yemen was the source of most of the world's coffee. The name "Mocha" for fine coffee comes from the Yemeni port of Al-Makha. As a cash crop coffee is gradually being replaced by qat, which cannot be exported and must be consumed within 24-36 hours of cutting.
A few minor oil reserves have been found in Yemen. Otherwise the country's income depends on fishing and money taken in at Aden. The substantial deficit in imports was formerly made up in loans from the USSR and income from expatriate workers.
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: How could a country such as Yemen, which lacks sufficient arable land to support its own population, become self-sufficient? Using the statistics available in the CIA World Factbook, compare the economies of Yemen, Haiti, Bermuda and Hong Kong, specifically percentage of arable land, population per square mile, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), per capita GDP, and type of goods and services produced.
7. SUMMARY Back to Table of Contents
The USS Cole should not have been refueling at Aden, whose government still supports international terrorism and is incapable of repressing the violence of tribes within its borders.
Given that the attack did occur, the Yemenis are so inefficient that the investigation will almost certainly peter out without result, or with findings so inconclusive that the US will be unable to prosecute. Even if the Yemenis were more efficient, their dislike for the US is such that they are unlikely to offer much cooperation, except of the most nominal sort.
8. BIBLIOGRAPHY Back to Table of Contents
Books
HANSEN, Eric. Motoring With Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Recounts the author's attempts to recover some lost journals; lots of concretes, little analysis.
HORWITZ, Tony. Baghdad without a Map, and Other Misadventures in Arabia. New York: Penguin (Plume), 1991. Interesting chapters on qat and weapons; overall, a fascinating, informative and well written book. Available from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.
NYROP, Richard F., ed. The Yemens, Country Studies (Area Handbook) . Foreign Area Studies, the American University. Research completed June 1985. Washington DC: US Government, Secretary of the Army, 1986. Piles of statistics and bureaucratic-style analysis, along with considerable historical background.
Encyclopedia Britannica (1970 edition), s.v. Yemen (XXIII, 886-8) and Southern Yemen (XX, 1019-21).
Websites
US Department of State. "1999 Global Terrorism: Middle East Overview." www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/mideast.html
US Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. "Background Notes: Yemen, October 1996." www.state.gov/www/background_notes/yemen_1096_bgn.html
CIA World Factbook. "Yemen." www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ym.html
Nation by Nation. "Yemen: Human Rights." www.nationbynation.com/Yemen/Human.html
Regarding US policy toward terrorist attacks, see Robert Tracinski, "Why Justice Will Not Prevail" at http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/sailors.shtml
For recent events, search The New York Times online at www.nytimes.com, with "Yemen" in the search field.
9. ADDENDA, 12/13/2000 Back to Table of Contents
In late November, the Yemenis suddenly became cooperative. On November 29 - seven weeks after the bombing - they signed an agreement with US officials regarding the conduct of the investigation. Although its terms were not released, an anonymous source said FBI agents would now be allowed to watch the interrogation of suspects via TV or one-way mirrors, and pass written questions to the interrogators. This would allow FBI agents to testify that torture was not used in extracting statements from suspects.
Also in late November, numerous suggestive ties to Osama bin Laden and his network of "Afghan Arab" terrorists (see 6.1) were revealed. The two suicide bombers and bin Laden were all born in a remote, sparsely populated region of eastern Yemen known as the Hadhramaut. The operational director of the bombing was tentatively identified as Muhammad Omar al-Harazi (a.k.a. Abdul Ali-Nashiri or Abdul al-Nassir), a henchman of bin Laden, and phone records linked the suspects to bin Laden's terrorist organization al Quaeda. One suspect even said bin Laden gave him $5,000 to use in preparations for the bombing.
So, suddenly, much significant information was revealed, and the Yemenis agreed to cooperate with the FBI. Was the investigation finally getting under way? Did Yemenis realize the evils of terrorism and the justice of helping the US discover who killed 17 of its citizens?
Well, no: there's a catch. In November, shortly before the agreement regarding FBI / Yemeni cooperation was signed, dozens of low- and mid-level Yemeni officials were detained for questioning. This strongly suggested that the Cole attack was carried out with government knowledge, if not government assistance and approval. A few of those officials were arrested for issuing false passports and other documents, and for possessing explosives, forming an armed gang, and threatening state security. However, the Yemenis informed the FBI in late November - only a few days after the agreement on how to handle the investigation had been signed - that the inquiry would not proceed from the low-level Yemeni officials interviewed so far to senior officials in the capital, Sana - this in spite of the fact that several such officials have had close ties with bin Laden, and that Western and Yemeni sources reported seeing bin Laden in Sana as late as April 1998. (The Cole attack is thought to have been in the works since 1997.)
Since the Yemenis retained the exclusive right to decide whom to detain and interview, their decision not to question high-ranking officials effectively prohibits FBI investigators from discovering how much the Yemeni government knew about the attack. Bin Laden, as the self-proclaimed leader of a holy war against the US, has been offered to us as a scapegoat. He has, of course, proved impossible to capture despite years of effort.
What we have here, then, is another factor to add to Yemen's mix of violence, drugs and anti-American sentiment. The Yemeni government is bent on concealing the involvement of any high-level officials, knowing full well that America's pragmatic foreign policy means Yemen will continue to receive foreign aid, equipment, technology, etc., so long as nothing is definitively proven about official Yemeni involvement in the Cole attack.
Just to be certain, the Yemeni government is promising the speedy trial of 3 to 6 low-level officials in January. It's a safe bet that the Yemeni judiciary, known for its susceptibility to bribes and government pressure, will find all the suspects guilty and condemn them to speedy execution. With the trial over, Yemen can officially close the Cole investigation, preventing any possibility of revelations embarrassing to the government. Because of the way the investigation was initially conducted (without the sort of rigorous standards that will hold up in a US court), the US will have no chance of continuing and prosecuting on its own.
Yemeni cooperation is, then, merely a definitive way of saying that the ultimate perpetrators of the Cole attack will not be traced and exposed by the Yemeni government. The long-term results are bound to be disastrous. Our ships have now been proven vulnerable to terrorist attacks, which are bound to continue. The American response to the attack was so weak - particularly the State Department's assertion that it was "pleased" with the results of the investigation - that terrorists will assume they can continue to attack with impunity.
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