WUNRN
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/middleeast/yemen-trials-of-spring.html
WEBSITE LINK INCLUDES VIDEO.
YEMEN – A BRIEF MOMENT BEFORE WOMEN WERE PUSHED ASIDE AGAIN
YEMEN: WHEN IS THE TIME FOR WOMEN - VIDEO
By KAREEM FAHIM
- JUNE 7, 2015
CAIRO — When protesters in Yemen
succeeded in ousting President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012, their success
stirred hopes for change in a place that had suffered mightily from poverty and
corruption for decades under his autocratic rule.
President Obama said at the time that Yemen could
serve as a model for peaceful transition in the Middle East. The developments
raised the possibility that power would flow to marginalized groups, and seemed
especially promising for women, who played a central role in the revolt and
were guaranteed seats in a national conference convened to chart the country’s
future.
Instead, Yemen is now unraveling, torn apart by civil war and under aerial
attack by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. Nearly 2,000 people have
been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the fighting.
The demands of the protesters who gathered against
Mr. Saleh are a memory that grows ever more distant, and raw: Mr. Saleh remains a potent force in Yemen’s politics,
directing henchmen in feared security forces that still do his bidding. Over
the years, he has taunted his detractors with frequent television appearances
and interviews, dismissing the Arab Spring protests as a foreign conspiracy,
and vowing never to leave Yemen.
Many place blame for the current crisis on a transitional plan brokered by
the Persian Gulf states that favored incremental change and stability over
full-throated democracy, and that was ultimately no match for a political
system dominated by powerful men and built on patronage and graft. The
transitional deal gave Mr. Saleh immunity from prosecution for past crimes and transferred power to his long-serving and uninspiring deputy,
Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Yemen’s Western allies, including the United States, were accused of
focusing disproportionately on security threats, like Yemen’s powerful branch
of Al Qaeda, at the expense of confronting important economic and political
issues. Last year, the Houthis, a northern Yemeni rebel group, seized on the
popular dissatisfaction and stormed the capital, setting off yet another
political crisis. As tensions festered, political violence turned to civil war.
Some of the activists who had protested against Mr. Saleh were killed,
victims of the spreading violence; others fled the country. Belquis Al Lahabi,
seen in the video above, was one of the women who held a seat in the national
dialogue. She fled to Jordan after her house was destroyed by an explosion in
April, and does not want to return.