Friday, February 4, 2011


Facing Unrest, Yemen’s Leader Says He Will Step Down in 2013

SANA, Yemen — In another reverberation of the popular anger rocking the region, the longtime president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, announced concessions on Wednesday that included suspending his campaign for constitutional changes that would allow him to remain president for life and pledging that his son would not seek to be his successor.
Hani Mohammed/Associated Press
Backers of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, some waving his portrait, staged a rally in Sana, Yemen, on Wednesday. Antigovernment protests are expected Thursday.
Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
President Ali Abdullah Saleh addressed the parliament in Sanaa on Wednesday and said he would not extend his presidency beyond 2013.
“No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock,” Mr. Saleh said Wednesday during a legislative session that was boycotted by the opposition. “I present these concessions in the interests of the country. The interests of the country come before our personal interests.”
He ordered the creation of a fund to employ university graduates and to extend social security coverage, increased wages and reduced income taxes and offered to resume a political dialogue that collapsed last October over elections. In answer to opposition complaints that voter records are rife with fraud, he said he would delay the April parliamentary elections until better records could be compiled.
But it remained to be seen whether Mr. Saleh, whose current term ends in 2013, was simply trying to siphon vigor from the antigovernment protests planned for Thursday. Those demonstrations are intended to build on gatherings last week that turned into the largest protests against Mr. Saleh, who has ruled for 32 years. He promised in 2005 not to run again but changed his mind the next year.
“The president didn’t say anything new,” said Muhammad al-Qutabi, a spokesman for the opposition. “What he offered today didn’t even meet the opposition’s old demands.”
Khaled al-Anesi, the leader of the National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedom, an opposition group, said, “He is going to put the amendments in the freezer and take them out when he needs them.”
Opposition lawmakers, an eclectic group dominated by Islamists, were likewise not impressed.
“He’s been making promises for 32 years and never kept one,” said one, Shawki al-Qadi. “When he promised to fight poverty, we got poorer. When he promised to leave office, he made amendments to stay forever.”
Governments around the region have been shaken as momentum has gathered across North Africa and the Middle East for deep, even radical, change in countries with leaders long backed by the United States.
Tunisia’s president has been ousted, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remains embattled even after declaring that he would step down after finishing his term in September, and King Abdullah II of Jordan has fired his government. And in Syria, calls for a “day of rage” this weekend against the government of President Bashar al-Assad were spreading on Facebook, which is formally banned in the country, and on Twitter.
Yemen’s stability has been of increasing concern to the United States, which has provided $250 million in military aid in the past five years. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a visit to Sana, the capital, in January, urged Mr. Saleh to establish a new dialogue with the opposition, saying it would help to stabilize the country.
Mr. Saleh has been seeking to stave off unrest, recently promising to raise salaries for civil servants and the military, in a country where many people live on less than $2 a day. On Tuesday, the state news agency, Saba, reported that the president had ordered retailers to stop charging the military and security forces for food and gasoline.
The Yemeni opposition, which has promised to hold protests every Thursday for the next month, has not demanded Mr. Saleh’s ouster thus far, but rather reforms and a smooth transition of power through elections. Fears of violence run high in this country, where the potential for strife is difficult to overstate.
The poorest of the Arab countries, Yemen is troubled by a rebellion in the north and a struggle for secession in the formerly independent south. In recent years, an affiliate of Al Qaeda has turned parts of the country into a refuge beyond the state’s reach, from which it has launched terrorist attacks against the West. A remarkably high proportion of citizens are armed.
“It is still possible to make changes peacefully because the opposition is still leading the Yemeni street,” said Mr. Qadi, the opposition lawmaker. “Once it starts leading itself, then the situation will be very difficult.”
But there were signs that the government intended to make sure there was a significant counterforce to the opposition on Thursday. It has been helping transport hundreds of rural Yemenis from the outskirts of the capital, and from the pro-Saleh province of Khawlan, into the city. About 500 pro-government people gathered in a central square in Sana, setting up large white tents with the intention of holding the area through the night.
Dozens of protesters and antigovernment activists were arrested and beaten later in the day.
Some in Sana expressed cautious optimism that peaceful change might be possible.
“As long as we have started, we are on the right track for democracy,” said Sheik Mohammed Abulahoum, a prominent tribal leader and politician. “This way, it will be a safe, secure and permanent transition of power, without casualties, and at a low cost.”
Ahmed Shelaly, 41, a taxi driver and the media director for a local nonprofit group, said: “When the next elections come, change is necessary. The president decided not to run out of fear. He’s scared because of Egypt, and people here have weapons, much more so than Egypt.”
Laura Kasinof reported from Sana, and Nada Bakri from Beirut, Lebanon. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Muhammad al-Ahmadi from Sana and Alan Cowell from Paris.
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Thursday, February 3, 2011

OBAMA: UNE STRATÉGIE PÉRILLEUSE POUR ISRAEL.‏


OBAMA A-T-IL UNE STRATÉGIE?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/its-all-obamas-fault/article1892202/?cmpid=rss1
Israelis fear the haste with which the U.S. turned its back on its closest ally in the Arab world signals that Washington can’t be trusted | AFP-Getty Images

Yossi Klein Halevi

The price of the new American virtue

YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI

JERUSALEM— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Click Here
Barack Obama’s demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accept an immediate transition of power has hardly calmed an anxious Israeli people watching the fall of its closest Arab ally. For Israelis, the American President doesn’t appear principled and resolute but untrustworthy and flailing.


NETANYAHU SONGE À AUGMENTER LES BUDGETS MILITAIRES.

L’ARMÉE ÉGYPTIENNE LE DERNIER RAMPART?
http://www.nationalpost.com/Only+army+power+restore+stability/4214467/story.html

Only army has power to restore stability

A  supporter of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rides a  camel through the melee during a clash between pro-Mubarak and  anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Wednesday.
Chris Hondros, Getty Images
A supporter of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rides a camel through the melee during a clash between pro-Mubarak and anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Wednesday.
Peter Goodspeed, National Post · Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011
We may be witnessing the final days of Hosni Mubarak's 30 years in power, but it isn't the end of six decades of military control in Egypt.
The only actors with the power, prestige and experience to temporarily resolve the crisis are the country's armed forces.
Neither the aged and faltering Egyptian President, nor the disparate ad hoc coalition of opposition groups, united only in their opposition to the aging leader, have the wherewithal to end Egypt's days of rage.
But its army, the largest in the Arab world and the 10th largest worldwide, has been a central force in Egyptian politics ever since officers staged a coup and overthrew the monarchy in 1952.
Egypt's military has always been the guarantor of state stability. While it has willingly stood in the background, enjoying a wide variety of political and economic perks, including top government jobs, cheap housing and enhanced health care, it has always remained the ultimate arbiter of events in the country.
"Egypt's government is not so much a Mubarak government as it is a military government," said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. "Generals and retired generals control much of the government and much of the economy."
The Mubarak regime may already be in its death throes, but the former air force commander has already handed off power to the military that nurtured him and his government for three decades.
He named Lieutenant-General Omar Suleiman, head of the military intelligence service, Vice-President last Friday and appointed Ahmed Shafik, a former air force commander, as Prime Minister on Saturday. Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the Defence Minister, was named as deputy premier.
"If anyone ever doubted it, recent events highlight that the armed forces is the pillar of the regime," said Steven Cook, a Middle East expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.
"The National Democratic Party [Mubarak's ruling party] no longer exists. Big business has fled. The police forces have collapsed. Only the military
remains and thus far they don't seem to be budging."
"We are getting into existential territory," he added. "The result could be a drawn-out stalemate with the military pursuing a holding action while Omar Suleiman's intelligence service tries to split the opposition."
He suspects the military's ultimate strategy is to contain and control the pro-democracy protests for as long as possible and to play for time, while trying to weaken the opposition by peeling away less-committed demonstrators.
That game plan may have come into play Wednesday, when soldiers stationed around Cairo's Tahrir Square did not intervene as dozens of people were injured in vicious street fighting between Mubarak supporters and pro-democracy demonstrators.
On Tuesday, after Mr. Mubarak announced he would retire instead of standing for re-election in September, the army told the demonstrators to call it quits and go home.
State television ran a scrolling message reading, "The armed forces call on the protesters to go home for the sake of bringing back stability."
Wednesday's street fighting, while dramatic was not overwhelmingly deadly. It was merely a taste of the chaotic violence that could engulf Egypt, if the protesters do not back down or if the military does not step in to seize control.
It could be used to justify a military crackdown, but it might also serve to discourage demonstrators from attending a planned protest march to the Presidential Palace Friday.
Friday's confrontation could easily become a turning point in Egypt's rebellion. A massive public protest or a more violent repetition of Wednesday's street fights may force the military to act, moving against Mr. Mubarak and driving him from power so they can set up a transitional government.
In a country with a growing Islamist movement and deep poverty, the lower ranks of the military may be ripe for rebellion, especially if they are ever ordered to turn against unarmed civilians in the streets.
"My guess is that they will be hugely reluctant to fire on civilians," said Bruce Rutherford, author of the book Egypt After Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in the Arab World.
"The military is a very respected institution and very much sees itself as an institution that is protecting the Egyptian people.
"It is at that moment when senior military leaders would essentially make clear to Mubarak that there are limits as to how far they will go to keep him in office. And that's the point when Mubarak would exit."
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/Only+army+power+restore+stability/4214467/story.html#ixzz1D1Wgjdk1

LES SABLES BITUMINEUX FAVOSÉS PAR LA CRISE EGYPTIENNE?

MM