AP, Sanaa :
As the US, other Nato powers and neighbouring monarchies – the “Group of 10” – shut down their embassies in Sanaa and evacuated their diplomats earlier this month, the UN Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 2201.
It called on Houthi rebels to surrender their military gains and everyone to get behind the 2011 Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) initiative and the recently completed draft constitution.
Jamal Benomar, the UN special envoy to Yemen, is worried that instead of successfully implementing the GCC initiative, the country might be heading towards civil war. His concerns are valid.
But a multi-polar balance of military power and indigenous political mediation might yet forestall widespread violence.
In 2011, there was a mass uprising/camp-out across Yemen. It was mostly peaceful, although more than 50 demonstrators were killed in March, and President Ali Abdullah Saleh himself was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in June.
While Mr Saleh was recuperating in Saudi Arabia, leaders of a National Dialogue that had tried to negotiate the impasse between Northern and Southern leaders before the outbreak of a civil war in 1994 re-launched that Dialogue.
This project was overtaken by the GCC deal with Mr Saleh, whereby he handed presidential power to his hand-picked Vice-President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in exchange for immunity.
Mr Saleh also remained the head of the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party, which in turn retained its parliamentary majority.
This deal was signed in Saudi Arabia, with witnesses from the Gulf monarchies but not Yemen’s “revolutionary youth”.
It was a very good idea, grounded in Yemeni precedents, and helped tamp down tensions in 2012 and part of 2013. But in the end it did not deliver.
Although the NDC involved young and/or female intellectuals and technocrats, most delegates were aging politicians.
Working groups tackled a range of issues – from economic development to the Houthi and Southern problems, respectively, although those dissident groups were under-represented in the negotiations. Some working groups made real progress.
As the US, other Nato powers and neighbouring monarchies – the “Group of 10” – shut down their embassies in Sanaa and evacuated their diplomats earlier this month, the UN Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 2201.
It called on Houthi rebels to surrender their military gains and everyone to get behind the 2011 Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) initiative and the recently completed draft constitution.
Jamal Benomar, the UN special envoy to Yemen, is worried that instead of successfully implementing the GCC initiative, the country might be heading towards civil war. His concerns are valid.
But a multi-polar balance of military power and indigenous political mediation might yet forestall widespread violence.
In 2011, there was a mass uprising/camp-out across Yemen. It was mostly peaceful, although more than 50 demonstrators were killed in March, and President Ali Abdullah Saleh himself was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in June.
While Mr Saleh was recuperating in Saudi Arabia, leaders of a National Dialogue that had tried to negotiate the impasse between Northern and Southern leaders before the outbreak of a civil war in 1994 re-launched that Dialogue.
This project was overtaken by the GCC deal with Mr Saleh, whereby he handed presidential power to his hand-picked Vice-President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in exchange for immunity.
Mr Saleh also remained the head of the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party, which in turn retained its parliamentary majority.
This deal was signed in Saudi Arabia, with witnesses from the Gulf monarchies but not Yemen’s “revolutionary youth”.
It was a very good idea, grounded in Yemeni precedents, and helped tamp down tensions in 2012 and part of 2013. But in the end it did not deliver.
Although the NDC involved young and/or female intellectuals and technocrats, most delegates were aging politicians.
Working groups tackled a range of issues – from economic development to the Houthi and Southern problems, respectively, although those dissident groups were under-represented in the negotiations. Some working groups made real progress.
