It’ll be easy to help out Yemen in fighting their fertile soil for terrorism: Give 50 billion dollars over the next ten years, and forget just about half of the country’s debt to other nations. That is, if we may believe Hisham Sharaf, Yemen’s deputy minister of planning and international cooperation.
The plagued countries foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi doesn’t make things much easier. As soon as foreign reform-demands enter the picture, he vigorously starts shaking his head. That’s Yemeni’s business, and can be decided at other times, on different occasions.
Why yes, it can. But it shouldn’t. The last promises made by Western countries towards Yemen stem from 2006, when five billion aid dollars were written down. Only about 415 million of that amount has actually been transferred. Instead of illegitimately complaining about this, the Yemeni government should have started an intense fight against corruption, which is the main reason why investors, of whatever kind, stopped the flow of money.
In recent times we have seen and heard much of this country, formerly so well hidden, or so it seems, from journalistic pens. In all fairness it can be said that – even though nations should have been quicker to step up and act with Yemen, in Yemen – there will ‘always’ remain relatively poor countries, so taking away those things that make terrorism thrive will, in principle, be a hard nut to crack. Spending more money on these countries is therefore not a good way to go if it virtually means flushing money down the toilet.
America has already given its word that it’ll double its efforts in terms of dollars, which mean 140 million dollars will head towards this part of the Arabian Peninsula. The United Kingdom sticks to their old plan, giving 160 million, spread over a four year term running from 2006 to 2010. How their policies and numbers will be changed is unclear to me, but I figure this will be decided after the elections, by the Tories in probable words. One thing shone nearly as bright as our sun: No military aid in the struggle against al-Qaida. The depth of unpopularity of the Afghan war is great; all are weary to enter another battle. Usual signs of allegiance are present of course, such as training-help, technological hand-outs and arms.
Summarizing things a little, we have two important perspectives. Yemen’s one – a demand for money and social improvement -and a Western one – a cry for security, safety and probably democracy-, both agreeing on the issue of state autonomy and military help. The latter is easy: Just don’t send in soldiers, which cannot be difficult, as sending troops will be political suicide in these times. The remaining aspects of the perspectives are reconcilable, even more so in theory. A demand for money and social improvement generally goes well with democracy and safety.
The problems then do not lie in goals, but in how to achieve them. Personally, I find it erroneous to suppose sending money does any good if the state can’t argue a good case as a justification of how aid-money has been spend in the past, and will be spent in the future. A demand how Yemen intends to do so will be of vital importance therefore. That is the first obstacle, as they are quite reluctant to “listen and obey”. Rescuing a nation in poor health will take time, probably a lot of it, but it will take indefinite time if we’re unable to find solid grounds to build government institutions on.
Of Yemen’s 23 million people, almost half lives on less than two dollars a day. Whatever is your standard of wealth, this is not it. Much of reform has already been discussed by politicians, and I think most Western nations are willing to pay the price to give terrorism another blow. Do it right this time though, and focus on Yemen’s population. Remember: It became a state susceptible to terrorism because it is poor and corrupt. Take away those things, and your problem might disappear as quickly as it arose (to another place). To do so, serious and uncompromising demands will have to be drafted. Yemen must cooperate and take on its own rotten core, only then will dollars and Euros be your friend.
Yesterday the London conference on Yemen was held; today the powers that be will discuss Afghanistan. Where the Afghans will see their country’s future being discussed for a near full day, Yemeni citizens had to hope for results with a two hour meeting. I wrote this more to get my thoughts to line up, than with the intention of posting it. The results of the conference were, however, so desperately predictable that they might as well have gone to the pub instead.
The Netherlands will lead an initiative that needs to help carve a democratic state, based on principles of justice, out of Yemen’s mess. As no meddling is wanted, this will take the form of an advice. How on earth this is going to work still makes me wonder, but in any case they’re willing to do this without spending any more money on the country than they’ve already done, as Koenders and Verhagen (ministers for development cooperation and foreign affairs) state that the Netherlands have already paid a fair amount of money in recent years. That is correct, even if the policy will probably get more expensive if there is no immediate success.
And what else are they aiming for? Social and economic improvement. How? Unclear, though money echoes as always. For the average Yemenite, what does this mean? Not much, as long as prices of bread and stability of gas supplies don’t change. According to journalist Judith Spiegel, located in Yemen, what the Yemeni people want is a new government, plus revolution in the whole social and legal order. Small feat?