REUTERS

NEW YORK/ADEN/SANAA: Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakul Karman made an impassioned plea to the United Nations Tuesday to repudiate a Gulf Arab plan that would grant immunity to her country’s “war criminal” president.
Karman, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with two Liberian women this month, arrived in New York as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council circulated a draft resolution to the full 15-nation body. That proposal urges the swift “signature and implementation” of the Gulf Arab plan, under which Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh would be immune from prosecution.

“The youth’s peaceful revolution is against the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) initiative, especially because it gives immunity to Saleh and his family,” Karman told reporters at a demonstration near the United Nations, where she was greeted by a cheering crowd of around 150 Yemeni supporters.

“We don’t think that the Security Council will be trapped in a resolution that will give immunity to the regime,” said Karman, who dedicated her Nobel prize to the Arab uprisings and to those killed in the upheavals.

While it urges implementation of the GCC deal, the draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, would have the council say it “stresses that all those responsible for violence, human rights violations and abuses should be held accountable.” It did not give any details on how accountability would be achieved.
The human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticized the immunity deal that is central to the GCC plan as well.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky also rejected the idea of an amnesty for Yemen, saying: “It’s vital that there should be no impunity.” A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said international law prohibits amnesties for gross violations of human rights.

Council diplomats told Reuters that they hoped the draft resolution, which was penned by Britain in consultation with France, the United States, Russia and China, would be put to a vote and approved before the end of the week.
Russia and China, which vetoed a European-drafted resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown, are not planning to block the Yemen resolution, council diplomats say.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Wednesday he was ready to sign a Gulf peace initiative calling for a transfer of power if the U.S., Europe and Gulf Arab states provided guarantees for implementing the proposal.
Saleh has previously backed down three times from signing the proposal, which calls on Saleh to hand power to his deputy ahead of new elections.

“Now that the president has returned, they say there is no need for the vice president to sign. Fine, I am ready to sign,” Saleh told a meeting of party leaders in Sanaa broadcast on state television. “But provide guarantees to implement this initiative. We want Gulf guarantees, first, second, European guarantees and third American guarantees,” he added.

In further violence Wednesday two people were killed and 11 wounded when an unidentified assailant threw a grenade into the crowded market place of a southern Yemen town, witnesses and doctors said.
In Yemen’s capital Sanaa Tuesday, at least six people were killed by security forces firing on protesters demanding an end to Saleh’s rule.

Karman read the crowd a letter she has written to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council demanding their support for peaceful protesters in Yemen and Syria, where a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters has killed over 3,000 civilians, according to United Nations figures.

“We’re here calling on the United Nations to stand up for human rights and democracy, which are the principles it was founded upon,” she said through interpreters.
The 32-year-old journalist and mother of three added that she would not depart from New York City until such time as the council takes action against Saleh.