Friday, March 11, 2011

SANAA: Yemen’s embattled president proposed Thursday that the government draw up a new constitution guaranteeing the independence of the Parliament and judiciary, but thousands of unsatisfied protesters poured into the streets after his speech to demand the ouster of the Yemeni ruler of 32 years.

The demonstrators have set up protest camps in the capital and the cities of Aden and Taiz, saying they won’t leave until U.S.-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh does. The opposition promptly rejected Saleh’s latest offer.
The U.S. ambassador to Yemen said protesters’ demand for Saleh’s ouster would not solve the Arabian Peninsula state’s woes, urging them to pursue dialogue instead.
Speaking to thousands of cheering supporters gathered in a football stadium, the autocratic Saleh said he wanted to form a unity government to help put in place a new political system.

“Firstly we will form a new constitution based on the separation of powers. A referendum on this new constitution will be held before the end of this year,” he said, speaking beneath a large portrait of himself.
“I’m already sure that this initiative won’t be accepted by the opposition, but in order to do the right thing, I am offering this to the people and they will decide,” he added.

Saleh said he ordered the government to “fulfill the demands of the youth camping in Sanaa, Aden and Taiz and in other cities but without sit-ins or chaos.”
He pledged that Yemen would hold general elections and form a new government by early 2012.
Shortly after Saleh finished his speech, some 4,000 people, mostly students, took to the streets and headed toward the main square in Sanaa, calling for his downfall.

Also in the capital, some 5,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medics from all over the country marched toward the central square, wearing their white robes and decrying this week’s shooting by army troops of anti-government protesters gathered at Sanaa University. There were many women among the marchers Thursday.
“What a shame! What a shame! Peaceful demonstrations fired on,” they shouted.

Opposition leader Yassin Said Numan said Saleh’s initiative came too late. “The president’s initiative has been overtaken by events and facts on the ground today, but if it came six months ago, the matter would be totally different,” Numan said. Nevertheless, he said the opposition parties would study the proposal before sending an official rejection back to Saleh.

In an interview with the state magazine Al-Syasiah, which will be published in full Saturday, U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein said dialogue was needed to find solutions acceptable to the opposition and the government.
“We’ve been clear in saying we don’t believe that the demonstrations are the place where Yemen’s problems will be solved. We think the problems have to be resolved through this process of dialogue and negotiations,” he said.

“Our question is always, ‘If President Saleh leaves, then what do you do on the next day?” said Feierstein, alluding to fears that, after decades of monolithic Saleh rule, a power vacuum might ensue and be filled by Islamist militants.
Saleh has already made several concessions to protesters, but has refused to bow to their central demand that he relinquish power immediately, saying he wanted to see out his term which expires in 2013.

“What president Saleh doesn’t realize is that in the past 32 years he’s really racked up a trust deficit and people just don’t believe him anymore,” said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen scholar from Princeton University.
The government and the opposition agreed in 2009 to extend the current Parliament’s term for two years, until February 2011.

The Saleh-dominated assembly had wanted to hold parliamentary elections next month, but the opposition has rejected holding the ballot without reforming the election law first. The controversy over the issue has shelved any immediate plans for the election.

The tensions in Yemen escalated dramatically this week with the shooting Tuesday evening at the Sanaa University, when government troops fired live ammunition, killing one person and wounding scores of others.
Students have been sleeping on campus in anti-government protests since mid-February. Yemen’s Interior Minister, Gen. Mouthar al-Masri, said Wednesday night that gunfire from the rooftop of a building near the university led to the clashes. – AP, Reuters