Saturday, August 11, 2007
Ex-Yemeni Soldiers Step Up Protests
ADEN, Yemen -- Security forces in southern Yemen clashed Monday with former army soldiers protesting low pensions and demanding to be allowed back into the armed forces. Witnesses said one person was killed and another injured in the fifth consecutive day of street demonstrations.
The death, which police denied, was the second to be reported since Thursday. Witnesses who reported the deaths requested anonymity saying they feared government reprisal.
The protests by thousands of former soldiers in three southern Yemen provinces highlight growing tensions between southern and northern Yemen 13 years after a short-lived civil war ended.
Most of the protesters were members of the army of south Yemen who were ousted after being defeated by northern forces during the civil war.
Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters in Lawder, Thale'a and Radafan, located north of this southern port city that was once the capital of socialist South Yemen.
In a statement carried on the state news agency, Saba, the government blamed the conflict on "lawbreaking elements who entered from neighboring provinces seeking incitement and chaos."
Organizers said they will continue demonstrations. They charge that the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is ignoring complaints of discrimination against southerners at the hands of the northern-dominated leadership.
North and South Yemen were united in 1990, with Saleh _ who had been the north's president _ remaining in his post. In 1994, rebels announced secession of the south, battling northern forces for several months in a civil war that ended in their defeat.
Afterward, about 60,000 southern servicemen were discharged from the army, and many of them fled abroad. Most have since returned, drawn back by an amnesty and promises they would be allowed to re-enlist.
But many have not been allowed back into the military, which is dominated by northerners. At the same time, southerners complain they are kept out of government jobs _ a main source of employment in the south _ in favor of northerners brought in to fill the bureaucracy and security forces.
Northerners also continue to hold large tracts of land in the south granted to them after the civil war.
ADEN, Yemen -- Security forces in southern Yemen clashed Monday with former army soldiers protesting low pensions and demanding to be allowed back into the armed forces. Witnesses said one person was killed and another injured in the fifth consecutive day of street demonstrations.
The death, which police denied, was the second to be reported since Thursday. Witnesses who reported the deaths requested anonymity saying they feared government reprisal.
The protests by thousands of former soldiers in three southern Yemen provinces highlight growing tensions between southern and northern Yemen 13 years after a short-lived civil war ended.
Most of the protesters were members of the army of south Yemen who were ousted after being defeated by northern forces during the civil war.
Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters in Lawder, Thale'a and Radafan, located north of this southern port city that was once the capital of socialist South Yemen.
In a statement carried on the state news agency, Saba, the government blamed the conflict on "lawbreaking elements who entered from neighboring provinces seeking incitement and chaos."
Organizers said they will continue demonstrations. They charge that the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is ignoring complaints of discrimination against southerners at the hands of the northern-dominated leadership.
North and South Yemen were united in 1990, with Saleh _ who had been the north's president _ remaining in his post. In 1994, rebels announced secession of the south, battling northern forces for several months in a civil war that ended in their defeat.
Afterward, about 60,000 southern servicemen were discharged from the army, and many of them fled abroad. Most have since returned, drawn back by an amnesty and promises they would be allowed to re-enlist.
But many have not been allowed back into the military, which is dominated by northerners. At the same time, southerners complain they are kept out of government jobs _ a main source of employment in the south _ in favor of northerners brought in to fill the bureaucracy and security forces.
Northerners also continue to hold large tracts of land in the south granted to them after the civil war.
