Yemen and security
Nos vraies vacances, on peut maintenant vous les révéler...
You are leaving to Yemen for vacation, for your honey moon? Mostly, people told us to watch out not to be kidnapped or even to become victim of a terror attack. No blame for that because very little is known in the Western world about this poorest of all Arab countries in the far South of the Middle East. I guess at its best it is the earth colored brown and white houses almost looking like made of ginger bread or the clay ancient “sky scrapers” of the Arab “Chicago of in the dessert” (Hans Helfritz) are referred to.
Before our trip to Yemen I would not say that we could totally exclude ourselves of this ignorance. We even did not know that the Bin Laden family is originally is from a village in Hadramout and one of Osama’s wives comes from a village south of Sana’a called Al Qaeda. Something that could have contributed to more fear and worries. However, in so far as security issues are concerned we really experienced the complete difference. Except for just some minor unimportant incidences like friendly hostage taking (see picture above), Yemen seems to be far beyond of anything than insecure. Here some personal thoughts and experiences about the issue of security.
En savoir plus sur Al Qaeda au Yemen : Décryptage, une émission de RFI.
Et pour y voir un peu plus clair sur la politique du Yemen, ou plutôt pour en apercevoir la complexité à travers le point de vue d'un auteur, même s'il date un peu, cet article du monde diplo.
I am not an expert to judge on the question of global terrorism or Al Qaeda activities (yet, I doubt if the governmental experts deciding on this know what they are talking about). In any case, Yemen did not really appear to me as a hotbed of terrorism. Some might believe so looking at the role of religion in Yemen and considering that as fundamentalist. There certainly is no question that Yemen is deeply coined by the Islamic religion. However, I dissent to understand religion as a breeding ground for terrorism.
Religion is important for people in Yemen. More than once we were asked if we were Muslims. Having to negate this question some expressed their hope that we will convert to the true religion. Questionable activities as regards the Islamic religion in Europe such as they have happened in the past for example in the Netherlands or Denmark are strongly disapproved. While it appears for many people in Yemen difficult to distinguish between some Danish or some Dutch people carrying out such actions, and “the” Danish (as much as we like to talk about the Muslim world), we were without any reservations warmly – and sometimes even much more - welcome everywhere. Religion was an issue but no boundary but rather an obligation to be hospitable. Religion is no reason for terrorism.
From far away things are difficult to judge. Some first hand experience in Yemen on the ground really helped to be more reflected about this issue. Certainly, one should not become to easy going about the whole issue. Of course there are some areas where one should not go and even (some) Yemenites prefer not to go. Rivalries between tribes and especially between tribes and the central government have been and still are reality in Yemen. Heavily fortified villages that we visited during our trip prove that in the past these rivalries seem to have a long history. Thus, even today, areas such as the far North (Saada) one should better avoid. Another risky area is in the desert in and around Ma'rib. Somewhere here, Al Qadia is claimed to have a training camp. In Summer 2007 some Spanish tourist were victim of a sucide bombing in the ruins of Ma'rib. In any case, the Ministry of Tourism does not issue any permits to Sada’a and crossing the desert via Marib to reach the Hadramout in the East is only possible with military or governmental armed “protection”.
In any case, military “protection” is totally unacceptable for me. Arming oneself for protection rather creates insecurity than giving protection. Besides a question of principles, in any case an arms protected convey of tourist vehicles to me rather seems the perfect and highly non-“collateral damage” (in order not to kill Yemenintes) aim. At times however, it is difficult to get around this even when using general public transportation. Thus on our way up north from Yemen to the town of Anram, a police car accompanied the collective taxis. Yet, the taxi driver was making a joke of uncoupling the police car with a risky overtaking maneuver of a couple of trucks. Catching up with us, the police car than was racing the taxi starting a little game of overtaking each other. Shortly before Anram, the police vehicle disappeared leaving us alone after just that short distance of road between Sana`a and Anram.
A little complementary anecdote to the issue of military protection: in Hadramout, for once we spent a night in a very nice and expensive hotel. Being residence of probably all the tourists coming to Hadramout and wanting to see Shibam, as well as accommodation for Total employees, I could not think of a better place to be targeted by terrorists. I would have preferred not to be in this place yet accepted to make it one of the only very nice and exclusive hotel accommodations (all other places were hotels for some 3 to 6 Euros or camping). Arriving at the place many worst expectations were even exceeded. The entrance of the hotel compound resembled rather an army base than a hotel. At least 20 to 30 soldiers and police men, all more or less heavily armed populated the entrance and a pick-up jeep with a heavy machine gun on the back just came through the gate. Maximum protection for Western tourists!!! At least that’s what it looked like until we heard from a hotel employee at the reception that this same night the vice president of the Republic of Yemen was staying in the hotel! The next day, the “protection” was reduced to one police guard at the entrance.
While we were in Yemen two raids happened: one on the US Embassy and one on an oil pipeline Hadramout. Certainly, there is no justification for sending messages or reaching whatever goal by violence. Yet, some extra thoughts could rather be put with global political, economic and military involvement of the Western world or concretely in Yemen, US-American and French companies exploiting Yemen’s oil resources and who is really getting most profit out of that.
Another potential source of insecurity might be a wide presence of weapons which is one of the other images connected with Yemen. I had expected to meet many people with Kalashnikov at least outside of Sana’a. Yet, we were surprised that we did not meet any armed people besides military and police. It was only a little later that we learnt about a new law being implemented a few months forbidding weapons in the street. The law is obviously strictly obeyed among people. Yet, at least on one souq in the Hadramout there also where people freely selling heavy arms (dating from rather “antic” – before Second World War guns – to Kalashnikows).
Souk dans le Wadi Do'an, à Boutha
Finalizing this question about security, in comparision to for example Egpyt, Yemen appears to me far more secure. In Egypt many more tourists were victim of terrorist attacks. In any case, I believe our best “protection” was that we know the Middle East to some extend, that we followed some basic rules of what one could also call respect for the local customs and - maybe the most imporant - that we have basic Arabic language skills. Thus we could use public transportation and were able to communicate with the people. All were very pleased that we talked Arabic and being among the “normal” people rather than in a bulk of foreigners with armed protection is probably the best protection one can get. In any case, on a criminal aspect, Yemen is one of the safest places in the world. We did not have to worry to walk through Sana’a’s suqs late at night – in Jerusalem I often did this with rather mixed feelings.