Speakers: Thomas Small, Aimen Dean & Baraa Shiban
Thomas: Welcome back to Conflicted with me, Thomas Small, my wonderful co-host, Aimen Dean. And once again, with the now old friend of the show, Baraa Shiban. Baraa, you are almost part of the furniture here now.
Baraa: Yeah, exactly. I don't think I can escape this right now.
Aimen: Oh, yeah. He is part of the furniture right now because we're going to play lots of musical chairs today and he'll be one of the chairs.
Thomas: It's true. In this episode, the third of our ever-growing series on the modern history of Yemen. Dear listener, you can prepare for some pretty complicated games of political musical chairs.
And thankfully we have Baraa here whose first-hand expertise on the subject is really going to come into its own, because today we're talking about the Arab Spring, a momentous event, which we've discussed so many times on Conflicted, but one which had a really acutely destabilising effect on Yemen.
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Baraa's story is truly thrilling, evocative, an account of the hope and then the tragedy, which befell his country back in 2011, and he was right at the centre of all of it. Let's jump right back in.
Now, normally on Conflicted, we look at grand spans of history skipping through decades and even centuries in a single episode, but today we're going to look at pretty much just one year, 2011, and what a year it was for Yemeni history.
But of course, before we get there, we do have to set the scene, which means we have to go back in time a little bit. In the last episode, we left the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, in the year 2010, having fought six wars against the Houthis.
Now, I don't have to remind you who the Houthis are, there are an armed militant millenarian group of Shia persuasion to some extent, allied to Iran and Hezbollah, who beginning in the early noughties, engaged in a series of wars with the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, based in Sana’a the Yemeni capital.
Aimen: Those are the Houthis. I thought you were talking about a chain of restaurants in the U.S., the Hooters, where they have these skimpy clad girls-
Thomas: Not Hooters, Aimen. The Houthis.
Aimen: Oh, okay. Okay, okay. Sorry about that.
Thomas: So, yes, thank you dear co-host, thank you for everything you bring to the program. So yeah, we left Saleh sitting at the top of his throne feeling strong.
However, to understand what happens next when the Arab Spring breaks out. We've got to look at the general political scene in Yemen in the years before that happened.
And first of all, we're going to have to lay out for you the cast of characters, especially three main characters, three men who at that time sat at the top of Yemeni politics. And if you don't know who they are, then you won't understand anything that follows.
And the first one, of course, about which we don't need to say that much, is the president himself, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Now Baraa, Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of Yemen after ‘94, had good standing, more or less with his countrymen, but was overseeing a process whereby a greater crony capitalist system was enriching people at the top of society.
So, one of those people at the top of society who was getting very rich indeed, and whom we briefly mentioned in the previous episode, but who we're going to go into a lot in this episode. He's a very important figure. He's the second main character of the episode. His name is Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.
Now, dear listener, there are a lot of men in this story with the surname, al-Ahmar. So, I'm going to have to ask Baraa and Aimen, if possible, to call Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Ali Mohsen. Okay, we're going to refer to him as Ali Mohsen, so as not to confuse the dear listener.
As I said, we talked about him in the previous episode when we mentioned that he was an old school friend, really a childhood friend of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, had with Ali Abdullah Saleh joined the military, become a military man, and remained his right-hand man throughout.
And during the wars against the Houthis in the noughties, Ali Mohsen was sent by Ali Abdullah Saleh to prosecute that war against his enemies.
And if you remember, we also mentioned that at the end of those six wars, after the Saudis had intervened, beginning an aerial campaign in Northern Yemen to fight the Houthis, Ali Abdullah Saleh asked the Saudis to send their Air Force to bomb the position of Ali Mohsen suggesting to Ali Mohsen who uncovered this plot that his old friend was trying to kill him.
Now, that's where we left him at the end of last episode, but now to get to know him a bit better. Baraa, Ali Mohsen, I mean, he's been around for decades in Yemen, are Yemenis kind of aware of him in a big way?
What would the Yemenis have thought about Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar? Ali Abdullah Saleh’s right-hand man, big military man, the man with the Cartier glasses, classic kind of Arab strong man vibe.
Aimen: Are you saying I'm a strong man? I'm wearing Cartier glasses.
Thomas: Aimen, you know I think you're the strongest of all the men.
Aimen: Thank you. Thank God someone recognizes.
Baraa: So, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, he came into the public eye following two main events. The first one, if the listener would remember, is the fighting that happened in the 80s between the North Yemen and the Socialists, in which Ali Abdullah Saleh was able to use his basically friends at the time in the military to stabilise a lot of regions and districts in Central Yemen.
And the second time was following the 1994 war. He came out with a good reputation in being a strong military commander, a strong military strategist. And he's seen as a military man.
He first and foremost is a military man who's able, like Ali Abdullah Saleh to establish a web of contacts with tribal figures and political figures. He is more like the Ali Abdullah Saleh, but behind the scenes.
Thomas: Now, another important thing about Ali Mohsen, and it came out of his fight in the eighties against Southern Socialists who were fighting the North, is that in that fight against the socialists, the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, in North Yemen was employed with great effect by Ali Mohsen.
So, Ali Abdullah Saleh had asked Ali Mohsen to be his liaison with Muslim Brotherhood elements in the society and the political party that those elements were a part of a political party called Islah.
And I think for this story, now, it's important to know that Ali Mohsen, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s right-hand man was his chief liaison with al-Islah, a very important political party.
Baraa: Unlike what many people would suggest about Ali Mohsen, Ali Mohsen is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And he's not ideologically driven by the relationship that he had established with the Muslim Brotherhood and the wider Islah party members.
He is a military man, more of a person who had the ability to strike tribal deals, but it happened that he was able to get closer and closer by the years to al-Islah in general.
Thomas: Yeah. And Ali Mohsen, therefore, was really an arm of Ali Abdullah Saleh and an arm of the GPC, Ali Abdullah Saleh's party. Although in typical Yemeni political fashion, everyone's dealing with everyone, and that will become clear as we go on.
I mean, Aimen, just to end this little discussion on Ali Mohsen, you said that … because often in the Arab Spring era, Ali Mohsen was considered by some to be a kind of good guy in Yemen.
But you told a funny story. I find it funny about what the Houthis found in time when the Civil War broke out. They stormed Ali Mohsen's headquarters in Sana’a. Well, what did they find? This will just give you a sense that Ali Mohsen is no different from any other Arab strong man playing the game.
Aimen: Indeed, what they found is like the Cave of Aladdin.
Thomas: The Cave of Wonders.
Aimen: Yes, exactly. Open sesame, except what they found, which is what is expected in Aladdin's cave, mounds of gold. A huge room full of gold bars, each one 12 kg, stacked all the way to the ceiling.
And then next to it, you have massive amount of wads of hundred-dollar bill cash and the other side of the cave, huge amount of weapons. And that shows you that he was a man who mastered the art of the stick and the carrot. He would buy loyalty, or he will enforce it.
Thomas: So, that's the second of our two main characters. So far, we have Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, and Ali Mohsen, his right-hand man, who in time he turns against and develops some kind of rivalry with.
And as we leave Ali Mohsen, the last thing to stress is that at this time in 2008, 2009, Ali Mohsen can command roughly one third of the loyalty of the Yemeni army. So, the third main character, and eventually these three guys are all going to be fighting each other on the streets of Sana’a. That's why we're setting it up.
The third main character whose surname is also al-Ahmar, and we will use his surname when we call him, his name Abdullah al-Ahmar. He, along with his sons form the kind of political leadership of the Hashid Tribal Confederation.
We've mentioned this in previous episodes, the Hashid Tribal Confederation, the largest confederation of tribes in Yemen. And therefore, Abdullah al-Ahmar, the head of this confederation, was very powerful.
And I think maybe it's important at the outset to stress Baraa, that he was seen by Yemenis as a hero of the revolution that had overthrown the Imamate in the 60s. So, he considered himself to be something of like the champion or the defender of the republic, is that right?
Baraa: Yeah. So, Abdullah bin Husayn Al-Ahmar, he came into prominence in the 60s in the wars between the royalists and the republicans. And he decided to side with the republic and fought all the way, even when it was looking that the republic was going to fail.
But then he played a very critical role into making or convincing the Saudi leadership to recognize the new republic. And that's why he became a very, very important influential character, not just in his tribal areas, but even in Yemen in general. He became a very influential political figure as well.
And then he became the speaker of the parliament. So, in recognition to his influence and political stance in the political arena.
Thomas: So, it's key to point out that Abdullah al-Ahmar and the Hashid Tribal Confederation in general was a main means whereby Saudi Arabia was able to exert political influence in Yemen.
Now, before we move on from Abdullah al-Ahmar, I'm afraid — that seemed quite straightforward, didn't it dear listener? I'm afraid it gets a little bit more complicated because he, as Baraa just said, was speaker of the parliament, speaker of the house, if you like.
He was also, and this is weird, the leader of this other party, Islah, the big other party in Yemen, the GPC was Ali Abdullah Saleh’s party. It is the ruling party of Yemen in that period. And Islah was the other party affiliated to some extent with the Muslim Brotherhood.
So, Abdullah al-Ahmar was the leader of that party, the minority party in parliament. And yet because of his prominence was speaker of the house of parliament, very strange arrangement there.
And even stranger, he had a number of sons, or he has a number of sons. In fact, we should be clear, he died in 2008, and when he died, the leadership of the Hashid Tribal Confederation fell to one of his sons Sadiq. But now that son, which political party is he affiliated with Baraa, it's very confusing.
Baraa: Sadiq became the head of Islah.
Thomas: Just like his father. So, he became the head of Islah. I see.
Baraa: Exactly it's like he inherited the seat.
Thomas: The crown.
Baraa: But his sons were basically … he decided, he said, let's basically split the beans between everyone. Some of his sons, half of them went as parliament members on behalf of the GPC, and the other half went as parliament members on behalf of Islah. And that tells you everything you need to know about Abdullah bin Husayn al-Ahmar.
Thomas: Okay, great. So now we've laid out the three main characters, the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, his right-hand man turned rival, Ali Mohsen, and Abdullah al-Ahmar and his family who lead the Hashid Tribal Confederation, and who is the head of the Islah party.
Baraa: Those three were like the triangle where the central state positioned itself. You have the military, and you have the tribal component and the political institution.
Thomas: And so, the three of them together in an oddly balanced way, while feathering their nests the whole time, were at the top of the Yemeni state.
Now that brings us to the actual history. We're now going to be in 2006. We're going to talk about the presidential elections that happened in 2006. Remember, at this stage, the Houthis wars are still going on, on and off, and yet the constitution of the country calls for a round of presidential elections in 2006.
What is key about this round of presidential elections, however, is it's the first time since he became president that Ali Abdullah Saleh faces an actual opponent, that in fact, the opposition party or parties put an actual viable candidate to stand against him.
Baraa: And not only that Thomas, but it is an alliance of political parties. So, Islah, who had been, if the listener, of course would remember, had fought the socialists in 1994, decided following the 2003 parliamentary elections to strike this joint opposition coalition between Islah from one side, you have the Socialists, and then the Nasserite, and then smaller parties, like including Al-Haq party, the Baathist, and others to come together. And they formed something called the Joint Meeting Parties. The JMP.
Thomas: Yeah, the JMP. Now, I suspect that as this narrative unfolds, we will be talking about Islah more than the JMP and in fact, I want us to just keep talking about Islah to make it easier.
But from that point onwards, from the formation of this JMP, this umbrella party, of which Islah was like the biggest and most important part, Islah is speaking on behalf of a very wide and strange coalition, political coalition, bringing together leftists, Islamists, fascists, nationalists, they're all together, unified, mainly in their antipathy to the GPC and Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Baraa: And it was more looking like it's an opposition to Saleh attempt to concentrate power within his family. But the JMP, the importance of the JMP is that because of this strange coalition, the general message, the message that they were framing, and they were putting forward in the presidential elections in 2006, and the years that followed became very appealing to the public.
It's more of a national identity that Yemenis do recognize. And it doesn't have that either Islamist or just communist vibe to it. It's a more of mixture of Yemeni politics and Yemeni identity and what Yemenis can refer to.
Thomas: There was a sort of tension within Islah between the old guard and the new guard within Islah. So, the old guard more, let's say, whether Muslim Brotherhood or not, more faithful to the original kind of vision of that party, and a new guard led by a woman of all people in a way.
Or she became the most prominent spokesperson for this new guard, Tawakkol Karman, who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize during the Arab Spring.
Baraa: Yeah. I mean, Tawakkol Karman rose to prominence strangely around the same time. So, 2006, a very interesting year, you have elections happening, but then you have those new young fresh voices coming into the scene.
If you mention Tawakkol Karman to the public, the first thing they will think about her, she is the representative of the civil society. And then if you dig deeper, then you say, oh, and she's also a member of Islah.
Thomas: So, in that 2006 presidential election, Saleh won sort of handily. He never really was not going to win. But nonetheless, he began to grow a bit nervous because he could see that his opponents, his political opponents were organising, this is not really the way things should work in Ali Abdullah Saleh’s Yemen.
So, he's beginning to feel like, hmm, something might be wrong here. And little did he know that something was going to be become very wrong for him indeed.
So, in the years following the 2006 elections, things become a bit more tricky, both for Yemen and Ali Abdullah Saleh. So, he has this JMP, this coalition, which are more like a national front, really allied against him.
They are appealing more and more to people like a young Baraa Shiban as their Islamist rhetoric is being toned down. They're becoming more moderate. They're like the Tony Blair of Yemen. They're all smiles, and they really want only the best for everyone.
And at the same time, in the south beginning in 2007, protests begin to break out amongst people who are agitating a little bit more and more for something like a southern separatism.
More and more South Yemenis are angry about the situation, about their economic conditions, about the injustice or the economic injustice between North and South as they see it. So, Saleh’s contending with those protests. In fact, he sends the military to crush the protests, and all the while the Houthis wars are continuing.
Oh, not to mention Al-Qaeda marauding in the Hadhramaut in the East, causing terrorist attacks in the centre. His troops are fighting Al-Qaeda in cooperation with the Americans and the Saudis and the Emiratis as they're all working together.
I mean, Aimen, at this time in your professional career, Yemen would've been like an Al-Qaeda hotbed more than anything else.
Aimen: Indeed at that time between 2004, all the way until 2009, there was the period of building up Al-Qaeda in Yemen, because by 2004, the reality is that the failure of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia to make any headway, prompted Al-Qaeda to shift a lot of the effort and the funding and all of that from Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia to Al-Qaeda in Yemen. And between 2006 and 2009, there was a lot of activities.
But this is when Saleh looked at Al-Qaeda and found that the hyphen between Al and the Q is looking like a dollar sign. It's like, hmm, yeah, this is how I can take lots of money, just like the Pakistani military, I can make lots of money just from the so-called War on Terror.
So, he started arresting Al-Qaeda members, put them in jail. And then this is where a musical chair game started with Al-Qaeda, where he will capture some, put them in jail, allow them to escape, only to put others in jail, and then they allow them to escape. And the merry go round started like this.
Thomas: That's happening behind the scenes. In front of the scenes, though, there was a lot of violence to the extent that in early 2010, both America and the UK had to close their embassies in Sana’a, because of Al-Qaeda attacks. It was a very bad period.
Now, I suppose on the upside for Saleh, at that time, the Saudis having intervened in his sixth war with the Houthis, had moved forward efforts to stop those wars. And in June of 2010, the sixth war ended.
And so, maybe Saleh could be like, right, now I can kind of rest easy. The Houthis have been contained. Al-Qaeda is actually my secret card against the Americans. Now I can get back to my first love, myself, and ensure that I can be president of Yemen for life.
And more importantly, that when I die, my son Ahmed Saleh could become president after me. So, he wants to start a proper dynasty, and in 2010, he thinks this is going to happen.
Baraa: I still remember 2010, and I can always say to myself, "Why couldn't he do things differently?” Because in 2010, finally, the GPC leadership, kind of the establishment decide that they need to hold talks with the JMP.
The first idea say we need to get the political house in order. They said, let's arrange for a national dialogue, talks between all of the Yemeni political and tribal factions to set the scene for what does the political parties want, which is to reform both the electoral system and the electoral registry, which Saleh had been playing with.
And it was designed in a way that would make him on the top of the seats every time.
Thomas: So, on paper, this is a perfectly legitimate ambition, both the GPC and the JMP, the opposition coalition, they came together and they're like, let's sort out some of these political problems, these constitutional issues, and Saleh's like, okay, that's cool.
Baraa: So, he sends his top advisor, Dr Abdul Karim Al-Eryani, who was before his foreign minister, and he was the prime minister of Yemen, a very close advisor to him. And he reached a deal with the JMP in which they would rearrange the political arena that would allow for the coming elections to be, let's say, a little bit more fair, no one expected that Saleh would be gone.
But they would expect that everyone would still have a bigger voice, at least in Parliament. They would give more powers to the local authorities. So, to ease the tensions in the southern provinces that are having protests, calling for secession and so on. So, trying to ease the tension that is happening.
Thomas: Sounds very grown up. This is what democratic politics are supposed to be like. Saleh’s representative there, Al-Eryani is like, cool, we'll make a deal. This sounds good. He goes back to his boss Saleh and says, “Hey, good news, dude. I came up with this great deal with the opposition. What do you think?”
Baraa: And Saleh snapped at him. They had an argument. People who were witness said that Salah was cursing to the level that Al-Eryani felt insulted. He had to leave the country. He had to go and stay in Spain, in protest of Saleh, basically humiliating him and not allowing him to honour the deal that he had made with the opposition.
And Saleh out of all times, he picked the end of 2010 as the right moment to introduce constitutional amendments.
Thomas: It's funny, it's clear now from history that Saleh was all the while becoming more dictatorial, more paranoid, more confident, though at the same time alienating all the people closest to him.
And yet he chooses that time above all to overplay his hand in a big way. And looking over at Egypt, where his old sort of buddy Mubarak had just won this sweeping re-election to the presidency forever.
He was like, great, I'm going to announce an early presidential election. Oh, by the way, I'm going to change the constitution, meaning I can be president for life. I'm not ever going to say that my son Ahmed won't follow me. He's feeling super confident.
And then a guy in Tunisia sets himself on fire. And that's where we're going to leave it now. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to see how that poor soul in Tunisia lit a political fire that burned its way to Yemen very quickly and would eventually leave Ali Abdullah Saleh himself covered in burns. Stay tuned.
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We're back. Now 2011, we're in the big year of Baraa's, proper eyewitness of modern history unfolding. It's going to be … I just love this story so much. Dear listener, you're in for a treat.
Baraa, just to give us a sense, before the Arab Spring arrives in Yemen, what are you up to and how politically kind of motivated or interested are you at that time?
Baraa: It's funny because it's a merge of many different things. So, I'm very much politically aware, because if you've been involved in civil society in Yemen, like I was, I started to get engaged in civil society activities really from 2006 while I was starting in university.
So, what happens is you have an active dynamic civil society that are meeting, that are talking, and even if you are doing social activities like myself, you are doing charity work, you cannot escape the political discussion that is happening in Yemen.
And you have those rising stars that are coming to the scene. People like Tawakkol Karman and one of the many sons of Abdullah al-Ahmar, who is the leader of Al-Islah, and the head of the Hashid Confederation Tribes, his name is Hamid al-Ahmar.
He is this rising figure who are backed to the opposition candidate in 2006. And he becomes very openly critical of Ali Abdullah Saleh, calling Ali Abdullah Saleh out on public to step down and to run elections, calling Saleh to actually remove his sons and nephews from the military positions that they are in.
So, he's making headways, he's making a lot of noise at that time.
Thomas: And this is just to make the listener understand that before the Arab Spring came and the months preceding the Arab Spring in Yemen, there was already a political ferment there. Protests were happening. Outspoken, powerful figures were calling on Saleh to change.
And there you were Baraa, finishing your last final exam at university, I think, isn't that right? When in February 2011, you got a message?
Baraa: Exactly. It was literally my final exam. I was handing over my final exam. I was trying actually to go through the paper as fast as I can, and then I suddenly receive a message.
I knew members of the student's union who were by that time organising, but not actually in big numbers, they're organising protests, small protests. But in that day, a friend of mine sends me a message and say, where are you? We need everyone to come to the front gate of Sana’a University right now.
I remember I handed over my paper exam, and I literally came out rushing from college, and he's telling me, we are being surrounded by security forces. The security forces are surrounding us, and we need as much people as you can bring.
And we literally have those group of students moving from one faculty to another, from one college to another, calling on students to come and join, come and join, come and join.
And what started as, maybe it was a hundred, maybe even less than that, by the front gate of Sana’a University. It was literally thousands, thousands of young students in one voice, overwhelming, really, the security forces that have thought that actually they have surrounded those protesters in Sana’a University and amongst them was Tawakkol Karman.
I remember seeing her protesting, but then she was like, kind of relieved that those thousands of students had arrived and made basically what was the beginning of the Arab Spring in Yemen.
Thomas: So, you were among them. How did the security apparatus respond to the sudden arrival of thousands of students to sort of buttress the protesters that were already there?
Baraa: Well, as you can imagine, Thomas security forces in Yemen do not behave. They did two things. They unleashed literally; I would say thugs. I mean, there are literally security members, but in plain clothes to start attacking the protestors. And then they would start shooting.
I remember that day two people died instantly, literally in front of us. And a number of our fellow students got injured, we had to rush them to hospital. But the mood started to change. People were getting angry as they're getting ready for what they would — what they know is now a beginning of an Egypt style, a Tunisian style revolution.
And it's had people from all walks of life, all political streams. It doesn't matter where do you come from or political differences that you had in the past. Everyone was just united in that moment. And I could tell you it was magical to say the least, the feeling that you belong suddenly to something, to a democratic civil movement that is much bigger than just yourself.
Thomas: Much bigger too because quite quickly it spread throughout Yemen. I mean, immediately people heard about what had happened in the Capitol Sana’a, and in other cities, provincial cities, big cities, Taiz, Aden even, the spark is lit.
Baraa: Exactly, exactly. And what ignited it even further is when Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, stepped down from power on the 10th of February 2011, immediately after that, protestors came out in Taiz. This is the central city in Yemen that is kind of the intellectual hub, the cultural capital of Yemen, where has a lot of graduates and very educated population came out and occupied the streets.
Thomas: Now you're a group of young activists, I suppose we could describe you as sort of liberal left activists. You realise, oh my God, revolution is breaking out. How do you sort of organise such a thing? What's the next step that you take?
Baraa: It was a strange, I would say, complicated way of bringing many, many people from different backgrounds together. But eventually it came out to something called the organising committee.
It was those people like Tawakkol Karman and her fellow leftists and lefty activists who have been protesting since 2006 and have been organising and mobilising, saying, we need to come up with this entity that is going to act like it's literally an organising committee for this revolution.
Thomas: And at this point, the higher committee of the revolution makes an absolutely disastrous mistake.
Baraa: I'm usually, Thomas has been asked, usually by my friends, do you regrets going out when I see things and how they unfolded in Yemen? And I usually don't have a lot of regrets because I do feel things would've played out this way anyway, but there is one big regret is one of the members of the organising committee. He's a hardcore left communist, very known to Yemenis. His name is Ahmed Hashid.
Thomas: Now, Aimen, I'm sure you want to tell Baraa, what were you thinking trusting such a man?
Aimen: Yeah. You can never, ever, ever trust a comy. You should know this by now, Baraa.
Baraa: Well, I knew that, Aimen. But it was, it was far too late.
Thomas: So, this communist stands up and he says, I got an idea.
Baraa: He basically said like, listen guys, what we need is something more radical. We need the people who have been fighting the establishment and not only fighting, they have been even picking arms to fight the regime in Sana’a.
This regime needs to collapse to the ground, and no one is better, more fit to do this than the Houthis. Those rebels in the north of Yemen who have been fighting the Yemeni government for six rounds of conflict, and they're not afraid to fight to fight again.
And they go on and meet this guy who basically calls himself. I mean, he was in fact, the representative of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in Sana’a.
Thomas: Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis, a young man who had taken over the leadership after his brother was assassinated by Ali Abdullah Saleh. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi had a representative in Sana’a. And this is the man that the executive committee goes to get in touch with the Houthis for them.
Baraa: I can only Thomas apologise to my fellow Yemenis because this guy also happens to be a relative of mine. I'm so sorry, dear Yemenis.
And they meet with him, and the Houthis instantly agree, and they say, yeah, this is a good idea. We're going to actually join this revolution. And that the organising committee makes some precursors. They say, well, you're not allowed to carry out weapons in the protest.
You need to basically behave because this is not going to be an armed conflict. This is just going to be a civil movement. And they agree. They say, we are all up for liberal democracy.
Thomas: So, the Houthis join up, you yourself, as you told me, went down, and did some negotiation with the Southern movement. And they sort of agreed in a half and half to participate in the revolution through the organising committee.
Baraa: I did it even without a hesitation. I took myself and it was literally me doing it on a voluntary basis, travelling to Aden and all what I was attempting, saying, let's meet all of those people from all of those squares that have been already protesting against Saleh and let's get them all to agree on what we have come up with in Sana’a which is the charter of the revolution.
This is kind of the main goals and objectives of the revolution. Although the southern movements were like saying like, well, we don't agree with all of this, but we'll join you for now.
Thomas: So, you have the Houthis on side, you sort of have the southern movement on side. Now, as for Islah, as we said before, it was already kind of split into two between a new guard of younger activists of whom Tawwakol Karman was the sort of leader. They were fully on side the revolution. But what about the old guard of Islah?
Baraa: They were still in talks with Saleh. They wanted to get a deal in which he would agree to remove or retract the constitutional amendments that would allow him to run for life.
Thomas: So, the old guard in Islah is in negotiations with Ali Abdullah Saleh, and just like he always would when negotiating with Islah, he sent his right-hand man, even though a year before he had tried to assassinate him, but that's neither here nor there. This is Yemen. He sent Ali Mohsen to deal with Islah and Ali Mohsen goes to a meeting with the old guard.
Baraa: And Ali Mohsen manages to, basically … he succeeds into reaching an form of an agreement. He says, okay, we're going to have elections happen according to a new voter registry and also a new electoral system. And we want Saleh to come out and promise that his son won't run for elections. So, he's not going to be the successor.
And in exchange Islah, but not just Islah, just to be fair, all of the political parties will start calling on their members to remove them from the square. So, he kind of Ali Abdullah Saleh felt the really engine behind this big movement in the streets of Sana’a are the political parties.
So, if I just get them to agree that they remove just their members, all what they would left there would be just a few people like me, who they can deal with, then later on easy. But he needs to remove that component.
Thomas: And what's making Ali Mohsen's job of, of negotiating with the opposition parties easier is that a lot of the old guard establishment in the GPC, in Islah, in the other parties are particularly worried about the involvement of the Houthis in the protests, the Houthis, they had been the big bad guys in Yemeni politics for a decade.
The central government had fought six wars with them. They seemed to be crazy religious fanatics allied to Iran and Hezbollah. So, the political establishment were like, oh my God, the Houthis are involved now in the protests. We really need to do something about it.
And Ali Mohsen came back to the establishment with this plan. Now, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s family, though, like his son Ahmed, who was being primed to succeed him as president, what was their advice to the president?
Baraa: His family members were not thrilled by the plan because they felt it's a plan that is leading them to lose influence in the military and political scene in general. And they basically advised Saleh that you need to exert your dominance.
You need to show these people that you're not afraid to use force when necessary. You need to start banging some heads, show them who’s boss.
Thomas: I love to — imagining the scene. It's like something out of Succession or something. You just imagine the young son being like, “No, no, you can do it, dad, you can do it dad. Be that Arab strong men that you are, kill those bastards who are calling for your overthrow.”
And Ali Mohsen walks into this scene saying, “Hey, I got a deal. I made a deal with everyone. We've got this deal.”
Baraa: So, what I hear from people who were close to Saleh at the time, they said that Ali Abdullah Saleh was kind of split in this scene between those two. He had promised Ali Mohsen that he would stick to this plan, and he would make all the necessary and required announcements to ease the detention.
But at the same time, he's kind of giving a blind eye to, for example, his nephews, his sons of what are their plans to how they're going to deal with those protestors.
And so, he's in this position between those two, let's say. And later on, when I was playing a bigger role, I did meet Ali Mohsen, and he told me that he had managed to get Ali Abdullah Saleh to agree to his plan.
Thomas: So, the plan in which electoral reform would happen and Saleh would promise the public, he would come out and say in no uncertain terms, that he would not anoint his son, Ahmed president. This is the plan that Ali Mohsen had brokered with the opposition and which according to what he told you, Saleh, agreed to.
Baraa: Exactly.
Thomas: Which brings us to the fateful day of dignity as it's known in Yemeni history, the 18th of March 2011.
Baraa: Now, what I want to say is imagine if someone is in my position, so I don't know what's happening in the political scene. We know they're talking, but I'm in the square.
We finish Friday prayers, and we've seen that the security apparatus and the security forces, how they're trying to surround the square, and they've built kind of bricks around the square. They're trying to contain the square from growing even bigger.
And then suddenly after the Friday prayer, a big fire, giant fire, because they've burned tires, basically, we see them go up and a huge black smoke is covering the square. And immediately after the Friday prayer, we hear snipers shooting into the protesters, we don't know from which direction.
Thomas: Haram. Unbelievable. It's Friday just after the prayer.
Baraa: Exactly, exactly. And it was a shocking scene. People are still unable to grasp what's actually happening. And then we see protestors starting to fall mainly from the side where the fire is coming from. So, we see more and more people falling. I still can't take the images from my head even up until today.
Thomas: Because you were there. I mean, you can see gunshots near you. I mean, you're in the thick of it.
Baraa: And I can tell you for anyone, it's a miracle of how you can walk. And then by mere luck that you're not shot on that day. You walk a little bit and then you see someone who is just standing next to you fall, and then you move a little bit, you think you're hiding, and then suddenly the person who's hiding next to you starts to fall.
And then you start seeing people, rushing people into the — what we had in the square called the field hospital. It's basically, the doctors who volunteered to look after the injured protestors and then one after the other, one after the other, the numbers of bodies started tending to pile up in that field hospital.
And I still remember in one place in the square, there was this kind of pool of blood in the middle of the street. It basically had came from the blood of the protestors and coming together with water. And like you could see it's red, it's blood. And people feel, I mean, horrified, but also became very, very angry about what happened.
In that day, we would later figure out that there was instantly 48 people died, and later on the number would go up to 58 and more. Approximately 200 people got injured. Many of them with permanent injuries.
I still remember the kid who I kept on visiting even in the years later, he lost both of his eyes in the shooting that day. Can you imagine a young, young kid losing both of his eyes because he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time?
Thomas: Terrible. I mean, the whole country must have been in shock because Yemen was a democracy. It was a republic. It had had elections, it had had political parties, there was a political process. This sort of thing wasn't really supposed to happen.
Baraa: And that angered the population. What started, I mean, you could easily say maybe tens of thousands of protestors, more and more ordinary now citizens, not just members of parties and civil society activists come to join the protestors.
So, the days that followed, the number of people joining grew significantly. And then you immediately saw people from Saleh's own party, the GPC, starting to resign from his party in protest of what they viewed Saleh was doing, a brutal crackdown on protesters.
Thomas: One of the guys who was particularly angry about what happened was Ali Mohsen, longtime friend of Saleh, his right-hand man, he goes straight to Saleh and confronts him, “What the fuck has just happened? What have you done?”
Baraa: Saleh basically ignored him that day. He said, I don’t know who did this. Everyone around in that room knew who did this, but no one wanted to actually admit to the face of Saleh that actually you screwed up big time.
And Ali Mohsen gave him an ultimatum. You have three days to come up with answers and to actually prosecute the people who did this.
Thomas: He must have thought, “Ugh, I've really overstepped the mark here,” because immediately members of the JPC, his political party began resigning. And then three days later on the 21st of March, the big fish, he also defects.
Baraa: Exactly.
Thomas: To the protest.
Baraa: So, Ali Mohsen makes an announcement saying that following the events of the 18th of March, he can no longer serve with Saleh. And he announced joining the young peaceful protestors.
And with that, at that time, you could say roughly between 20 to 25% of the military is under his command. So, with that, you have also 20 to 25% of the military defecting to decide of the protestors.
Thomas: Anyone who has followed what went on in Syria during the Arab Spring would know that as soon as Ali Mohsen defects to the side of the protestors and takes with him not only his whole like network within the GPC, and all the political power brokers that are loyal to him, but 25% of the army, this really means the army has split.
And when that happens in a revolution, you are hightailing it to civil war. I mean, Aimen. You must have thought, oh God, Ali Mohsen has taken his 25% of the army to the protestors. This can't be good in the long run.
Aimen: There were already fears that Yemen is dissenting into civil war, and that is why there were so much noise within the Gulf capitals, the GCC capitals. And you can tell the nervousness.
I had friends at the time who were advising the Secretary General of the GCC, which is based in Riyadh. And they were talking about millions of refugees pouring into Saudi Arabia and from there into the rest of the GCC, if Yemen descended a civil war.
Thomas: That's foreshadowing another decision just around the corner. Before we get there, though, I just want to briefly say that the third of our three main characters, the Hashed Tribal Confederation.
And at this time, the head of that confederation, the son of Abdullah al-Ahmar, Sadiq al-Ahmar, he's been mediating between all the groups and all the while his brother, the very rich, the very outspoken, the very powerful Hamid, you mentioned him was saying, no, no, we've got to get rid of Saleh.
He must step down, which means that Sadiq and the Hashid Tribal Confederation also choose to join the revolution at the end of March.
Baraa: Yeah. As a whole, I mean, the whole Hashid confederation came to the square with the tribal leaders and then with them also their members. I remember the tribes coming in and then then saying, we're going to put tower offence back at home and join this join this revolution.
Thomas: So, you have communists, other leftists, young liberals like yourself, Muslim Brotherhood members, members of the army loyal to Ali Mohsen, tribal factions loyal to the al-Ahmar family and Houthis.
Now, and this Baraa, is where the story becomes particularly … well, I think, if you have a comic frame of mind, it's almost funny because after fighting the Houthis in six wars, after seeing the Houthis join the protests calling for his overthrow, Ali Abdullah Saleh makes a very, very unexpected decision. Baraa, what was that unexpected decision?
Baraa: Ali Abdullah Saleh decides that he's going to strike a deal with the Houthis in the North. So, Saleh makes the decision of handing over the province of Sa’dah, the northern province that is bordering Saudi Arabia to the Houthis.
Now, it's important for the listener to understand that despite six wars, the Houthis were not in control of the province. They had control of some districts, but they couldn't control the province. The military was still there.
Only in 2011, literally in March 2011, he decides to remove parts of the military from Sa’dah and handed over to the Houthis. The weapon depose the bases all to the Houthis and the Houthis strike a deal with a notorious arms trafficker. I mean, an arms dealer, his name is Fares Manaa.
And they say, listen, we're going to appoint you as our governor in Sa’dah. And Fares Manaa is a notorious figure. He's actually on the UN blacklist for supplying Al-Shabaab in Somalia, with weapons.
Thomas: Oh, no. And meanwhile, the Houthis are just moving in to bases and finding armaments and material, which the Yemeni army have just retreated from handing them over and slowly begin making their way South, coming into conflict with Ali Mohsen's troops. And then the al-Ahmar tribal troops.
Saleh’s enemies in the square in Sana’a are being attacked by the Houthis coming down from the North. And this had been facilitated by Saleh.
Baraa: Exactly. Because what's a better way to make my new enemies now in Sana’a busy is make them involved in another conflict in the North. So, both the Hashid Confederation, the Hashid tribes with al-Ahmar family are fighting now the Houthis, because now they're coming into their own territory, into their own tribal district, and at the same time fighting the military bases and the military camps of Ali Mohsen in the north of Yemen.
Thomas: Now Aimen, do you think it's safe to say at this stage that the Houthis are already receiving advice from Iran, from Hezbollah? I mean, what's interesting about this move is it echoes things that Hezbollah had been doing in Lebanon in the previous five years, ever since the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006, which dear listener, you'll have heard about in our series on Hezbollah. Do you think that there's a link there?
Aimen: Well, Thomas, as I said in the last episode, there is no doubt in my mind, in the minds of many people who are in the know that all the intelligence indicated that Hezbollah and IRDC operatives were there with the Houthis from 2002 onward.
And by 2014, the scene was set. They have already trained enough people, they have already amassed enough weapons, and the golden opportunity presented itself when the master chess player made the fatal, fatal, fatal move by aligning with them.
So, they decided, okay, Ali Abdullah Saleh, he's the donkey that we are going to ride into Sana’a. And that's exactly what happened.
Baraa: The Houthis then start to present themselves as more of a political entity. They then change their name because people just refer to him as the Houthis. Now they change their name into Ansarullah.
Aimen: Yeah, to copy Hezbollah, basically.
Baraa: Exactly, exactly.
Aimen: Ansarullah means God's helpers or God's supporters, and Hezbollah means God's party.
Baraa: And then, they start to establish their media channel in an attempt to mimic the Al-Manar channel, Hezbollah's channel. And then they start to present themselves to the young protestors as we are a new fresh political entity. And we advise all of you, come and join us. We're going to make something that bring everyone together.
Thomas: Well, at the time that the Houthis are rebranding themselves and making their way slowly but surely, southward with their troops, Sana’a is now split between the forces loyal to Ali Mohsen, the Republican Guard, loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, and especially his son Ahmed, and the Hashid Tribal Confederation fighters who were now armed and fighting was breaking out.
Now, you must have known Baraa, that things had got out of control already by that point. You must have thought this revolution has turned into a civil war, and the main partisans in that war are the same old political figures that have been dominating the scene. They're just fighting with each other.
Baraa: So, by that time, we're now talking April 2011, fighting and clashes are erupting in the capitol, but we're still trying to say like, no, this is not a civil war. It still can be contained, and we can still get things in order.
And a mediation happens where Saleh sends a tribal mediation to meet Sadiq al-Ahmar. In that meeting, I still remember suddenly because by the way, the house of Sadiq al-Ahmar wasn't very far from the square. And we hear a huge explosion.
And soon enough we were discover that actually rockets were fired at the house exactly at the same time when people were meeting. So, Saleh just wanted to know, is Sadiq AL-Ahmar and his brothers are in the room?
Are they actually there so he can ensure that actually if then he would claim, oops, a rocket was fired by mistake and happened to kill the tribal leadership of Yemen.
Thomas: Well, luckily, Sadiq al-Ahmar did not die. Saleh failed to kill him, but many other members of the tribal leadership did die, and ordinary tribesmen were killed. This did not dampen the tensions that now exploded really into the open. There was proper fighting now.
Baraa: Yeah, I mean, Sana’a was split between those three factions. You can go from one checkpoint to another, you have to be extremely careful. But we are still trying to go to the square because this is where we think the revolution started and should continue.
And soon enough we start to realize actually the fighting is not just in Sana’a, it's now happening even between Hashid and some members now of Islah in the provinces around Sana’a like Al-Jawf the neighbouring provinces of the capitol.
Thomas: Harder to deny that a civil war was breaking out by that point, I guess Baraa.
Baraa: Actually, we were in denial, Thomas, you would be surprised the level of optimism we had. So, what we did being, I would say the liberal idiots that we are, we say we're going to send the mediation from the youth.
Thomas: Baraa, it's sweet, actually. It's sweet.
Baraa: And we're going to make everyone agree that we need to now focus on the revolution and mainly between the Houthis, because now the Houthis are with us in the square. I know them and we know members of Islah, so we can actually get those guys to agree.
And actually, we succeeded in actually convincing them not to raise their weapons in the square. We can actually convince them not to fight in the deserts of Al-Jawf and in the mountains of Sa’dah.
Thomas: Well, did you convince them?
Baraa: Well, they gave us a lot of sweet talk, and we came back feeling proud as ever. But nothing changed. Fighting would erupt the following day.
Thomas: Nothing changed. Well, one guy who was feeling proud as ever was Ali Abdullah Saleh. That is until the fateful day of the 3rd of June 2011, a Friday, just like the day of dignity, when his troops fired on you, Baraa, and your fellow protestors on the 3rd of June, Saleh was in his palace mosque finishing his prayers when something happened.
Baraa: So, I still remember that Friday, we suddenly heard the news that an explosion had happened in the president's mosque in the presidential palace. And a number of people are dead. No one knows what happens.
But news started and rumours started to fly, that actually not just a number of people are dead, that Saleh himself has been killed in this explosion. And the news quickly fly not just on Yemeni news channels, but also goes to international media outlets. And none of us knew actually if he was still alive or dead.
Thomas: Now Aimen, you're watching the international news, I bet you're thinking, oh wow, president Ali Abdullah Saleh has been killed. And were you aware quite quickly what had actually happened? Did you learn quite quickly what had actually happened?
Aimen: Well, I mean, because of course, I was following in the news like everyone else. So, then I asked my friends at the General Secretariat, I asked what happened? I mean, how was he targeted?
And they said that the early indications that it was a ATGM, ATGM is an anti-tank guided missile, a coordinate. And I was thinking, my God, lots of people must have been burned inside because I'm aware that anti-tank guided missiles have shape charges, basically that concentrate the huge amount of heat into a very small direction in order to melt armour.
And I experienced before, the heat from an RPG that actually hit a Russian built room in Afghanistan that I was in, and it was part of my training. But apart from the dizziness I experienced, the heat inside was really awful.
It's like as if you open an oven when you are cooking a pizza and immediately it comes into your face, all this heat. That's how I felt. And this is just a small rocket from an RPG, that would've been a very bad experience for everyone inside. So, I was wondering how did they survive, and did they survive intact or not?
Thomas: Yeah, I mean, that heat is what enveloped Ali Abdullah Saleh. Well, the question really is who fired the rocket?
Baraa: The real answer is many of us are still asking this question until today, because everyone, and I mean literally mean everyone has denied responsibility. And even the Yemeni prosecutors had failed to convict anyone.
Thomas: But Aimen, you have your suspicions.
Aimen: It's very clear that according to some people in the intelligence agencies in some Gulf countries, without naming anyone that it was Ali Mohsen. Ali Mohsen never forgave and never forgot that Ali Saleh gave his coordinates to the Saudis in the last war with the Houthis, in order for the Saudis to drop a bomb on him thinking he's a Houthis commander. So, the biggest suspicion was on him.
Thomas: So, Ali Mohsen, let us say, was trying to get his revenge, but he failed because despite that extreme heat, Ali Abdullah Saleh survived.
Aimen: Yeah.
Thomas: He was immediately evacuated, airlifted to Riyadh where he was installed at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and was brought back to life.
And I say that quite literally, almost, I mean, a few months later, he appeared finally on television from Saudi, and it was like looking at Frankenstein's monster, the man was covered in black charred flesh. It was a terrifying vision.
Aimen: Indeed.
Baraa: And meanwhile, the protestors are being gunned down by Saleh security apparatus, and let's say mainly his sons and nephews. And kind of the general feeling in Yemen is that Saleh, that old magnanimous figure who's wise, who's always able to trick his way and manoeuvre has lost it
Thomas: To dance on the head of snakes.
Baraa: Exactly, exactly. Had lost it. He's unable to do this. And the people, the public are feeling it's getting bloodier, and more and more innocent victims and innocent young people are being gunned down in the streets of Sana’a and Taiz and Aden and so on.
Thomas: Innocent victims, Baraa, like yourself. There Saleh is in Riyadh recovering, but clearly his followers or his sons and nephews, as you say on the ground, are out to get revenge. They turn with great ferocity on the revolution, on the protesters. And a week after his attempted assassination, you are abducted by Saleh loyalists.
Baraa: Yeah. I was abducted in a checkpoint that belonged to the central security forces; these forces run by his nephew. And I'm still having issues in my shoulder up until today from the beating that I received that night.
I was covered in a black bag, put in a back of a van, and it was, I think around 11:00 PM at night and beaten constantly all the way until the morning.
And then they even, when they dropped me, it's not like they even pretended that it wasn't them. They didn't take any of my belongings, any of the money that I had, nothing. They wanted me to know that actually it was them. We did this to you.
Thomas: Wow, that's just terrible. Those of us in the West who engage in politics, we don't usually have to face that kind of mistreatment from the people we are protesting against.
Okay. That summer of 2011, Saleh is abroad. He's being treated in hospital in Riyadh. Meanwhile, the GCC led by Saudi are trying to cobble together some kind of solution for Yemen. This would be known as the GCC Initiative.
And while on the ground in Yemen, the fighting between the different factions is growing bloodier and to bloodier. And in September, there was a particular three days of tremendous bloodletting, and everyone's incredibly worried that they have another Syria on their hands in Yemen, or another Libya on their hands in Yemen, they need to put a stop to it.
So, the GCC has developed this initiative working with the EU and the U.S. and the UN and they're putting pressure on Saleh, there in hospital in Riyadh to sign it, to step down, to agree to a planned and ordered transition in Yemen.
And he agrees in theory, but then he asks, “Guys, I just need a break, I need a holiday. I want to go to Ethiopia, can I?”
Baraa: And he did. He actually took his plane. And on the way to Ethiopia, he ordered the pilot to redirect the plane all the way back into Sana’a. And that made the GCC countries, especially Saudi Arabia, very, very angry. They felt this is actually going to slip easy into a civil war that is beyond the control of anyone really.
Thomas: I mean, Aimen, how would the Saudi leadership at that time King Abdullah was quite unwell during those years, what would the Saudi leadership, King Abdullah himself, how would they have responded to that kind of trick?
Aimen: What I understood from the assistant of the secretary General of the GCC, that King Abdullah uttered the word khasiis describing what Saleh did. So, he described him as khasiis and khasiis in Arabic is the, imagine the combination of the words bastard, traitor, and contemptible and-
Thomas: Scumbag.
Aimen: Scumbag, yeah. Altogether.
Thomas: Well, so they're on the ground in Yemen amongst the liberal youth protestors, they are getting closer to the Houthis, who they remain convinced will be their allies in the attempt to create a new, more democratic Yemen.
Meanwhile, Saleh back in Sana’a is being pressured more and more by Saudi Arabia and the GCC to sign the GCC Initiative, which finally, that November, he does sign.
Now, that means he's, he agrees to step down from power to hand power over to his Vice President, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who will become president. And a new national dialogue conference will be established to create a new constitution for Yemen and to bring all the parties to one big table so that a peaceful and prosperous Yemen can be hashed out.
Now this is where we're going to end this episode, Baraa, on the cusp of a new era, a glorious era of peace for Yemen, in which you yourself would play a role because you were a part of the National Dialogue Conference.
[Music Playing]
Baraa: And I can promise the listener, actually, it's going to even get more thrilling from now onwards.
Thomas: Stay tuned, dear listener, when we're back next time, Baraa will continue his thrilling tale of the insider view of politics in Yemen as Civil War broke out in that country. See you then.
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Harry Stott. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley and Tom Biddle.