The Challenges of Dealing with Yemen’s Deep Crises (ARI)

Some excellent background on recent history in Yemen to put current events in context.



The Challenges of Dealing with Yemen’s Deep Crises (ARI)
Abdullah Al-faqih
ARI 29/2010 - 4/2/2010

The first decade of the new millennium was supposed to be Yemen’s best in modern times. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who came to office in north Yemen in 1978, had by the beginning of the decade survived the unification of the two Yemens, eliminated his southern Socialist opponents in a brief civil war in 1994 and solved his country’s border disputes with Oman, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia. He also centralised power in his own hands and in the hands of his very loyal sons, brothers, nephews and in-laws, and weakened all potential competitors within his family, clan, larger tribe, ruling and opposition parties, the country as a whole, and even among Yemeni politicians living in exile. While grooming his son Colonel Ahmed to succeed him, Saleh perhaps thought he had brought Yemen’s history to an end.... (CONT'D Thru LINK