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Yemen

After more than two decades of separation into northern and southern republics, Yemen was reunified in 1990. In the first optimistic years following reunification, President Ali Abdallah Salih, the longest-serving head of state in the Arab world after Qaddafi of Libya, promoted Yemen as an “emerging democracy.” But old fissures remain.

Following World War I, a Zaydi Shiite religious elite claiming descent from Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, ruled the northern Yemeni highlands, while Britain controlled the southern port of Aden and its environs. In 1962, Egyptian-backed revolutionaries fighting the Saudi-supported religious establishment declared the Yemen Arab Republic in the north. The British withdrew from Aden in 1967, leaving power to socialists who established a state in the south with close Soviet ties. North and South Yemen were rivals until the end of the Cold War, internal dissent and oil discoveries along the borders created pressure for reunification.

In 1994, the south seceded when power sharing in the capital broke down, but northern forces decisively won the ensuing brief civil war, and Salih emerged with his standing greatly enhanced. Since that time, and despite the trappings of electoral democracy, Salih has strengthened his grip on political power to the point that the main opposition party, Islah, nominated him as its own candidate in 1999 elections.

But Yemen’s now dwindling oil reserves have not sufficiently alleviated the country’s endemic poverty, a condition exacerbated by IMF-recommended austerity measures. Foreign assistance and remittances from abroad have kept the economy afloat.

Economic woes and political stagnation, as well as Salih’s post-September 11 enlistment in the US-led war on terrorism, have fueled serious unrest. Zaydi rebels in the highlands battle the army, while Salafi Sunnis engage in more sporadic gunfights. These skirmishes, along with southern grumbling about state corruption and northern bias, are widely regarded as symptoms of broad popular discontent.


Facts and Figures »