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117 PART THREE YEMEN Thousands of Yemenis took to Sanaa’s Tahrir Square on January 27, 2011, to demand an end to the thirty-three-year rule of President ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih. After being driven from the square with tear gas and batons, protesters relocated to Sanaa University Square (redubbed Taghyir Square) in February 2011 and turned it into ground zero of the Yemen revolution. They set up tents and art exhibits and debated the best way to defeat Salih’s autocratic regime. The uprising survived a year of regime brutality, resulting in scores of injuries and deaths, before Salih, by then the longest-serving president in the region, agreed to step down in November 2011 in a deal brokered by the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council. For most of Yemen’s citizens, 60 percent of whom are younger than twenty-five, Salih’s regime was the only government they had known. Salih became president of North Yemen in 1978 and was elected president of the unified Republic of Yemen in 1990 when the conservative Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the nominally-Marxist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south merged into one nation. Plans for unification had existed in various forms since the early 1970s, and by the time the unified constitution was put to a popular vote in 1991, it won overwhelming approval. Yet the dominance of northern political and economic interests under the new arrangement angered and alienated southerners. A civil war broke out in 1994 from which the north emerged victorious, after which discrimination against the south became further entrenched. Following the north’s triumph over southern secessionists, the Yemeni Socialist Party, which had been a major partner in the unity government, was politically marginalized. It was eclipsed by Islah, a Sunni Islamist grouping, as the primary, though minority, opposition to Salih’s General People’s Congress (GPC). Several other small opposition parties , including liberals, socialists, and Shi‘i Islamists from the north have also won seats in the lower house of parliament. In 2005, these groups joined with Islah to form the Joint Meeting Parties coalition to strengthen the opposition’s bargaining position vis-à-vis the regime.Even in union,opposition parties represent a minority of the elected representatives. The GPC’s predominance in the legislature—like Salih’s reelection margins—is inflated by ballot-stuffing and other irregularities,but the party and president do have popular backing in large parts of the north and among some southerners as well. In addition to the tribal, religious, regional, and commercial affiliations that shape Yemeni politics, patronage networks have been key to consolidating support for the regime. 118 Institutionalized corruption under Salih’s rule is a grievance shared by millions of Yemenis. The country’s limited resources have been channeled into enriching the regime’s political base and buying off opponents. The openness with which government officials steal from the public purse has led to rebuke and reduced aid packages from international donors. Meanwhile Yemen’s tiny oil reserves, which provide over 60 percent of the government ’s revenue, are dwindling, along with the country’s water table. The industrial and service sectors are quite small; the economy is based largely on fishing,herding,and agriculture . Migrant work in neighboring countries’ oil sectors was once an important economic stimulus, but foreign employment has not recovered since Yemen’s isolation for opposing the US invasion of Iraq in 1991.Unemployment is estimated at 35 percent and roughly half of Yemenis live below the poverty line. These crises have come to the fore in recent years as the government has reduced subsidies on food and fuel. Because the population is predominately rural, petroleum is essential to the movement of people and goods. When Salih announced an end to fuel subsidies in the summer of 2005, riots erupted in cities and towns across the country. After three days, several dozen people had been killed by security forces and Salih was forced to reinstate the price controls.Water scarcity has sparked local conflicts over control of wells and has caused mass migration to the cities. Over the last twenty years, Sanaa has doubled in size to two million inhabitants, many of whom live in the expanding slums that ring the city. Frustration with the government has ignited two movements against the regime since 2004. In the northwest of the country, an armed rebellion by Zaydi (Yemeni Shi‘i) groups allied with the prominent Houthi family...

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