Yemen update 2nd March

With the spread of political unrest throughout the Arab states, there has been a dearth of news about Yemen, a part of the world which if anything only conjures up embarrassing memories of Britain's empirical adventurism in the nineteen-fifties. We in Bristol are privileged in having a colleague, Dr Judith Brown, right there in the middle of it all. Here is her latest report:

I'm back in Sana'a which is much quieter than Aden protest-wise, although the areas around the new university and Tahreer Square are blocked to traffic. I am living way north of those areas so I don't see any action except when driving nearby.
The mood in Sana'a I think is apprehension. I think it might be difficult for us to understand their fear, but when the whole Middle East is set for a possible big change, everyone becomes aware of the financial, security, stability risks and they are scared at the prospect. They would like change but...
Just as I left Aden, I received an email from the British Ambassador suggesting that all British citizens leave Aden immediately. There are tanks on the streets apparently and it is considered that the risk of civil war has been raised. However, the demonstrations yesterday, whilst very large in Taiz and Aden, were I gather peaceful. Taiz is an interesting situation because it was in North Yemen - which is actually to the West of Yemen, but actually located in the South. So it gravitates towards the South, it is far nearer to Aden than it is to Sana'a. It also has a reputation for having respect for women's rights and is noted as a place where education is valued - even during the Imam era, it was the only town in North Yemen with educational facilities for women, and the schools were considered to be excellent. It is in Taiz where there are the biggest uprisings in the whole of Yemen. I think the people of Aden (not the youth who are protesting) see the issues of separation and change in government as too closely related, and fear the consequences. They know the president has close links with the American military because they are fighting Al Qaeda in Arabia, which is now based in Hadramaut, which is in the political South but is actually in the East. So you can perhaps see why Taiz, with no secessionist issues and no close links with Sana'a is the lead city in the protests.
But I can see that the fear and apprehension of change, once the initial excitement has passed, is a big block to movements for change. And this of course applies all over the Middle East - nothing is settled politically in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya yet and that adds to uncertainty elsewhere.

Omar Offendum: the Revolution WAS televised

This blog needs some leavening! It's time for some music; but of course at HanleyExpress that will be Meaningful:

US blocks Al Jazeera

Anyone seeking the most thorough, in-depth coverage of the uprising in Egypt can tune into Al Jazeera English.
But American TV addicts, unlike their friends in Canada, will have to wait until one of the U.S. cable-company-approved networks broadcasts footage from Al Jazeera English, which the company makes regularly available. What they can't do yet is watch the network directly.
Other than in a few places across the US - including Ohio, Vermont and Washington - cable carriers do not give viewers the choice of watching Al Jazeera.

So, ironically enough, US big business sides with Mubarak as American diplomats criticize the Egyptian government for blocking internet communication inside the country and as Egypt tries to stop Al Jazeera from broadcasting.
The result of the Al Jazeera English blackout in the United States has been a surge in traffic to the media outlet's website, where footage can be seen streaming live. The last 24 hours have seen a two-and-a-half thousand percent increase in web traffic, Tony Burman, head of North American strategies for Al Jazeera English, told HuffPost. Sixty percent of that traffic, he said, has come from the United States.

Gaza interview by Tom Bigwood, BCfm

On the 18th January 2010, just a few days after The Flight Out Of Egypt, I was interviewed on BCfm Radio, and it sounded like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWQ9Hmn1O74

Egypt and Viva Palestina: an act of state piracy

After the Viva Palestina 3 Convoy members were forced to leave Gaza after only 24 hours, to buy visas clearing them to be held illegally in Cairo Airport, missing their pre-booked flights home and being blackmailed into buying new Egyptair flights, one of our team leaders gave this resume of the restrictions imposed on the captives, and of their likely prospects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgD_QsZz5Cw

My most recent memories of the 3rd siege-lifting Convoy to Gaza are of incarceration.
Having forced the convoy members to leave Gaza prematurely, the Egyptian Authorities made us pay for yet another Entry Visa, our second in one week. But this was only to allow us to be taken straight, not to hotels in Cairo to await our booked flights home; it was to Cairo Airport, where we were held, in an act of state piracy, as prisoners, our movements curtailed to the extent of (at first) denying access to food and water.
Although we were later assured that we could book flights home on airlines of choice, as we were denied access to all but the offices of Egyptair, this was not a practicable option. We were being blackmailed into using Egypt's own airline to leave the country at our own considerable expense as deportees, many of us having cancelled two consecutive flights home because of the changes to our schedule being forced on us.
If we had not been able to use our mobile phones and laptop computers to find alternatives, most of us would still be, as I write on Monday 11th, prisoners in Cairo. Two of our number made a principled stand and demanded the right to be able to travel home on their earlier booked flights. They are still in the airport, and are not the only ones we left behind.
Although we were made very much aware of how much the people of Egypt supported us and the beleagured people of Palestine, we have to admit that their president, Mr Mubarak, remains in power only by kow-towing to the US/UK/Israeli axis.

The lowest point in our struggle came on the first, long, night we were held at al-Arish Port, negotiating with the Egyptian authorities to be allowed in our entirety into Gaza. We were attacked by riot police with water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets, and a battalion of hired thugs throwing rocks.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gObPx_3NOWA&feature=player_embedded

Our all-too brief time in Gaza was fired by the overwhelming hospitality and inspiring activity, intellectual, artistic and social, of the Gazans - especially, for me, the chance to meet leading political caricaturist Majed Badra. Throughout the long journey south we were energised by the welcomes and support, from individuals in the street to ministerial levels,in the countries through which we passed, - difficult to single out the best of so many positive experiences, but especially Syria, which turned into a great big love-in, and both the people and government of Turkey. This is not the end of our connection with Gaza: many of us will be keeping in regular touch with the people we were able to meet. And we hope one day soon to be able to welcome them to our country, too, as free people.

Tinpot tyrant aint seen nothin yet

By George Galloway on Jan 11, 10 07:01 AM

I have been in a few dangerous places in my life. In the mid 80s along with an ITN news crew I was bombed by the Ethiopian air force.

My face pressing into the dirt, with no cover around, I saw the shrapnel tear and kill small children and watched others die on a wooden table in a grass hut after the bombers had gone.
I have been bombed by Israel in Beirut and held with an Israeli machine gun at my chest in Nablus during the first Iraq war.
Involuntarily, I put my hands up and the blue-eyed blonde "Israeli" said that if I didn't put my hands down he would kill me.

I've never, however, been in a more dangerous situation than last week in the tiny Sinai port of Al Arish to which the Egyptian dictatorship had insisted we bring our convoy.

Five hundred foreigners from 17 different nationalities with 200 vehicles were crammed into a compound without water, food or toilet facilities. They included 10 Turkish MPs one of whom was the chairman of Turkey's foreign relations committee.

We captured on film from a third floor office the thugs of the Mukhabarat (Intelligence) piling stones and sharpening their sticks behind the backs of several ranks of riot police with helmets, batons and shields. Then mayhem.

We may have complaints about our police, but I tell you, when you see policemen hurling half-bricks into a crowd of women and men who'd come to deliver medicine to desperate people under siege, you thank your lucky stars we don't live in such a state. Fifty five of our 500 were wounded and, but for the shocking effect on Arab public opinion (our own media didn't give a damn) of the live footage (all on Youtube now), we might still be there yet.

Next day, the dictatorship wanted us on our way. We refused to leave without our wounded comrades and the seven of our number who had been taken prisoner. After another stand-off our demands were met and we proceeded to a tumultuous welcome in Gaza our numbers complete. Word came to me from inside the Egyptian tyranny that I was to be arrested when we came out. Had that happened while I was surrounded by 500 pumped up convoy members there would have been serious trouble.

So I sent them the message that I would come out in the dead of the night before and face the music alone but for my old friend Scots journalist Ron McKay. McKay is a thriller writer these days but what happened next would have taxed even his imagination. We emerged into the hands of a grim phalanx of mainly plain clothed secret policemen, none of whom could speak English. They tried to keep our passports but we refused to budge without them - even though there was menace in the air, or perhaps because of it.

They bundled us into an unmarked van which they refused to let us climb out of, at one stage man-handling us. An Egyptian gumshoe journalist from the Daily News tried to interview us but he was battered away. We were driven off at speed. I knew we were not going to be killed as we were able to make the necessary calls - well at least the call to the Press Association which makes all the difference in these situations. We made the formal call to the British Foreign Office but it wasn't worth the money. During the five-hour journey to Cairo the British diplomats did nothing but tell us to co-operate. That co-operation was difficult as the police could speak no English and were saying nothing. Word came from London that Nile News, a mouthpiece of the dictatorship, were reporting in the morning the seven convoy prisoners we had released at al Arish were to be re-arrested on emerging from Gaza. Thus the bloodbath we sought to avoid now looked inevitable. We demanded to return to the Gaza-Egypt border but were refused. At Cairo airport we refused to enter the terminal and tried to hail a taxi to take us back.

Security forces goons pushed us physically into the airport building and gave close quarter attention to both of us, even in the toilet. They followed us everywhere and when McKay took a picture there was nearly a serious incident. They ushered us up to the entrance of the BA plane and the first English speaker of the night stepped forward to declare me persona non grata in Egypt. I made my own declaration to him which was that he and his fellow torturers would one day face the wrath of the Egyptian people, who had queued up at the airport in full view of the goons, to shake hands with us. Later, his department stated I had been banned from Egypt because I was "a trouble-maker". Mr Tinpot tyrant 99.99 of the vote Mubarak, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Source:http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2010/01/tinpot-tyrant-aint-seen-nothin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyRecord%2FGeorgeGalloway+%28The+Daily+Record+-+George+Galloway%29