SANAA, 3 October 2003 — Yemen’s prime minister accused the United States yesterday of making “absolutely impossible” demands on impoverished Yemen in the “war on terror” but giving too little in return.
Prime Minister Abdul-Qader Bajammal told Reuters in an interview that Yemen did not have enough funds to meet growing US demands in the anti-terror war.
“They want so many things from us, like (securing) our immense borders and coastal lines. But we are a poor country and we are receiving almost nothing,” he said.
“The Americans can’t continue this game without closer cooperation with the concerned countries, like Yemen. These are poor countries which they need to help develop to fight terrorism.”
The United States is giving Yemen up to $100 million a year in military training and providing it with coast guard boats. US aid also includes a project to cut illiteracy among women, estimated at 70 percent.
Yemen works closely with the US anti-terror campaign to rid itself of an image as a haven for militants after the 2000 bombing of the US warship Cole and the 2002 attack on the French oil tanker Limburg.
But Yemen’s economy has taken a hefty beating since the Cole and Limburg bombings and some Yemenis are expressing concerns over the big hole the “war on terror” is eating into its budget.
Bajammal said the aid fell short of the US demands on Yemen, such as the “impossible task” of controlling its porous 1,800-km long border with Saudi Arabia and its 2,500 km of coasts.
He said it was unfair of Washington to demand from Sanaa to hunt down and control “terrorist” activities when it had difficulties doing so itself.
“It is very difficult to know exactly who these people are and how many they are as many of them are part of ‘sleeping cells’,” he said.
“Look at what’s going on two years after Sept. 11 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite all their technology, their soldiers and all the activity of the CIA and FBI, they don’t know who the attackers are and still don’t know where Bin Laden is.
“Why are they asking Yemen to do something absolutely impossible?”
Ex-Minister Ends 10-Year Exile: A former Yemeni defense minister returned home yesterday after some 10 years of self-imposed exile since the end of the civil war, a member of the Yemeni Socialist Party said.
Haitham Qassem Taher returned to Yemen from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) “where he lived voluntarily for nearly 10 years,” he told AFP, requesting anonymity.
Taher left Yemen to live in the UAE immediately after the 1994 civil war which pitted secessionist forces in the south against forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh granted amnesty in May to 16 exiled leaders of the southern secession movement to mark the 13th anniversary of the 1990 unification of Yemen.
