Surprises on the National Day

Today, the Yemeni people across the country are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the national day, May 22, the day of the reunification of Yemen and the establishment of the Republic of Yemen that adopted democracy and multiparty system and protection of human rights and freedoms.

Twenty years have passed since the Yemeni people united and decided to establish their democratic state and many remarkable changes and accomplishments were achieved during these past two decades despite the many challenges faced Yemen.

The first challenge that Yemen faced was the 1990 war against Iraq that resulted in deporting 2 million Yemeni expatriates from the Gulf countries, however Yemen managed to solve the crisis of the deported expatriates.

The second challenge was Yemen’s decision and its practical actions for adopting democracy. This decision was not liked by the neighboring Arab states that were scared that the democratic trend and freedoms would invade their monarchy states so they did their best to create political and economic problems that hurdle the democratic and development achievements in Yemen. In away or another they funded some political parties, tribal sheikhs, religious sheikhs and some social dignitaries to agitate different political, social, religious and economic problems.

These resulted in the broke out of the 1994 civil war triggered by some separatists who were funded by some neighboring countries. Thanks to the Yemeni people struggle and contribution they could win the war in few weeks and restored unity and stability of the country.

However since the very beginning of the establishment of the republic of Yemen the Yemeni political leadership worked for solving their border problems with the neighboring countries through peaceful means and their efforts crowned by signing borders treaty with Sultanate of Oman in 1991 and signing the historical border treaty with Saudi Arabia in 2000.

These brave steps helped Yemen to solve its problems with its neighbors and consequently paved the road for joining Yemen to the Gulf Cooperation Council a hard long process that Yemen is still undergoing to improve its economy so as to be a full member of the GCC.

After 20 years of the establishment of the Republic of Yemen, the country could achieve remarkable accomplishments in the fields of democracy, human rights, freedoms and freedom of press as well as in the fields of sustainable development and financial and administrative reforms.

It is true that the country could not achieve all its goals but this was a result of many other challenges represented in the high population growth, the limited resources, the terrorism threats, the sedition rebel in some districts of Sa’adah province, the separatist movement in some districts of some southern provinces, kidnapping and terrorist incidents that damaged the tourism sector and corruption that badly affected on the development process.

The president of the Republic in his speech last week referred to a big surprise to be announced in his historical speech to be delivered on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the national day May 22.

This surprise is expected to announce ways for solving political problems with the Joint Meeting Parties JMP and with all other parties including the Houthi rebels and the separatists.

The public expectations gone further than that to expect 100 percent rise of salaries of army and security personnel.

However we expect that the president would announce amnesty for all those contributed in sabotage and disorder acts, pardon journalists that incited the public against unity, release all those convicted of harming unity of the country and start an open serious dialogue among all the effective political parties and powers with no exception so as to pave the road for restoring stability and conducting the legislative elections that were postponed for one year thanks to an agreement signed between the General People Congress ‘ruling party’ and between the JMP last February. This prediction is based on the first two decisions by president Saleh. The first was releasing the editors of al-Ayyam newspaper (Basharahil family) and solving all the family problems. The second decision was announced last Thursday to release the socialist journalist Mohammed al-Maqaleh who was undergoing a trial by the penal court. The decision ordered to release al-Maqaleh and closing his file completely.

This way or the other the president’s expected surprise is positive and no doubt that the opposition parties would have their own surprise that we hope would be positive too.

We wish that the GPC, JMP and all other parties and powers would put the interest of the country above all other partisan or personal interests.

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