Yemeni president resigns

From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December

Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh has finally resigned, transferring power to his vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, in the hope that this will help bring an end to the unrelenting mass street protests that have been going on now for the best part of a year.

However, there was virtually no public response in Yemen to the news of the president’s resignation. He was, after all, absent from the country for many months, yet everybody saw how the country continued to be run by the same elite that he represented. Yemenis understand full well that the purpose of the resignation is to enable to same elite to retain their control over the country’s economic and political affairs.

The ink had not dried on the resignation papers when gunmen (who included uniformed members of the security services) opened fire on protesters occupying ‘Change Square’ in Sana’a, the country’s capital, killing at least five people.

Yemen’s puppet regime in trouble

From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 1 October

In Yemen, the part of the army that remains loyal to the imperialist puppet president Ali Abdullah Saleh, under the command of Saleh’s nephew, General Yahya Saleh, opened fire with heavy-calibre machine guns and other weapons on unarmed protesters in Sana’a on 18 September.

By 20 September there were armed confrontations between Saleh’s forces and those of the First Armoured division, led by General Ahmar, who has sided with the protesters against the government.

The following weekend, Saleh, who had been detained in Saudi Arabia to recover from wounds he received in an attack on the presidential palace, returned to the Yemen, announcing that he was “carrying the dove of peace and the olive branch”.

That peace and that olive branch, however, are entirely dependent on the Yemeni masses succumbing to his demand to remain in power, when almost the whole of Yemen wants him to step down.