Six days after returning to Yemen from medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, President Ali Abdullah Saleh spoke on Thursday with Aryn Baker of Time magazine and Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post.
Beyond the standard rhetoric --- Saleh has authorised his Vice President to conduct dialogue with the opposition, even though that opposition is linked to Al Qa'eda, note two things.
First, any talk of negotiation is limited by Saleh's insistence that his main opponents, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and tribal leader Sheikh Sadegh al-Ahmar, cannot not have any influence: "[The initiative] says to remove all the elements causing tensions. Because if we transfer power and they are there, this will mean that we have given in to a coup."
And second, Saleh is playing up the image of his "alliance" with the US --- note how often he refers to co-operation with American intelligence:
TIME/Washington Post: We would like to inquire about your health. Do you have any indications of who might have been behind the terrorist attack that nearly killed you on June 2?
ALI ABDULLAH SALEH: Thank you for asking about my health. About the incident, there has been an exchange of information between us and the United States [since the attack]. And they promised us they would analyze the subject at the end of September. So we are still waiting for the analysis from Washington.
You have authorized your deputy Abdu Rabbo Mansour Al-Hadi to sign the GCC Initiative [a transfer of power plan crafted by Yemen's Gulf neighbors] Why don't you do it yourself now that you are here? And if you could explain to me what is holding up the agreement, and how close is the government to signing it?
First of all the Vice President was delegated according to a Republican declaration (a declaration by the President). And there isn't any reason for it not to go through whether I am inside the country or outside. There is nothing that would stop this declaration from going through.(
How close is the Vice President to signing the agreement?
The VP is waiting for the other side. We are ready for signing the GCC initiative as it is. However the JMP [opposition coalition Joint Meetings Party], they say that they want from this initiative one point: that the president , or the Vice President signs, and within 30 days [the President] leaves power. And then the 60 days that the GCC have mentioned — they are not enough for elections. What is important to [the JMP] is to remove the president from power and the country would then go through chaos.
We are ready and willing to sign at any time. But we need to sign the GCC initiative as a whole and we need timelines for the mechanism of executing it...we are not holding on to power, we are willing to leave power as stated in the agreement, within the days and hours that will be agreed upon.
Yet many say you are stalling. Three times you have offered to sign only to back down at the last minute. Many in the international community think that you are buying time in order to consolidate power. What makes your commitment this time different?
This is a misunderstanding. We are willing within the next hours and next days to sign it, if the JMP comes closer [to reaching an agreement]. We don't want to prolong it. And we don't want this crisis to continue. We want this country to get out of this crisis. So the wrong ideas and wrong interpretations of the media has no validity whatsoever because the transfer of power is a given, whether sooner or later.
And you are still committed to not running again when there are elections?
(Laughing) As for me, I will retire. After the opposition contributed to make the president come closer to retirement through the criminal act that happened at the presidential mosque.
In recent days there has been heavy public criticism of you by General Ali Mohsen [al-Ahmar] as well as the Ahmar clan. What is your response to this public criticism, and given the violence and mistrust that is unfolding, is it possible for all of you to remain in Yemen and work together?
What kind of criticism?
General Ali Mohsen put out a statement just the other day saying that you were driving the country to civil war.
They say such statements every day. They are the ones who attack the military bases, the civilians, and the protestors — the protestors that are moving around the city with the protection of Ali Mohsen, and the Ahmars, using armed people. And they assassinate protesters from behind so they can blame the state.
And I believe that the American intelligence is following this up. And having a close eye on it, and they know exactly what is going on.
So can you live together with [Mohsen and the Ahmars] in the future?
To be able to live with the other political powers, yes, there is no problem. But whoever was involved in the presidential attack and the incident two weeks ago that happened in Zubeiri Street on Sunday that resulted in casualties of both soldiers and civilians — regardless of who he is or what his position is [in the country] — we have to bring them before the law.
Your crackdown on protesters has been violent. You have gotten international condemnation for using guns and heavy weapons on peaceful protesters. Why have you resorted to such violent crackdown measures?
This kind of action is not possible in Yemen. The constitution has given the right to Yemenis to gather and protest and to express their views through media. But these actions ... these actions were performed by a group of people that wanted the blame to end up being on the state. They claimed that they are protecting [the protesters], and [the group] end up by shooting them and using these actions. There is like a trend, a media trend, by some of the media to call for the falling of regimes and replace them with nationalists, socialists and other different movement.
And now they are moving toward Islamists, and therefore, and a big evidence for that is now they are making propaganda about the regime in Sana'a. They are saying that the government is the one that is oppressing the protesters, but on the other hand, they are the ones who are oppressing the state itself by their actions. We are fighting al-Qaeda organization in Abyan in coordination with the Americans and Saudis. At the same time the American intelligence have knowledge that [al-Qaeda] are in contact with both the Muslim Brotherhood [the opposition Islah party, which is part of the JMP] and the military officers that are outlaws. And they [the Muslim Brotherhood and officers] told the Vice President, "Give us Abyan and we will stop the war in Abyan and al-Qaeda network there."
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