Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 23:44:04 +0200
US drone strikes in Yemen cast a long shadow over life on the ground
Unmanned aircraft create refugees and resentment among civilians as remote
provinces become a battleground
* François-Xavier Trégan
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/francois-xavier-tregan>
* Guardian Weekly <http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/> , Tuesday 23 July
2013 13.59 BST
*
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/23/yemen-civilians-drone-strikes-b
attleground#start-of-comments> Jump to comments (1)
Tiny, bright-red flashes twinkle in the night sky over Obeiraq, accompanied
by a short, sharp detonation then a heavy thud. It shakes the houses and
their windows. Smoke rises from the valley below. It makes the women "sick"
and they stay indoors, but the menfolk strut around in the streets,
flaunting their indifference to the unmanned aircraft. "We're not afraid of
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/drones> drones," they say.
Obeiraq, population 2,500, stands at the eastern extremity of Dhamar
province, 150km south-east of the capital of
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/yemen> Yemen, Sana'a. Its rocky volcanic
landscape, peppered with fragrant shrubs, and surrounded by an unbroken
chain of mountains, is
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/24/hellfire-missiles-back-to-haunt
> a battleground for drones.
For the past year the neighbouring governorate of al-Bayda has been
constantly targeted by US drones. Other provinces – Abyan, Shabwa, Mareb and
Jawf – have suffered a similar fate. Rada'a and Manasseh, outposts in
eastern Yemen for
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/02/al-qaida-yemen-us-threat>
al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have been besieged by the Yemeni
military for months. Every now and then one or the other side claims
victory. Obeiraq is just on the edge of this deluge of firepower.
Standing in a doorway a policeman is questioning an Ethiopian migrant who
entered Yemen illegally. Tapping him on the shoulder, he asks: "Where are
you going next? You're not going to become a terrorist?" The man shakes his
head. "OK, we'd better take care of you," the officer concludes. In the
middle of the main square a local man points to a long-haired motorcyclist
carrying a Kalashnikov, claiming he is an AQAP combatant. Everyone smiles.
The supposed terrorist offers us a ride to take a closer look at the
fighting round Manasseh, then rides off on his own.
At Obeiraq there are pylons but no electricity, mains but no running water
and a large number of pupils crammed into just one school. The village has
no health facilities. The rutted tracks should have been tarmacked long ago.
Officially the most recent attack on Rada'a was on 20 May, ending a
three-week break in hostilities to allow time for "national dialogue" in the
capital, supposed to solve the country's problems. At Obeiraq there are no
soldiers to be seen, no wrecked houses. Visually the war is elsewhere, but
it is omnipresent in people's minds. When the people of Manasseh took flight
in January, on foot or in their pickups, they thought there was some escape.
But the war found its way into their hastily packed belongings. More than 70
families landed in Obeiraq, but there are only about 35 left, roughly 300
people in all. Of course Baraka is relieved at no longer having to hide in
the caves or venture home to fetch a bag of flour or dried vegetables. The
old woman knows the drones will not kill her here. She is safe in the home
of a cousin. "I was sick there," she says, "and I'm sick here. Sick of the
noise, at the thought of what has become of those who stayed behind, at the
thought of my home. I'm 100, you know. I'm tired and sick." She rests on a
stick, her deeply lined face surrounded by a brightly coloured shawl,
typical of this remote part of Yemen. She is certainly old, but probably not
quite as old as she makes out.
Dr Abdullah al-Hada, the technical head of the hospital in Dhamar, 40km
away, has met about 20 "sick" people, odd patients unlike those he usually
sees. He recalls the young adults who turned up in February and March, "when
the fighting was bad. They were affected by these explosions which happen
suddenly," he explains. He directed them to the emergency ward run by Dr
Muhammad al-Asouadi. "They were trembling and couldn't sleep. The same
symptoms affected civilians and soldiers. They spoke of being bombed, of
burns and destruction." Al-Asouadi still remembers the suffering expressed
by Yemeni soldiers "as they described their comrades killed in battle and
asked who would take care of their families if they too were killed". None
of them – neither civilians nor soldiers – has returned since. Al-Hada
recalls phone conversations with friends who have stayed behind in Rada'a:
"Right away they say: 'Yes, we're OK, but the drones ... tonight they're
flying over the village.' The drones, it's like sitting next to someone
playing with a revolver. You're afraid it may go off at any moment."
Non-governmental organisations have reported a dozen drone attacks in
al-Bayda over the past year, with an unofficial toll of several dozen dead
or injured, and hundreds of refugees. It is only unofficial because neither
the Yemeni authorities nor the US administration release any information on
the drone war.
At the peak of the fighting in January there were sometimes several strikes
a day, "from mid-afternoon to dawn", local people say. That is why Baraka
moved to Obeiraq with her daughter and son-in-law. Because the two villages
are close, the people of Manasseh have close links with their Obeiraq
neighbours. Obviously they moved there when the need arose, and they can go
back occasionally to keep an eye on their flocks and crops. At the same time
it is far enough away to afford a degree of safety. They were offered houses
that were either vacant or under construction, with no roof and just a
beaten earth floor. Others have taken refuge with relations, camping in the
main room of the dwelling.
Many of the refugees gather at Khaled's home, engaging in lively discussion.
"I assure you, the young men of Obeiraq may soon be joining AQAP," says
Hamid Ahmad Wassel, 40, a village councillor.He also serves as a magistrate.
People turn to him to settle disputes or for advice. Nothing that is said in
Obeiraq seems to escape him. "The young men may soon turn to AQAP, because
the combatants stand to gain a lot," he adds, obsessed by the lights burning
at Rada'a and Manasseh. Obeiraq has always lived in darkness, but the nearby
AQAP outposts, to which the government now pays much more attention, are
brightly lit. "I've been waiting for electricity for years, like the roads,"
Wassel goes on. He produces a file containing a lengthy exchange of letters,
with the provincial authorities and central government, regarding the
shortcomings of his village's infrastructure. The letter officially
confirming plans to build new roads dates from April 2006. The dirt tracks
are still there. The oldest letters go back to 1990.
"I don't understand," he insists. "
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/30/alqaida-yemen-jihadis-sharia-la
w> Must you be a terrorist to get electricity and running water? Is it a
sort of reward? Here, we're too nice, so the government forgets about us. We
have supported the government ever since the 1962 revolution, our region is
peaceful. But there are already people here saying we should do something to
attract the authorities' attention, like acts of sabotage or joining AQAP."
So is kindness the cause of all their ills? Ahmad Ali, also from Obeiraq,
thinks so. "The regions with senior officials get almost everything, but
here we have no government officials," he explains. "In the villages held by
AQAP, the government laid on electricity in a week. All the regions which
defied the authorities now have public services. We did nothing, so we get
nothing." A neighbour, Ahmad Abdallah Ahmad, is not so sure: "We don't
uphold the same principles as AQAP, you know, nor their view of how to apply
sharia [law]. Obeiraq mustn't get mixed up in that."
But the villagers are visibly in two minds. A young Yemeni journalist, aged
23, who was partly educated thanks to US co-operation, went all the way to
Washington to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on 23 April: "My
name is Farea al-Muslimi. I am from Wessab, a remote mountain village in
Yemen, about nine hours' drive from my country's capital, Sana'a. Most of
the world has never heard of Wessab. But just six days ago, my village was
struck by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor
farmers. The drone strike and its impact tore my heart, much as the tragic
bombings in Boston tore your hearts and also mine." Al-Muslimi had been
asked to give testimony on the drone war, but he never imagined he would
talk about the village where he was born.
On 17 April a strike eliminated Hameed al-Radmi, a suspected AQAP recruit,
and four other people. Wessab, a quiet village at the western end of Dhamar,
suddenly became part of the drone war. "The farmers in my village were angry
because Al-Radmi was a man with whom government security chiefs had a close
connection," Al-Muslimi told the hearing. "He received co-operation from and
had an excellent relationship with the government agencies in the village.
This made him look legitimate and granted him power in the eyes of those
poor farmers, who had no idea that being with him meant they were risking
death from a US drone."
But, he added, "there is nothing villagers in Wessab needed more than a
school to educate the local children or a hospital to help decrease the
number of women and children dying every day. Had the
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa> United States built a school or
hospital, it would have instantly changed the lives of my fellow villagers
for the better and been the most effective counterterrorism tool. And I can
almost certainly assure you that the villagers would have gone to arrest the
target themselves."
On the hillside above Obeiraq goatherds are driving their flock towards a
drinking trough. They disregard pressing calls to take cover and the
increasingly violent firefight just a few hundred metres away. The noise of
drones has become a habit. They simply count them as they hurtle overhead.
"My pupils talk of nothing else. They ask me to explain this war going on
next door," says the schoolteacher Muhammad Musli. His 50 pupils, aged 13 to
15, turn up each morning with "puffy eyes and scared looks: they think the
school may one day get hit", he adds. They ask about "this weapon they
cannot see, which attacks innocent people and all those who have had to
leave their homes". In an essay, Ali, 15, wrote about the "wild birds". He
is from Manasseh. "Before they were free," Musli recalls, "they would play
outdoors till nightfall. Now they go home before dusk." Much as everyone
else. At dusk the people of Obeiraq leave their fields. Even the streets are
empty.
Barack Obama
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/23/obama-drone-policy-counter-terr
orism> promised stricter rules for drone strikes in May to limit civilian
victims. Terrorists should be arrested if possible, not eliminated. So far
little has changed in Yemen.
Beschreibung: yemen drone strikesDrone zones: areas under fire. Photograph:
Graphic
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)