Abdullah Al-Ahmar

Man reacts in one of two ways after God saves him from poverty. Either he remembers his poverty and uses his newly acquired wealth to assist those in need, or forget his past and become overtaken by greed. Abdullah Hussein Al-Ahmar is a prime example of the latter case.  He lived a miserable life before the Yemeni Revolution but fate and the Al-Saud family had other plans. The Al-Saud family picked Abdullah Al-Ahmar as their man in Yemen by showering him with money from all directions, and enabled him to control the wealth of Yemen. He is primarily responsible for ruining and weakening Yemen.

After the 1990 Yemeni civil war and unification, Abdullah Al-Ahmar used his vast wealth to control the Yemeni politics and society. He gained control by setting up companies that bore his family name, Al-Ahmar, which lead to the monopolisation of Yemen’s resources. He set up businesses such as restaurants, wedding halls and garages, which outcompeted average Yemenis and multiplied his wealth tremendously.

Abdullah Hussein Al-Ahmar and his 10 sons

Banks often complained about the multiplicity of accounts belonging to Al-Ahmar family. This forced the Al-Ahmar family to set up new Banks, whether at home or abroad, through partners such as Bank of Sheba so that the movement of their money avoids detection.

It is a well known fact that Abdullah Al-Ahmar was an extremely selfish man. Not once has he ever contributed towards any charity, but many analysts expected his sons to be different, especially Hamid and Hussein. Many people expected them to provide assistance for those affected by war in Saada excluding Harf Sufyan. Any assistance to Harf Sufyan would be impossible given the historic hostility between the Al-Ahmar family and Harf Sufyan. No assistance was given by Hamid or Hussein and to add salt to the wounds, both rejoiced at the sight of death and destruction in the Saada wars, which was caused by the Popular Army (set up by Hussein Al-Ahmar and funded by Saudi money).

Money gained through corruption won’t last forever. The Al-Ahmar family spend most of their money on mobilising the masses, but never invest on those that suffer and are in dire need. They wish to mobilise the masses so that they can pressurise Ali Abduallah Saleh’s regime into accepting them as a partner in power. One shouldn’t be surprised if Saleh bows down to their demands, especially after Hamid became the opposition leader, which has given their family the opportunity to control both sides of the same coin, the Government and the opposition.

Yemen’s northern Shi’ite rebels, inspired by Tunisia and Egypt, have stopped fighting the government and are joining to non-violent protests instead, a theologian with close ties to the rebels said on Tuesday.

The rebels, known as Houthis after their leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi, have fought the government on and off since 2004 in a conflict that even drew in neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia when Houthis briefly seized Saudi territory last year.

Abdulkareem Ahmed Jadban, who has mediated between the government and the rebels, told Reuters the Houthis have put down their weapons and joined nationwide peaceful protests that have swept Yemen demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32 year rule.

“The examples of Tunisia and Egypt have been powerful. The Houthis have not fired a single bullet in the last several weeks. The have taken to the streets in Saada in their thousands like the rest of Yemen,” Jadban said. But he cautioned that the non-violence could also be short-lived.

Yemen agreed a truce in 2009 to halt its intermittent war with the Houthis. But sporadic violence has continued, Jadban said, because Saleh is supporting a tribal figure in the Houthi stronghold of Saada.

“They still reserve the right of self-defence. The attack on them last week was unjustified. Saleh is trying to divert attention from the street rage he is facing throughout Yemen,” he added, referring to an attack by the military on protestors that killed two in Saada, the Houthis’ northern stronghold.

At least 27 people have been killed in Yemen since protests erupted last month. Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing, is refusing street demands to leave and has hinted that Yemen would fall apart without him.

The Houthis, Jadban said, want effective representation in a national dialogue to take place if the popular movement manages to remove Saleh from office.

Jadban was until recently a member of Saleh’s ruling party, the General People’s Congress Party until he resigned last week along with 11 other parliamentarians to protest Saleh’s refusal to meet street demands to step down.

“Being in parliament was the only way to help the people of Saada because the ruling party controlled everything. No longer,” said Jadban, who has written books on the sect of Shi’ite Islam known as Zaidism, to which Houthis belong.

Jadban believes the Houthis might gain more traction if Houthis relinquished their belief in an Imamate, where the ruler must be a descendent of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. A Zaidi imamate ruled much of modern Yemen for more than 1,000 years until it was overthrown in 1962.

The Houthis are also deeply resentful of Saudi Arabia’s promotion of its austere Salafi school and fear that this fundamental version of Sunni Islam threatens their identity.

Saleh, who is backed by the United States, is of the same minority Zaidi sect as the Houthis, but also receives backing from Saudi Arabia in the conflict.

A Qatari-brokered peace agreement last summer stipulated that the government should help with the reconstruction of Saada but Jadban said little effort was made to improve the lot of the province, which is more impoverished than the rest of Yemen.

“There is no electricity. The whole region is sinking in darkness,” he said.

On Monday morning, tens of thousands of people from Saada, Sahar, Majz and Qatabeer took part in a demonstration in Dhahyan. Demonstrators called for the end of the regime and announced their support for the demonstrators in Aden, Abyan, Sanaa, Taiz.

The demonstrators said that the protests had reached the point of no return and actively encouraged others to join these peaceful protests.