Yemen Battles Itself

Most of the news the West gets from Yemen is about terror. Missionaries gunned down. Politicians assassinated. Clerics accused of supporting Osama bin Laden.

There is another form of terror, which comes from poverty, and for Yemenis like Mohammed Saeed, that is no news at all.

To visit Saeed requires a bone-crunching car ride along a dried-up riverbed strewn with rocks and boulders. It’s slow going, bouncing, sliding on the silver gray rocks, up and over an embankment and finally into Al Hagri, a village of stone huts and dirt paths that probably has not changed much in centuries.

There, Saeed, 70, lies motionless in a muddy courtyard, resting on a cot made of tree limbs and dried vines, sheltered by an overhang of old stalks. He is weak from malaria and can’t speak because his teeth are painfully rotten. Even if he could afford to, there is no sense making the roughly two-mile trip to Bani Sad’s hospital.

The only indication that that building is a health care facility is a hand-lettered sign that says “Hospital.” But open the door and there is nothing inside except a few cold, bare lightbulbs and some cots. There is no medicine or electricity. There are no doctors or nurses. And, of course, there are no patients.

“We acknowledge there is a shortage in Yemenis’ lives,” said Ali Mohammed Othrop, a member of parliament and former interior minister. “The state is really not capable of meeting those needs.”

Yemen is in a battle with itself, caught between its people’s immediate needs and the West’s global war against terrorism. With every attack, every American killed on its streets, Yemen loses a bit more ground in its struggle to pull itself into modernity. Not only is it the poorest country in its region, but it is also counted among the poorest in the world. The United Nations ranks it 148th among the 174 least developed nations.

Who will invest in such a country? The global donor community gives just $300 million annually to Yemen’s approximately 18 million people, very little compared with what goes to other developing countries. Last year, the U.S. alone gave about $400 million in aid to Jordan, which has a population one-third of Yemen’s.

Efforts to move closer to the West and build democratic institutions that could help curb the popularity of radical Islamic thinking have created a deep sense of unease in a country where tribal loyalties are still very much alive. Pro-Western leaders have avoided dismantling the tribal system, which for centuries has governed how people live but whose very existence often conflicts with efforts to effect change.

Yemen has the most open government on the Arabian Peninsula, a nascent democracy with an elected parliament and president, a purportedly independent judiciary and a constitution. But the institutions are weak, and attempts to impose the rule of law are often overshadowed by the leadership’s inclination toward secrecy, the tradition of fierce tribal loyalties, and widespread distrust of government.

Yemen’s meager revenue, about $3 billion annually, is inadequate to meet the material needs of its people and the security demands occasioned by the Al Qaeda network’s presence in the country. Its money comes mostly from oil but also from remittances from abroad, the income of the port of Aden, and some industry and agriculture.

Recognizing the problem, the United States has taken a multi-pronged approach to helping. In addition to well-publicized security operations here -- such as the missile killing of suspected terrorists last year -- the U.S. is planning to finance a $10-million health project in some of the more remote regions. It is also planning to reopen an office of the U.S. Agency for International Development here for the first time since the mid-1990s.

“If you want to minimize terrorism in Yemen, you do have to address it across the board and use all of the tools available to do so,” said Edmund Hull, the U.S. ambassador.

The country has some big cities, Sana and Aden, where there are wealthy districts. But even in the cities, most people are poor, supplies of electricity and water are intermittent at best, and the streets are crowded with beat-up cars and barefoot kids.

Bani Sad is typical of much of Yemen.

The district is about 70 miles west of Sana, the capital, but driving here takes three hours along a narrow road that zigs, then zags through mountainous terrain, past vistas rivaling the Grand Canyon and the red rock cliffs of Sedona, Ariz. Many Chinese laborers died long ago building the road, and their cemetery has become a favorite place for Yemeni brides and grooms to be photographed on their wedding days.

Winding down, switching back and forth, the road leaves the barren landscape that is much of Yemen and opens onto the Sardoud River. This time of year, the river is a trickle, just about ankle-deep. But even that is a source of water in one of the most parched regions on Earth and is enough to throw up a shock of greenery that softens and transforms a bleak horizon.

There are about 47,400 residents of Bani Sad district, and many live in a manner that seems from another time. Three villages within the district -- Al Hagri, Saraa and Bani Sad -- are organized around ties of kinship, a structure known as mikhlaf, in which tribal and family relations define all aspects of social, political and economic life. The central government does not play much of a role. There are no police, no courts, no post offices. The only authority is the sheik, or leader, of the Bani Sad tribe.

Al Hagri is a cluster of stone compounds overlooking a small, flat plain the community uses for subsistence farming. Ahmen Yehia has lived here all his life.

Yehia has no idea how old he is. He looks to be in his 70s, but his is a hard life. His home is one room, built of stones, insulated with dried mud. He is poor, illiterate, sick and reasonably representative of the population of his village -- about 120 families.

“I am very poor,” he said when asked his age. “I don’t have any money to eat. I don’t read or write. I don’t know, I don’t know.”

There are 160 school-age children in Al Hagri, and all are barefoot, dirty and idle. The women and the donkeys haul water up from the river in jerrycans. There is no electricity anywhere except the sheik’s big stone house, which has its own generator. There is a one-room schoolhouse and it does have a lightbulb, but that burns only when the sheik runs his generator.

According to the United Nations Development Program, which is working to help organize the community to help itself while also providing some small financial assistance, “the total annual family income from the farm may be estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000 rials” -- the equivalent of about $10 to $20.

“These households are trapped in a constant process of borrowing and reimbursing money simply to survive,” according to the U.N. agency.

Back across the riverbed, toward the village of Bani Sad, there is a stretch of shops along the one main paved road. Retailers sell salt, flour and cooking oil in tiny packets that go for a few cents, because hardly anyone can afford to purchase more at one time. Even the river, which should be counted as a blessing, is a curse. The water is polluted, and because there is no other supply, people drink it and get sick. The river also breeds mosquitoes, and in this region, that means malaria.

“The water is polluted!” screamed Ahmed Abdu Hofashy, jumping up when asked by a visitor about his life.

Soon a crowd gathered, old and young men, their faces weathered, their teeth stained and missing, their voices filled with desperation.

“We need drugs, and we need pesticides,” said Yahi Abkhar, 42. “I have six children, and they all have malaria.”

But it is not just their poverty that makes Yemenis angry and susceptible to a virulent ideology that demonizes Westerners, Jews and even other Muslims who do not share their views.

Many of those identified as leading terrorists in Yemen come from relatively well-to-do urban families. They are driven by ideology -- not poverty -- but they have been able to hide and flourish within the pockets of despair that define the life of most Yemenis. There is a widespread sense among the people of having been abandoned, left to drift in their own misery.

“We don’t hate our country,” said one tribal leader from an impoverished province in eastern Yemen who spoke on the condition he not be identified. “We hate our government. It doesn’t take care of us.”