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| "An anti-Saleh tribesman in Sana this month." via NYT |
Following 10 months of popular protests calling for his resignation, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement last week to transfer power to his vice president. It's unlikely, though, that a piece of paper will bring a peaceful transition to this beleaguered Arabian Peninsula state....
Since the agreement was signed, "plainclothes government thugs" shot dead at least five protesters in the capital. Meanwhile, "Yemeni troops appear to have unlawfully killed as many as 35 civilians in the city of Taizz," the country's third-largest, according to Human Rights Watch.
Alas, violence -- from state-sponsored forces to independent militias, not to mention drones strikes from the U.S. -- is commonplace in Yemen. That Saleh has returned to Sanaa and continues to issue statements as if he were in power -- even after accepting the deal in Riyadh -- is a perhaps a bigger threat to the transition than the continuing violence across the country.
For more, come listen to Laura Kasinof, a New York Times correspondent who has reported from Sanaa since 2009, as she reflects on Yemen's uprising tomorrow, December 1, at 12:15pm. We'll be live-streaming the discussion (here).
