The Security Council has offered Ali Abdullah Saleh a chance to go quietly -- and outraged the Yemeni opposition, writes Graham Usher at the United Nation On 21 October the UN Security Council called for an end to violence in Yemen and on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to accept a political deal which would see him stand down. The resolution enjoyed the support of all 15 council members, but ran afoul of activists from Yemen's protest movement as well as international human rights organisations, including the UN's own human rights office in Geneva. That's because it was based on a plan by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This calls for Saleh to cede power in return for immunity from prosecution for crimes against his own people. It's unacceptable, says Tawakul Karman. She is a Yemeni political activist who, together with two women from Liberia, this month was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The UN has "to discuss the ousting of Saleh and how he has to be handed over to the International Criminal Court as a war criminal," she told reporters outside the Security Council. Karman had arrived in New York not to seek an exit for her president but to urge the UN to freeze his assets, and refer him to the international tribunal for his role in the killing of nearly 900 Yemenis since their protests began in January. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told Karman there should be "no impunity" for human rights violations in Yemen. The resolution is the council's first response to the crisis in Yemen, save for a meek statement issued in June. Delay was due to reluctance by member states like Russia to approve anything that smacked of regime change. But the spectre of Yemen becoming a failed state on a Somalia-like scale has concentrated minds. Since Saleh returned to Sanaa in September after recuperating in Saudi Arabia from a botched assassination attempt, violence in Yemen has soared. Two hundred people have been killed and thousands wounded, many by loyalist forces. A Tunisia-like movement for peaceful change has descended into an armed conflict between warring factions within the regime, with Saleh on one side and dissident army general Ali Mohsen and tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq Al-Ahmar on the other. The near civil war has caused a "dramatic" deterioration in Yemen, UN special envoy Jamal Benomar told reporters. Large parts of the north have fallen to the Houthi insurgency. There is a revival of secessionist movements in the south. And government officials say five or six provinces are now beyond the state's control. These include at least one where Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) has a foothold. The United States views this as the most lethal of Al-Qaeda's affiliates after it attempted two failed attacks on American soil. The CIA has recently renewed drone attacks in Yemen, assassinating AQAP spokesman (and US citizen) Anwar Al-Awlaki on 30 September. Should AQAP's foothold become a footprint amidst a collapsing state it could pose a threat to the Gulf's oilfields and key shipping lanes. That's a future that spooks not only the US and Saudi Arabia, but council members Russia, China and India, all of which voted for the resolution. All agree that the GCC plan is "only game in town", said Germany's UN representative Peter Wittig. As well as granting immunity, it requires that Saleh form an opposition-led cabinet and transfer power to his deputy before new parliamentary and presidential elections. It was drawn up by Saudi Arabia, promoted by the US and has the support of Saleh's ruling General Congress Party (GCP) as well as a few opposition parties. Saleh has rebuffed it three times. Prior to the passage of the resolution he said he would only accept the GCC plan if "guarantees" from the Gulf, Europe and America were forthcoming, presumably to secure not only his future but those of his sons and cousins that head the regime's military forces. Afterwards, he said he would only relinquish power if Mohsen and Al-Ahmar did the same. The three men currently divide Sanaa between them. Saleh is playing for time, says one senior UN diplomat: "I think he's hanging on to see whether the opposition gets more divided and he can get more leverage." Against this the diplomat hopes that the unity of purpose shown by the council will jolt -- if not Saleh then his party -- into realising that unless a democratic transition is soon agreed there may not be a unitary Yemeni state to transfer power to. It's a game of chicken but it risks deepening the rift not just between regime and people but between the people and a world body they feel should do more to help them. The Security Council "resolution serves the interests of the dominant powers and some of the states of the region. But it does not fit with the aspirations of the Yemeni youth," said Walid Al-Amari, an activist who has spent months camped on Sanaa's Change Square. Tawakul Karman agrees. Interviewed by New York's Democracy Now! radio, she compared the different fates of dictators in the Arab uprisings. Some flee, like Tunisia's Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali. Some are held accountable, like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. And some are killed, like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. "In Yemen we have our own scenario," she said. "We don't want to go in the direction of violence. And I urge the international community not to let Yemen go in that direction. But if the [Security Council] resolution does not tell Ali Saleh to transfer power�ê� or hold him accountable for his crimes and refer him to the ICC�ê� or keeps dealing with him as their beautiful child -- some Yemenis may think the Libyan model might be the right model. And this is something we don't want for our revolution."
