Yemen, 2011

At the

outset, allow me to congratulate our brother Mr. Nassir

Abdulaziz Al-Nasser on his assumption of the

presidency of the General Assembly. I am fully

confident that, given his renowned experience and

wisdom, he will ably execute the functions of his

position. I wish him every success in his work. I would

like to express our thanks and appreciation to

Mr. Joseph Deiss for his constructive efforts in

presiding over the General Assembly at its sixty-fifth

session.

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Our thanks also go to Mr. Ban Ki-moon on his

deserved re-election as Secretary-General of the United

Nations. We wish to express our thanks and

appreciation to him, as well as to the entire Secretariat

staff for their work over the past year, in particular for

their follow-up of the situation in my country.

We wish to congratulate the people of the

Republic of South Sudan on that country’s

establishment and accession to the United Nations. We

also wish to congratulate the National Transitional

Council of Libya for its presence among us and for its

representation of the brotherly Libyan people.

Since January, my country has been experiencing

an acute political crisis. The political opposition that

has been one of the main components of our system

since the unified State of Yemen was established in

May 1990 decided to relinquish all common

denominators and rejected the principle of consensus,

refusing to implement the agreement reached since

2006 following its defeat in the presidential elections.

It has created crises, raising its demands and rejecting

all compromises and solutions. Realizing that

democratic means would not enable it to seize power,

the opposition resorted to political manoeuvres,

including violence, threatening the outbreak of civil

war and complete devastation in Yemen. That could

undermine all the achievements of the Yemeni people

in the modern era, as well as their struggle to establish

a democratic political system and to protect their

national identity, social fabric, unique human harmony

and the system that we have managed to build.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Yemen’s national

movement made great progress by establishing a

unified State of Yemen, founded on pluralistic

democratic principles and coupled with various civil

institutions that promoted and respected human rights.

However, those who wished narrow, individual and

partisan interests to prevail did not support that historic

achievement. Therefore, they tried to stir up trouble,

using the conflicts and mistakes made in Yemen in the

early days of our unified State, as well as the

challenges to development — the uncontrolled

population growth, the prevailing poverty, the lack of

national resources, increasing drought and

desertification, and the scarce water and oil resources,

which were the main source of income.

All those factors have made it impossible for

thousands of university graduates to find employment,

which has led to social and political tensions and

frustration. But all the opposition forces used the tidal

wave of change witnessed by Arab countries to prevent

Yemen from achieving democratic change through

elections. However, we respected young people’s

demand for change and started a dialogue with them in

order to meet their demands for reform. We have

created tens of thousands of jobs in order to alleviate

unemployment.

However, the opposition parties abused and

misused the protests of our young people in order to

seize power, and some of their elements have carried

out subversive acts to sabotage the youth movement

and its just demands. The opposition parties rejected

the results of the democratic elections that were

conducted under the international monitoring of the

European Union, the Democratic National Institute and

several international organizations, which verified that

the elections were fair, democratic and transparent.

Our Government showed its readiness to meet the

requests of our young people and their legitimate

demands to build a better future for us and for

prosperity — a future that is hindered by my country’s

weak economy, limited national resources and the

prevalence of poverty and unemployment, as well as by

terrorism and the repercussions of the global financial

crisis. Our Government kept on calling on our

development partners and friends and international

organizations to provide financial and economic

support in order to achieve sustainable development in

Yemen, which would ensure security and stability in

our country.

The main reason for, and primary cause of, the

current upheaval in Yemen is the dissatisfaction of the

opposition and its refusal to endorse the election that

took place in 2006. In that election our people showed

confidence in the President of the Republic and chose

him as our President. The opposition’s rejection of that

process has led to the crisis that we are witnessing

today at the economic, development, security and

political levels.

Despite the intransigence of the opposition, the

President of the Republic offered compromise in order

to achieve reconciliation between the opposition and

the Government. That has led to the postponement of

parliamentary elections for two years. However, the

efforts of our President continue through his initiatives

before Parliament and the Consultative Council,

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whereby he affirmed that he had no intention of

running in the presidential elections and that he

accepted the amendments to the Constitution and the

electoral law, as well as an entire package of political

reforms.

Our country has incurred heavy losses, estimated

at more than $2 billion, as a result of the chaos caused

by the opposition parties, which have tried to cut off

roads, blow up oil pipelines and cut power lines in

many of our cities, in particular in the capital, Ta’izz,

Aden and Abyan. However, the Government continued

to seek a peaceful solution to the political crisis,

calling on the opposition to come to the table and begin

dialogue. We in Yemen are confident that the recent

division will be overcome by returning to

constitutional legality and remedying certain

shortcomings.

The Government offered a new opportunity for

dialogue by endorsing the initiative of the Gulf

Cooperation Council (GCC) as the foundation for a

solution to the political crisis, especially given that His

Excellency President Ali Abdullah Saleh decided to

entrust his Vice-President with all constitutional

powers, to initiate dialogue with the signatories of the

Gulf initiative and to create a mechanism that would

guarantee a smooth and democratic transfer of power.

That would allow for reconciliation, reform, change

and reconstruction in Yemen without any violation of

security, the Constitution or democratic principles.

We believe that Yemen, as a country that opted

for dialogue as a means of overcoming the political

crisis, will provide a model for change in which all

parties are winners and the status of women is

enhanced. The President, following his return to

Sana’a, declared in no uncertain terms that he

supported the GCC initiative and was committed to it.

He called on all parties to initiate dialogue and to reach

a compromise with a view to its implementation.

My country is continuing to make every effort to

fight Al-Qaida and its terrorist acts in our country

despite our Government’s limited resources. We have

dealt some serious blows to Al-Qaida in Abyan

province in recent weeks. What we need at the

international level is an integrated global strategy that

would help us build our national capacities and thereby

enable us to fight extremism and terrorist ideology.

Such a strategy would not involve military force only

but would be of a social, educational and political

nature and would strive to eradicate poverty and

achieve universal justice.

The Republic of Yemen attaches primary

importance to human rights, which is one of the main

pillars of the United Nations. Since the return of unity

to Yemen in 1990, my country has made great strides in

this area. We have established a Ministry for Human

Rights and have become a signatory and party to a

number of international human rights instruments and

conventions, on whose implementation we submit

periodic reports. We have also submitted our national

reports within the context of the universal periodic

review of the Human Rights Council, with which we

cooperate.

In that connection, we welcome the outcome of

the review conducted by the Human Rights Council in

Geneva and New York, in which we participated

actively. There is no doubt that during the political

crisis many human rights violations have been

committed by all parties. The Government nonetheless

showed a readiness to conduct independent national

investigations and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The Government also opened its doors to the fact-

finding mission sent by the Human Rights Council. In

response to an invitation by our Government, the

mission visited Yemen in July and submitted its report

to the Council on 19 September. However, my country

believes that resolving the political crisis is the key to

stopping all violations of human rights.

The Government of Yemen, during its

chairmanship of the Group of 77 and China in 2010,

continued to actively and sincerely work to achieve

consensus and unity within the Group, which led to a

consensus on many issues of interest to the Group,

including, inter alia, climate change, the outcome

document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the

General Assembly on the Millennium Development

Goals, and United Nations reform. In that connection,

we wish every success to the Republic of Argentina

during its chairmanship of the Group. We also wish

every success to the fraternal Republic of Algeria,

which will chair the Group in 2012.

The Israeli-Arab conflict represents the main

threat to international peace and security. An objective

understanding of the conflict clearly shows Israel’s

intransigence and its Government’s policy of

establishing settlements, its rejection of the legitimate

and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, its

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refusal to abide by international legality, and its

rejection of the Arab Peace Initiative. We call upon the

international community and the peace sponsors,

including the United States of America, to continue

their efforts to achieve universal recognition of a

sovereign State of Palestine and to allow it to join the

United Nations as a fully fledged Member of the

Organization and other world organizations and organs.

Allow me in closing to reiterate my thanks to the

Secretary-General for his efforts in following the crisis

in Yemen. I wish also to thank all the United Nations

agencies for their humanitarian efforts in my country

during this political crisis.