Yemen: Is Economic Aid the Best Solution for this Ailing State?

Welcome to the Middle East International Affairs (MEIA) blog at LSE IDEAS. We invite PhD students and academics from throughout the UK and abroad to analyse current events in the Middle East and add to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions. Our first contributor, Christopher Swift, examines the implications of economic aid to Yemen as the London Ministerial on Yemen begins on 28 January.

We look forward to exploring both regional and topical issues relating to current events.
Amber Holewinski, Editor, LSE IDEAS Middle East International Affairs Programme Blog


Yemen: Is Economic Aid the Best Solution for this Ailing State?

By Christopher Swift

The failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253 has sparked renewed emphasis on Yemen and its role as a sanctuary for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Just days after the attempt, the Obama administration promised to double civilian and military assistance to Yemen. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged an additional £100 million to bolster the Yemeni government. And the European Parliament opened debate into efforts to assist the ailing Arab republic.

This emphasis on economic assistance will headline the 28 January Yemen Ministerial, to be held on alongside the London Conference on Afghanistan. Unlike multilateral initiatives in other al-Qaeda sanctuaries, this gathering will address Yemen's condition on a proactive, rather than reactive, basis. That aim is commendable, if not essential. Yet while economic aid is necessary, it will not be sufficient. And so long as that aid emphasizes national elites rather than its traditional social structures, it will only amplify Yemen’s internal discord.

This is not to malign foreign aid. With unemployment reaching thirty-five percent and nominal per-capita GDP around £726, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Muslim world. Its population is growing. Its water table is falling. And its oil reserves are running dry. Faced with these pressures, President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government may soon lack the means to mend Yemen’s deteriorating social fabric. By delaying collapse and encouraging growth, foreign assistance might ameliorate these destabilizing conditions.

Yemen’s weakness is not merely a matter of development, however. Since 2004, the predominantly Sunni government has fought an intermittent campaign against Shi’a Houthi rebels in the north. With Iran intervening to support the Houthi and Saudi Arabia moving to secure its frontier, that conflict may invite a proxy war. The South Yemen insurgency is equally destabilizing. Sparked by a dispute over military pensions in 2007, the secessionist movement now espouses many of the same grievances that animated the 1994 Yemeni Civil War.

These conflicts erode state authority. Despite its nominally republican government, tribal networks still dominate Yemeni politics. And like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Somalia, those networks may either complement or constrain centralized power. Thus the more Saleh’s government contends with indigenous insurgents, the less it can address the other sources of domestic disorder. And the longer that disorder persists, the more it empowers AQAP.

According to Olivier Roy, al-Qaeda's uprooted nature makes it difficult to operate in indigenous societies without support from local allies. Yet unlike Chechnya, Xingjian, or Afghanistan, Yemen presents few of the social or cultural barriers that frustrate Arab militants. AQAP is comprised of Saudis and Yemenis rooted in indigenous tribal structures. And in some communities, the movement now presents a meaningful alternative to governmental authority. Thus despite its modest size, AQAP may be uniquely positioned to exploit local conditions for regional, and perhaps even global, ends.

Regional instability amplifies those concerns. With al-Qaeda propagandists calling for 'maritime jihad', and the radical al-Shabab movement pledging to support AQAP's struggle, the chaos afflicting neighbouring Somalia might permeate Yemen's porous borders. As one British parliamentarian noted, Yemen’s collapse would 'provide a safe haven for terrorists with close proximity to important shipping routes and neighbouring oil-producing Saudi Arabia’.

Fighting poverty is an essential precondition for long-term stability. Yet that aim cannot be accomplished through aid alone. Nor can it be obtained without resolving the Northern and Southern insurgencies, reforming Yemen’s corrupt patronage system, and ending repressive government policies. Against that backdrop, Western governments must remain wary of Yemeni efforts to expropriate external resources to advance internal agendas.

Foreign aid also carries unforeseen consequences, including the risk that the regime will be seen a proxy for Western infidels. Elements of that critique already resonate within the Yemeni ulema, where a coalition of prominent clerics recently threatened jihad against foreign forces targeting AQAP. By channelling resentment generated by Western operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, that trope could radicalize a wider segment of Yemeni society.

Sensitivity to these concerns has not produced a coherent international strategy. If the goal is to eliminate AQAP, then an emphasis on kinetic operations, intelligence sharing, and military training may suffice. If the object is to strengthen the Yemeni state, however, then prolonged investment in education, economic development, and basic social services are necessary. The former invites an indigenous backlash that may undermine the government. The latter strains credulity, particularly when viewed in light of the West’s economic malaise, burgeoning deficits, and countless unfulfilled promises in other failed and failing states.

Against this backdrop, the Yemeni Ministerial is more likely to coordinate existing policies than propose innovative initiatives. The United States will continue drone strikes and covert operations. The United Kingdom will expand its counter-terrorism training and intelligence coordination activities. And continental Europe will implement some of the economic assistance programs envisioned in the October 2009 EU-Yemen Communiqué. These approaches are complementary, to be sure. Yet ultimately their effect is more palliative than curative.

Three measures would give the Yemeni Ministerial a more substantive foundation. First, Western governments should encourage multilateral military, intelligence, and law enforcement coordination across the Arabian Peninsula. Absent regional coordination, even the most effective national campaigns may simply drive the al-Qaeda threat elsewhere. Second, the international community should help Yemen mediate disputes with indigenous insurgents. This would stem a significant source of internal disorder while laying the foundations for sustainable economic development. More significantly, it would mitigate the conditions that attract and sustain transnational terrorist syndicates.

Finally, Western governments should adopt population-centric policies. This does not mean abandoning the Yemeni government. Nor does it require military interventions similar to the surge in Iraq or NATO's operations in Afghanistan. But if recent experience in those theatres provides any guidance, it is that state-centric solutions are ill-suited to tribal societies. So long as indigenous networks represent a counterweight to state authority, they require complementary engagement. And so long as those network shelter, or sustain AQAP, they are the social terrain in which Yemen's future will be won or lost.

Prospects for Chile under the Piñera administration

The electoral victory of Sebastian Piñera in Sunday’s Presidential elections in Chile marks the first time that the Right has come to power via an electoral process since 1958, although the Pinochet dictatorship was also a 17-year period of right wing domination.

This electoral result will change many things in Chile, and in the region as a whole. Within Chile the social-liberalism of the Concertacion has now come to an end, and will be replaced by a more traditionally neoliberal version, a paradox in a world that has witnessed the catastrophic results of neoliberal economic policies. In the region as a whole, the US has now gained a geopolitical ally in its conflict with the Left governments in Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and across Latin America.

Piñera and his political supporters in Congress will want to make some fairly significant changes, but will have to contend with the fact that neither chamber of Congress is under their control. Their willingness to work constructively with the opposition is as yet untested, but it is highly likely that Piñera will be both more willing and more able to use Presidential veto and decrees, than the Presidents of the Concertacion were. The temptation to do so will be high given his control of some of the media (he owns a national TV channel), and the media’s overall right wing bias, as well as the international support that Piñera will be able to count on from the US and international media organisations.

The probable policies of the Piñera presidency will be influenced by their international links. Piñera and his supporters have a close relationship with right wing organisations in Latin America and in Spain, with Jose Maria Aznar’s Partido Popular, and Alvaro Uribe probably providing the models that Piñera will seek to emulate in Chile. This does not bode well for the health of Chilean democracy, for Uribe’s Colombia is not only one of the most unequal countries on the planet, with severe social problems, but also a country where the rule of law does not function if you are a member of the political opposition or a trade unionist, and where the State has become completely entwined with paramilitary and drug trafficking elements, creating a social nightmare which Chile would do well not to emulate.

One of the priorities of the Piñera presidency will be to ‘reform’ Codelco, the State copper company which supplies some 70% of the State’s income, although since privatisation in 1978 it has only accounted for 40% of all copper production. Copper is the ‘wage of Chile’ and Harvard’s Institute of International Development has estimated that Chile lost over 26 billion dollars in copper revenue between 1978 and 2003 – and some Chilean estimates are much higher. Although Piñera has mentioned increasing the royalty that foreign companies must pay for mineral extraction (currently one of the lowest in the world), it is much more likely that he will seek to make ‘savings’ by reducing Codelco’s workforce, attacking the salaries and working conditions of the State employed copper workers and perhaps by privatising parts of the company. Although this will no doubt be popular among both his right wing supporters and foreign mining corporations, it will inevitably fuel increased social conflict, which is why his second priority will be to attack the trade union movement.

The Chilean Labour Code, which governs all aspects of Labour relations, is still essentially the one enshrined in Pinochet’s 1980 Constitution (written and ratified during the years of military rule), and as such contains many repressive measures. Piñera can be expected to push for the traditional neoliberal measures of increasing the level of exploitation of the workforce, in other words, labour flexibility, as well as an increased repression of trade union strikes and demonstrations. It is highly probable that the elements within the police and security services that served the Pinochet regime will cooperate fully with these measures. On top of this, the replacement of Concertacion supporters within state institutions such as the ministries, will mean that Concertacion supporters and especially communists and former members of other left wing organisations will find it extremely hard to find work, especially in sectors like education, which are still dominated by Pinochet era appointees, or by members of right wing parties such as the proto-fascist Union Democratica Independiente (UDI). It also holds out the possibility that Chilean ambassadors and representatives in international forums and institutions might be human rights abusers with close links to the Pinochet dictatorship.

One of the groups that can expect an even more repressive response are the indigenous Mapuche of the South of Chile. Several have been killed over the last few years by the Carabineros, Chile’s militarised police, but it is clear that under a right wing government with allies among the great landowners who are the main cause of the conflict, the Mapuche can expect not only further repression by state agencies, but also repression on the part of paramilitary groups set up by the landowners, a measure that has precedent in the Pinochet dictatorship when paramilitary groups terrorised the indigenous population.

The human rights groups that have consistently struggled for justice for the human rights abuses suffered under the dictatorship will most likely see their cause set back significantly. Piñera has already made an agreement with the Carabineros and Armed Forces that there will be impunity for these abuses under his government. It is highly probable that human rights abusers imprisoned under the Concertacion will be pardoned, paroled or otherwise released. Furthermore, it is likely that Piñera will appoint other human rights abusers and their apologists to positions within the bureaucracy, and the various quango’s.

On an institutional level Chile will probably suffer increasing corruption. Piñera is an unscrupulous businessman, who has already demonstrated his capacity to mix business and politics. He can now be expected to use political power to enrich himself and his supporters even further, and they will expect to be able to enrich themselves from State coffers also. This is not because they are especially venal, but because the economic structure of Chile means that the State is the most significant creator and distributor of wealth. What effect this will have on levels of satisfaction is hard to say, but it is likely that it will contribute to popular discontent in much the same way that Berlusconi has affected Italian politics.

Latin America has, over the last few years become the scene of an anti-neoliberal surge, in the wake of the economic and political horrors of the 1980s and 1990s, which has seen Leftist governments come to power across the region. These governments have come into conflict with the United States as they have sought to solve the deep structural problems that have prevented them from achieving development and social justice. Chile can now be expected to go from being a behind-the-scenes player, or a neutral actor and tacit supporter of these governments, to becoming a vociferous opponent of the processes in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia especially. A political alignment with the noxious Uribe regime in Colombia will be established, and the putschist regime in Honduras will likely be recognised. Furthermore, US policies in the region will now receive enthusiastic Chilean support to the extent that Chile may well offer forces for Afghanistan, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they will offer the US the opportunity to replace the lost military base at Manta with some kind of installations in the north of Chile.

The economic policies and political orientation of Piñera’s Chile will also probably lead to Chile’s isolation from organisations such as Unasur (which Bachelet was unable to join because of Congress's veto) as well as Mercosur. This will serve to make Chile even more dependent on trade (Chile’s main exports are in the primary products chain: minerals, wood, wood chip, fish, fishmeal, fruit, wine and other agroproducts) with the US, Europe and other countries at the expense of regional trade. Given the free market ideological basis of this trade policy, we will probably not see any diversification of exports, nor any investment in technologies or industries that might reduce the dependence on primary products.

The overall effect of these policies will be to polarise Chile further, and most likely lead to a gradual increase in social mobilisation against Piñera and the Right. Whether the Left and the Centre-Left will be able to establish a new, post-Concertacion alternative remains to be seen, but it is likely that a right wing government will lead to an increased politicisation of the population, and therefore the re-emergence in Chile of three political blocks. Institutionally the challenge will be to accommodate these blocks within a system that was explicitly designed to exclude the Left from political representation, an aim that was successful until the latest 2009 elections when 3 Communist deputies were elected to Congress. However, some commentators in Chile point to the success of the Spanish populist Right, and to Berlusconi in Italy as examples of how the Right in Chile may be able to maintain, and deepen its power base. The ultimate result will depend upon the success of the 'progressive majority' within Chile in constructing a strong alternative.

Considerations about the rising Latin American Right

That Sebastian Piñeira’s election as president in Chile has implications in and of itself should not overlook the wider regional context and a possible resurgence by the Right in Latin America following a decade during which the Left was dominant.

The past 20 years has seen a generational change across the region as the military regimes and ‘thin’ and unrepresentative democracies of the past become an increasingly distant memory for older voters and a chapter in the history books of the young. Significant in this respect has been the resurgence of social movements and action inspired by the Left, from anti-globalisation protesters to demands for a more equitable distribution of national resources.

That Piñeira should have won might therefore seem surprising. But his may be the first of several more successes for the Right in the region in other elections both this year and next which could include Alvaro Uribe in Colombia in May, José Serra at the head of an increasingly right-wing coalition in Brazil in October and possible defeats for the Left in Peru and Argentina in 2011.

Over the past year there has been increasing interest and concern about the Right in Latin America, especially following the coup in Honduras in June 2009. Indeed, the manner of President Zelaya’s departure and the moves against him following his declaration to hold a non-binding public consultation to change the constitution had echoes in Salvador Allende’s own call for a referendum before the 1973 coup.

The rise of the Right in both Chile and Honduras highlight diverging trends in Latin America. On the one hand the Honduran example was similar to events in those states practicing ‘21st century socialism’, through a failed coup in Venezuela in 2002 and a potential one in Bolivia in 2008. On the other hand Chile seems to conform to the ‘loyal’ Right which exists in social democratic states including Brazil and Uruguay, where confrontation is limited to the electoral arena.

The reason for the differences in the Right’s development in Latin America owes much to the so-called ‘pink tide’ that swept the region during the last decade. This was a reaction to the unrepresentativeness of representative democracy and the rising economic uncertainty and vulnerability resulting from structural adjustment and liberalisation. Whereas social democratic governments in Brazil, Uruguay and Chile sought to mitigate those changes through the introduction of targeted social programmes, 21st century socialism in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela coincided amid high levels of social polarisation and pressure by the Left to ‘refound’ the state through constitutional reform on the other.

But even if the Right differs in its political strategy across the region, what are its constituent parts? Regardless of where it is based, it does seem accurate to talk of a Latin American Right. On one hand it shares a commitment to its previous 1980s-90s incarnation through continuing support for liberal economic and socially conservative positions (e.g. being against abortion and freely available contraception). On the other hand it differs from that version by being inclined to maintain many of the social programmes of the Left, particularly the cash conditional transfers paid to families to send their children to school or to feed them. The reasons for doing so not only include the support that governments gain as a result, but that such programmes are cheap, at around 1% of GDP. In addition, their foreign policy, especially in relation to the US, is likely to be similar to that of social democratic governments by being both nationalist and independent. In part this is due to changes in Washington as well, following the more confrontational Bush by the relatively enigmatic Obama.

This then, would seem to the parameters for a government by the Right in Chile: it would not mean a return to the unrestrained capitalism of the 1980s, but rather a development or reimagining of the Concertación model of the 1990s and 2000s. In other words, just as the Concertación inherited the structure of the military regime and adapted it, so will Chile’s first right-wing president since 1989 face a similar situation.

The Chilean Right in power: Piñera's election victory and prospects

Sebastian Piñera has been elected as Chile’s next president. For the first time since democracy returned in 1989 the Right has finally managed to win a majority share in a vote for the executive. Alongside the expected internal criticism within the centre-left Concertación coalition and demands for the heads of the Christian Democrat and Socialist parties to resign, questions will be asked about the ability of the centre-right Alianza coalition parties to work together in Congress with an ideologically similar president.

Piñera and the Right have been getting closer to electoral victory has been some time coming. Following first round defeats in 1989 and 1993, the Right was able to compete in head-to-head elections with the Concertación in second round run-offs in 2000, 2006 and 2010 (although this was also due to the challenge mounted by the extra-parliamentary left that was able to take votes off the Concertación in the first round as well).

But what already seems to be overlooked in the Chilean media is the narrow nature of Piñera’s victory, with abstentions and electoral registration having possibly played a part. Since 1989 both figures have been in decline, with yesterday’s poll the lowest yet with around 87% of voters voting and 67.5% of the voting age population registered respectively. In 1989 the turnout was 94.5% and fell to 91.3% in 1993; 88.5% of the electorate was registered in that year as well.

The fall in voting turnout and registered voters reflects growing public disillusion with the Concertación-dominated government of the past two decades. The coalition will therefore no doubt spend the next few months reviewing why that is and how they might re-engage with the public.  The education and Transsantiago protests and demonstrations during the last presidency demonstrated the extent to which it was disconnected.

But while they do that they might also spare a thought for the last time that Chilean politics took such an electoral re-direction – then to the Left. Following the highly turbulent 1960s and deep antipathy between the Left, Centre and Right, Salvador Allende’s election as president in 1970 was achieved with a similarly low turnout of 83.7%. In the years that followed until the 1973 coup, opponents claimed that Allende did not have a sufficient mandate and failed to represent the population sufficiently.

One can only wonder whether Piñera will be given the same yardstick. On one hand, while he doesn’t have a majority in Congress, power is skewed towards the executive. On the other hand, Piñera’s public support is volatile; voters weren’t pro-Piñera but rather pro-change as the 20.1% share of the vote won by ex-Socialist deputy, Marco-Enríquez Ominami demonstrated in last month’s first round. Moreover there are a number of veto players who may play an obstructive role outside of the political system, including the trade unions.

(For more on Latin America, visit the Ideas Centre's website here)