Yemen's President Hadi stands amidst officials during the opening of a national dialogue conference in Sanaa on March 18, 2013 (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]Yemen's six month-long National Dialogue Conference (NDC) is scheduled to come to its end on September 18. Afterwards, a referendum on a new constitution will be held, before presidential elections in February 2014.
This is, if everything goes well, as agreed in the two-year long transition deal that was signed by Yemen's conflicting parties in the Saudi capital Riyadh in November 2011.
However, the most controversial group in this dialogue, the southern separatist movement known locally as Al-Harak, pressed the UN envoy Jamal Benomar to begin another, additional dialogue after the NDC ends.
Al-Harak began boycotting sessions of the NDC until its demands were met, and only returned on Monday September 9, after an absence of more than a month. Although Al-Harak does not represent all separatist groups in the south, Benomar promised them another dialogue process under UN supervision, between eight people from the south and eight people from the north, and also promised to establish an international fund for implementing the outputs of these negotiations.
To convince Al-Harak to return to dialogue after the NDC almost stalled and became paralyzed, Benomar promised to arrange compensation for thousands of southerners who lost their jobs after the 1994 war between separatists and unionists. The Yemeni government said it would need USD 1.2 billion dollars for this issue alone.
The Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Mohammed Al-Saadi, said Qatar would pay USD 350 million, and the remaining USD 850 million will be paid by donors from the Friends of Yemen group, who will meet on September 25 in New York. Donors have been promising to help Yemen by pledging to finance development projects since 2006, but most of those pledges have not materialized.
Benomar said that he will brief the UN Security Council on the "success" of Yemen's NDC on September 27, after praising the Al-Harak group as "brave" for returning to the dialogue, deemed to be the best example of conflict resolution in the region.
The leader of group from the Al-Harak movement involved in the dialogue, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, said after he returned with his group that "[we] returned in adherence to our conditions on the restoration of the independent southern state."
Before leaving for London last month, he said Al-Harak would not return to dialogue until President Hadi meets their conditions on establishing south-north dialogue and negotiations to restore the southern state.
The promise of Benomar to Al-Harak to begin an additional dialogue was criticized by many other members of the NDC as something that would make the resolutions and findings of the dialogue conference much more difficult to reach, as the groups and members will be discouraged because they feel there will be another, subsequent set findings they will not be party to.
"Talking about additional dialogue will make the nine groups [taking part in the] NDC less willing to take any decisions because they know there will be other ones later," said Ali Abu Hulaika, a member of the NDC. Another member of NDC, Abdul Wahab Humaikani, Secretary General of the Salafist party Rashad, threatened to sue those who call for additional dialogue as it is something that violates the by-laws of NDC.
For ordinary people in the streets of Yemen, the majority of them do not care about the dialogue at all, and are not waiting for the results to be announced.
"In the best case, these people involved in dialogue will help themselves with salaries and jobs, but I do not think they would do something help my living and the living of my kids," said Bashir Suwaileh, a barber sitting beside his nine-year old son Sakr.
Abdu Mohammed, had his own opinions about the dialogue process. "If there is any good outcome from [the] NDC, it would be what Americans, and Saudis and Jamal Benomar want, not what we want," said Mr Mohammed, who supports his family by buying and selling the legal narcotic Qat.
Tawfeek Al-Ammari, who has been working as history teacher in government schools for more than twenty years, criticized the official expectations of the NDC.
"The dialogue is good and I think it should succeed, but the problem is that [the government] is extremely busy with it and is ignoring everything else. The government with all its functions should continue working and serving people and not wait for results of dialogue," said Al-Ammari.
"If the father or mother is busy with something, the other members of the family should do their job normally, to continue life, not wait or be busy with the same thing," he added, accusing government ministries and other official institutions of using the NDC to justify their shortcomings and inactivity.
