Yemeni bulldozers dismantle anti-Saleh camp

Yemeni authorities began on Wednesday to dismantle the main protest camp against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down in February after a year-long uprising.

Five bulldozers cleared several tents from the main roads near the capital’s Sana’a University without any resistance from the youth who have occupied the district since February 2011, an AFP correspondent reported.

The decision to clear the area, dubbed since protests began as “Change Square,” was made by President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.

Hadi was elected in February after Saleh, bowing to domestic and international pressure, abandoned power after 30 years.

Youths were busy loading their tents, mattresses, blankets, televisions and satellite dishes into vans and cars.

However, a few tents will remain in the middle of the square as a reminder of the youth's demands for a “civil state” and to put on trial “corrupt leaders,” according to activists.

The Arab world’s first female Nobel peace laureate, Tawakkul Karman, has kept her tent in place, activists said.

“The youth movement will not stop,” said Walid Ammari, a 35-year-old leader of the movement. “The tents dismantled are those of youths who came to Sana’a from other provinces.”

“This is a partial dismantling of the camp,” to allow the reopening of roads and neighborhoods, which has been interrupted for 14 months, he told AFP.

Ali Saad Mohammed, an independent activist who comes from Amran province, north of the capital, said “our mission has been accomplished. What we, young ones, had done what political parties were not able to do -- ending the rule of former president Saleh.”

But Hisham Ahmed, another protester, accused the Islamist Al-Islah (Reform) party, of having “sold out the young protesters and the revolution.”

The influential Al-Islah party was one of the major groups in Yemen which accepted the Gulf-brokered power transfer deal that saw Saleh step down in return for immunity from prosecution.

The party’s supporters have had significant presence in Change Square during the year-long revolution. Its members then participated in the national unity transitional government formed under the deal.

Hundreds were killed in the crackdown by Saleh loyalists on nationwide protests in the impoverished country during the uprising.

Over the months, the camp in capital’s northern district had turned into a small city with its own podium, stalls selling civilian and military clothes as well as sandwiches and juices. It even had a market selling qat, a local narcotic leaf Yemenis chew mainly during the afternoon hours.