U.S. Ideals Meet Reality in Yemen

The proposal:

For $743,002, it said, NDI would shape tribal men from Al Jawf, Marib and a third governorate called Shabwa into an organization with an executive board, officers, bylaws, a code of conduct and various committees. It would assist them in setting up offices. It would teach them how to keep records. It would train them in conflict resolution. It would support them in negotiating truces, setting up no-shooting zones around places such as health clinics and schools, and organizing seminars in conflict prevention. And it would help them establish credibility with international donors so that at the end of NDI's program they would be self-sufficient enough to attract money and continue on their own.

The proposal was 16 pages long. Single-spaced.

"Perhaps overly ambitious," Madrid would acknowledge later.

What happened between Oct. 1, 2004, and June 15, 2005, was that the bureaucracies of two countries took over. The proposal was reviewed, eviscerated and completely rewritten.

The focus on the sheiks changed. The money was cut in half. The project was delayed. And the whole thing disappeared for a while into the part of democracy promotion that isn't the soaring words of an inaugural speech, but the commodification of democracy into something suitable for export.

Meanwhile, in Yemen -- where the U.S. Embassy had to shut down for two days because of a security threat, another al Qaeda trial was underway and the Yemeni government announced that "extremist" forms of Islam are being taught to 330,000 children in 4,000 underground schools -- there were problems with the proposal as well.

In December, the USAID mission, which originally endorsed the NDI program, sent an e-mail saying that because of "the sensitivity of the project," NDI had to agree to "coordinate very closely with the U.S. Embassy and USAID in order to manage potential risks" from the program. These risks included "increased tensions between tribal groups and the government, and the possibility of strained relations" between the Yemeni government and the United States.

What the e-mail didn't say, but what was becoming clear, was that President Saleh was becoming increasingly suspicious of this little program. One of the ways Saleh has remained in power since 1978 has been by keeping the tribes divided, and a program that would unite sheiks from a dozen tribes and three governorates -- sheiks in control of about 25,000 men armed with machine guns, grenades and heavy artillery -- would certainly be a "potential risk." Would such a program affect Saleh's cooperation on counterterrorism if it went forward?

That was the embassy's growing concern, which left Madrid suddenly worried about this insistence on close coordination. "It would be disastrous for our work in Yemen if we were to become seen as an arm of the Embassy," she wrote to her supervisor in Washington.

"I would strongly suggest walking away from this program under conditions like this," came the reply. "Let's get out."

She almost did, but a final conversation produced a compromise: a six-month , $300,000 program to research tribal conflicts, rather than a program that would unite sheiks to end them.

USAID was happy with this. Madrid wasn't, but made peace with it by deciding to use some of the $300,000 to keep working with the sheiks anyway, which was exactly what she was doing on June 15 when the program officially began.

"Let me congratulate you," she told 14 sheiks at the first board meeting of the Yemeni Organization for Development and Social Peace.

Smiles.

Applause.

And things fell apart from there.

Twenty-five days later:

"One of them is carrying a gun," a man named Ali Chahine, who is a trainer in conflict resolution, whispered to Madrid.

They were looking at 25 sheiks -- the entire membership of the Yemeni Organization for Development and Social Peace -- who had driven across the sands and mountains of Yemen to the coastal city of Al Mukalla for a three-day workshop that, judging by the agenda, could have been occurring on any weekday at any Holiday Inn in the United States. This was the first step, to teach these men how to be a legitimate, self-sustaining nongovernmental organization (NGO), and Chahine would be leading them in sessions such as "Team Effectiveness Training" and "NGO Organizational Structure."

"Oh, a lot of them are carrying guns," Madrid whispered back, trying to reassure him. "It's just part of their jewelry."

But the fact was, she was wondering about them, too. A few she knew well. A few more she knew somewhat. But half of them she was now seeing for only the first time, and enough had happened in the past 25 days to make her, if not suspicious, at least wary.

The worst of it: When she heard that someone in the U.S. Embassy had described her program as a project "to find out where the terrorists are hiding." "If people are talking like that, it'll kill us," she said, so upset she was shaking. "It puts my local staff at risk, it puts all of my programs at risk. It could be a disaster."

But she also was wondering whether these sheiks would stick it out through the long slog of becoming an NGO. She looked at a sheik who, in addition to his handgun, was wearing a jewel-encrusted watch, probably bought with the monthly stipends many sheiks discreetly receive every month from Saudi Arabia. Would he care about writing proper bylaws?

How about the one who can't read or write and has several wives, one of whom he married when she was 11? Could he learn proper accounting methods?

Or how about the sheik whom Madrid knew best of all, a man from Marib named M'Fareh Mohammed Buhaibeh who was one of the sheiks to first approach NDI? In the months since, as Sheik M'Fareh emerged as the leader of the organization, Madrid had spent many evenings with him learning about his life. He grew up in a village where people lived in tents made of camel hide. His school was a blanket on the sand. "How old are you?" Madrid asked him once, and when this stooped man with such old hands and exhausted eyes said he was 55, she felt a fresh wave of sadness for the whole place. Would someone like him have the patience to keep at this for this six months?

But the sheiks had questions, too -- about her.

In the beginning, all they had wanted to do was form some kind of committee to take on the problem of revenge killings; now, 15 months later, here they were attending a three-day workshop on the Arabian Sea because that is what an American told them they needed to do. "You have to meet certain requirements," she had said to some of them one day, explaining that no organization would give them money until they were established as a legitimate NGO -- so they became an NGO. "How many of you have used Excel before?" she had asked another time, explaining the need to keep books -- so they learned about the computer program.

More on faith than understanding, they had gone along with what she had said, but they were wondering whether, in the months ahead, she would stick with them.

Sheik M'Fareh once asked her this, and her answer -- "Promises are cheap" -- didn't exactly put him at ease. So they wondered: Does she understand the risks they are taking? That the government could somehow punish them? Or arrest them?

Does she understand the pressure had already begun? Because a few days before the retreat, the president had summoned 10 of the sheiks to his palace to ask them what they were doing working with an ajooz , an old woman. "Welcome, Americans," he had sarcastically greeted them, several of the sheiks said. "Be careful of the Americans," one recalled him saying. Another recalled, "He said some bad words. He said, 'Don't trust the Americans. They will not give you aid, and, if they do, it won't be more than $100.' He said they are all liars." Several said that after leaving the palace they were followed, and that on the drive to the retreat they were stopped at checkpoints, something that, because of their status, had not happened to them before.

Everyone wondering about everyone: That's what was happening 25 days into the program. In this atmosphere, Chahine went to the front of the conference room and said to the sheiks, "Look at each other. See each other. Think: Can I work with these people? Do we have the will to work together?

"We have to trust each other," he said, and with that introduction they settled in for three days of work.

They did trust-building and team-building exercises. They learned about turning "problems into objectives" and how to be "preventative rather than reactive." They nodded solemnly when one sheik said, "Suffering has brought us together," and came up with a list of projects to do, including helping in schools, furnishing empty health clinics and solving a tribal conflict in each governorate in a way that wouldn't involve paying blood money. They kept their guns holstered and their daggers sheathed and were heartbreakingly earnest when Chahine asked them to write down their own private hopes of what they wanted to accomplish.

"Our children finishing school," one wrote.

"Democracy in the whole Arab world," another wrote.

And to write down the most important moment of their lives.

"Coming here."

"The establishment of our NGO."

"This retreat."

"Thank you, Dr. Robin," some of the sheiks said in unison at the end of the retreat, and then, optimistic and hopeful, they drove off across a wobbly country where, in the course of a day, everything can seem to change.

Because six days after the end of the retreat, several of the sheiks were gathered at NDI, discussing something that had happened the day before. The president had given a speech in which he said he might not run for reelection in 2006. He then went on to talk about Yemen's need for democracy, about the countries of the world that were now Yemen's friends, and about one organization of one such country that had begun working with some Yemeni sheiks to solve the problem of revenge killings. And then said, either laughingly or mockingly, depending on the translation, "Solving the problem of revenge of 20 million people with $300,000?" And then asked why this organization was working with some sheiks instead of through proper channels in the Yemeni government. And said either adamantly or threateningly, depending on the translation, "We do not want anyone to interfere in our internal affairs."

It had rained after the speech, clearing the streets into the night. But now, this next day, the sun was out, children could be heard chanting at the schools behind the high walls, traffic was again moving along the street named in honor of a Palestinian boy who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers as he cowered against his father, and the bombproof

windows were open at NDI, where the light coming in revealed a worried woman who was saying to the sheiks, "I do support this. From my heart."

Her anxiety was evident, though, so much so that one of the sheiks felt compelled to say something to encourage her.

His name was Rabea al-Okaimi. He is from Al Jawf. Soon, while trying to mediate a spiraling war between his tribe and another, a war that has been continuing off and on for 25 years, he would drive into an ambush of machine guns.

Right now, though, on day 33 of this six-month program, what he said to the only American he knows was this:

"We're very proud of you."

Madrid blinked in surprise.

"And," he said, " we will continue."