In the End, a Painful Choice

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Program for Democracy Faces Resistance
In Yemen, the question of building a democracy through U.S.-backed programs turns out to be a decision about whom to ignore. A Yemeni president who is vital to the U.S.'s war on terrorism? Or a sheik who represents a country's most forgotten people?

He sighed.

One conversation done, and one to finish, which had begun as soon as he walked out of the palace and his cell phone rang.

"Hi, Robin," he said.

"I'll tell you when I see you. I'm not comfortable discussing it on the phone."

"I would like to thank NDI and Dr. Robin."

A few hours later, still waiting to catch up with Madrid, Campbell was visiting a sheik who had seated him in a place of honor in his den, which happened to be directly under a portrait of Saleh that was propped up on

a curtain rod.

The sheik, named M'Fareh Mohammed Buhaibeh, was one of the sheiks who originally approached NDI and asked for help in solving tribal conflicts, which led to Robin Madrid's involvement, which led to the $300,000 grant from the U.S. government, which led ultimately to that morning's meeting with Saleh, which M'Fareh knew absolutely nothing about as he continued to speak.

"When NDI started working with us, others started to hear of our needs. The lack of education. Our health needs. Our need for water," he said, and the more he went on, the more uncomfortable Campbell became. Nodding. Wondering what to say. Looking away when M'Fareh said, "NDI became our outlet to clarify this picture to others."

Then came a knock on the door and in walked Madrid, who didn't know, either. Not the outcome. Not yet.

"We're just going through some of the background," Campbell said as she sat next to him under the portrait of Saleh.

"How are you?" M'Fareh asked her, smiling at his American friend, and then turned back to Campbell. "NDI in general, and Dr. Robin in particular, gathered us as one," he said. "She is the only person to have reached out to these tribal divisions."

A wince now.

"We have values. We have ethics. We wish for order. We wish for stability. We wish for democracy. We wish for all good things," M'Fareh went on about the tribes, and then said of Saleh's government, "They live on divide and rule. When they see us having relations with internationals, it makes them very angry."

Almost inaudibly, Campbell said, "I'll say."

Madrid looked at him. "Oh, you've found this out?"

"Yes."

"Uh-oh," she said.

And maybe that's the moment she realized.

"We need to talk about the Saleh meeting," Campbell whispered to her.

But it would be a few more minutes until they could, until dusk, when the mosque near M'Fareh's house, along with hundreds of mosques across Sanaa, and thousands across Yemen, issued the evening call to prayer. M'Fareh rose with the echoes and excused himself to pray, and if Madrid didn't realize before, she did when Campbell began by saying, "Saleh brought up the issue."

Not NDI. But Saleh, because he had something he wanted to say.

Methodically, Campbell told her everything. About the compliments. About the rest of it. "I'm sure that he's not fully understanding what we're doing," he said. "I mean, there's no question about that. But how would you ever get a full hour with the president to get him to actually listen? It's just never going to happen."

Madrid was facing him, holding a pen and a yellow legal pad as she listened. She is always taking notes, which she dutifully types into her computer each day and condenses once a week into summaries that she e-mails to Washington. Her notes on the tribal program run hundreds of pages. But now she put the notepad down.

"Even with an hour of explanation, I'm not sure," she said quietly.

And she then fell silent as M'Fareh came back into the room and Campbell said to him, "So I met with President Saleh earlier today."

Now M'Fareh was silent, too.

"He said, 'I don't care if you have $100 million or $500 million, you're not going to solve that problem,' " Campbell said. "Our point of view is that we don't think we're solving any problem. We just think that we're helping people get together to solve their own problems. And we don't have any ulterior motives in this, other than we think we can help bring some development and democracy to the country."

He paused for translation, and so he could figure out how to say what was next.

"But it's difficult to know what to do when we run up against this kind of blockage," he said. "And we also don't want to jeopardize the other work we're doing."

And there it was, what six months had come down to, one question to be answered, which had to do with what democracy as foreign policy actually means.

In Washington, when that question is asked, it is mostly in terms of congressional funding levels, competition for that money in governmental offices and nongovernmental organizations, and the rhetoric of a political leader trying to convince the nation of a strategy.

"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," President Bush said this year in his second inaugural address.

But on the far side of such rhetoric was its reality: a teetering program in a teetering place where the question of democracy's meaning turned out to be a decision about whom to ignore.

A president who is vital to the U.S. war on terrorism?

Or a sheik who represents a country's most-forgotten people and was now saying so earnestly as to be heartbreaking, "We are citizens. We are Yemenis. The problem is they don't want to reach out to us because we will speak openly about all of the problems. And they don't want that to happen."

He paused for translation. And then said:

"Do you think that's okay? Have you asked yourself that question?"

"No," Campbell said. "I don't think it's okay. I don't think we as an organization should be dictated to about who we can and can't speak with. Either we're welcome in Yemen or we're not. I feel pretty strongly about that. Either we're welcome here or we're not."

"Then I request that since you work in Yemen, you keep working with us," M'Fareh said.

"Well," Campbell said, standing. "It was very nice to meet you."

"Likewise," M'Fareh said. "And we'll have a lot of meetings in the future."

" Inshallah ," Campbell said. God willing.

Outside now:

"So it was real straightforward?" Madrid asked.

"Yeah," Campbell said. "He looked me in the eye the entire time."

And as the program came down to its final days, that's how the decision was made.

On the last day, which was last Thursday, there were at least four tribal wars going on in various parts of Yemen.

President Saleh was in Aden, basking in the chants of delegates at his political party's conventions as they begged him to run for reelection and remain in power for seven more years. "Democracy is our national choice," he told them, which was his way of saying yes.

President Bush was in the White House, watching reports of smiling people with ink-stained fingers and declaring, "May God bless a free Iraq."

Les Campbell was one his way back to Washington, where at NDI they were waiting to hear about a new Yemen proposal they had submitted to the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, this one for 15 months and $645,000 and with the word "tribal" no longer in the title.

Sheik M'Fareh was on the telephone in Sanaa, asking one of Robin Madrid's assistants if NDI was abandoning him and the other sheiks who had sought its help.

And Robin Madrid was in her house, blinking back sudden tears. She had been talking about the success of her other programs, that maybe there would be other ways to keep working with the tribes, that presidents can't be ignored, and that, "I'm a guest in this country, and that's a really important thing." She had said, "If this were the 19th century, what I would be doing is missionary work for Christianity. Now I'm a missionary for democracy, and the only way to do that is with a little humility. Be not so damn sure I'm right. Because if I'm wrong, I'm going to be on an airplane out of this country, and they're going to have to clean up the mess. That really ought to encourage some fear and humility on my part." She had said of the work she'd been able to do with the tribes, "We know them better, and they know us better, and that's a critical basis for the future," and had said of her program: "It was our highest-risk program, and it failed. In terms of what we were funded for, it failed."

And then she had heard what one of the sheiks had said about these past six months of his life.

The sheik was Rabea al-Okaimi, of Al Jawf, the one who was nearly assassinated on day 88 of the program when he was ambushed by rival tribesmen. He is the one who, instead of figuring out ways to end tribal conflicts with the help of NDI and the United States, found himself in the middle of a war that destroyed houses, emptied villages, caused numerous injuries to his fighters and cost seven people their lives. Who, as Saleh was ending NDI's program, worked out a truce in which his tribe would receive 44 assault rifles from the other side as payment for the attempt on his life, and then agreed to accept only 20, even though it was a breach of tribal law, because he didn't want the fighting to resume.

And who was now taking temporary refuge in Saudi Arabia, unaware of what had happened to the tribal program as he described what it had meant in his corner of Al Jawf:

"I could tell my people the world has not forgotten us. They are paying attention."

And added: "Until now, I have not seen any results. But I still have hope."

How do six months begin?

"Let me congratulate you for the courage and the vision to start this," Robin Madrid had said on the morning of June 15.

How do six months end?

"Oh my," she said as Dec. 15 drew to a close. "Oh my."