Yemen's ambassador to Damascus, commander of the country's navy when the USS Cole blew up in 2000, said Friday he is seeking asylum in Britain because the government discriminates against southerners like him. Al-Arabiya TV aired a telephone interview with Ahmad Abdullah al-Hasani in which he says he tried to address with government officials the issue of sidelining southerners, but "they dealt with our opinions and suggestions haughtily and they considered this to be a kind of rebellion."
Marxist South Yemen and conservative North Yemen, with its capital at San`a, fought for years before unifying in 1990. War between the two regions erupted again in 1994. Although that fighting was shortlived, some southerners complain of discrimination. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there has been no contact with al-Hasani for weeks. Two relatives, who would not give their names, said al-Hasani has informed them he was in London and was not returning to Yemen soon. In a telephone interview with Al-Arabiya from London, al-Hasani said the Yemeni government dealt with south Yemen like an "occupied land." "The land was confiscated, sovereignty was confiscated, the resources were confiscated, the people were driven away from their land," he said. Al-Hasani, a southerner, deserted to the north during a bloody 12-day civil war in 1986 that left 10,000 dead. In the 1994 civil war, he fought alongside Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, North Yemen's president since 1978 and, since 1990, head of the unified country. |