U.S. Arms Feed Yemen's Gun Culture

[laststeamtrain]

U.S. Arms Feed Yemen's Gun Culture

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 30 (IPS) - When Yemen refused to vote in support of a U.S.-sponsored Security Council resolution against Iraq during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, a visibly angry U.S. delegate turned to the Yemeni diplomat and said: "That will be the last time you will ever vote against a U.S. resolution."
Washington's subsequent retaliation, in the aftermath of that negative vote, was predictable.

The United States not only downgraded its relationship with Yemen but also cut off all military aid to a country once heavily armed with Soviet weapons.

But since that much-talked-about confrontation in the Security Council chamber, there has been a dramatic turnaround in the fluctuating love-hate relationship between the two countries.

And this week's aborted attempt to blow up a U.S. plane by a Nigerian student, with ties to a terrorist group in Yemen, has brought the political spotlight back on a country which is proud of its gun culture.

Yemen reportedly has over 60 million handguns and small arms spread over a population of some 21 million people.

Yehya al-Mutawakil, a former interior minister, was quoted as saying that everyone in Yemen is armed with handguns, while members of various tribes have gone upscale: they are armed with assault weapons, rocket launchers and submachine guns.


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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49860

[benEzra]

1. The article never says how U.S. guns are supposedly contributing

to the Yemeni "gun culture." I don't see a single sentence in the article that supports that premise. (What, are men in the tribal areas carrying Smith & Wessons instead of Cold War surplus Kalashnikovs and Makarovs now?)

The overwhelming majority of guns in Yemen are of former Warsaw Pact manufacture, though I would not be surprised to find some European pistols there as well (Glocks, Sigs, Berettas) and a few U.S./NATO status symbols (e.g., FN M16's diverted from Saudi Arabia, or Iraq/Afghanistan captures). But the article doesn't even try to back up its headline.