Yemeni Lands and Transitional Justice
The land issue in the countries of the Arab Spring remains one of the most controversial topics in the process toward national reconciliation by the previous ruling parties. This legacy is still the subject of heated debate, and much work remains to be done to address that particular issue in Yemen.
Following the completion of the outcome recommendations of Yemen’s comprehensive national dialogue, in which the issues related to grievances from southern Yemen dominated most topics, the members of the Transitional Justice Team failed to vote on the final report of their work. This was due to fundamental differences with the Conference Party on aspects of transitional justice concerning political dismissals, immunity, reparations, truth telling and contrition to the victims, which also has impeded the adoption of a transitional justice law.
The report included two important points regarding the land grabbing, namely (1) that no statute of limitations applies to the cases of land and property dispossession, and (2) the establishment of an independent national body to recover public and private land and properties, with extraordinary powers to enable them to conduct their work in various institutions of the state.
However, the interim Yemeni president issued Decision No. 2/2013, in January 2013, creating two committees to address the issue of land and staff dismissals in the south, as well as Decision No. 6/2014, in February 2014و establishing a committee to address the land takings Hudaidah Governorate.
According to the Decision, both Commissions addressing the land and property issues where to finish their work within a period not exceeding one year from the effective date of the Decision. So far, the Committees have received 100 thousand cases in the south, the largest share of them located in the Aden Abyan Governorate, also 2025 grievance cases in Hudaidah.
In November 2013, the interim President of Yemen issued a decree adopting the recommendations of the Commission, in October–November 2013, addressing more than 11 thousand land-grabbing cases of the southern provinces.
And will be a compensatory land exchange for 11,157 civilians and military persons from the southern provinces who lost their lands after the war in the summer of 1994. The first batch of land and property restitutions will number 360 cases.
Despite these important steps to resolve the issue of South and promote stability, which represents less than 4% of the total number of cases related to the looting of land. Meanwhile, the Commission actually has recorded a number of 221 thousand cases of land theft in the south.
Some believe that this is only a partial step and lacks clear mechanisms for implementation and any comprehensive vision to resolve systematically looted lands. This has given rise to the fear that the Commission’s recommendations will share the fate of the recommendations of the Basr-Hilal Committee, formed during the reign of Ali Saleh, which froze the cases without taking any action, after it had identified the names of influential people who looted lands south.
Moreover, the Commission did not address some of the most-problematic aspects in the land administration, such as the issue of land investment, and the land that was to resolve their dispute by Islamist insurgents in the province of Abyan through the imposition of strict Islamic law, as it did not specify the legal bases upon which to treat the lands of the south, whether constitutional or Islamic law references, such as endowments, or customary law, that are to prevail in the conflicts over land tenure.
The Committee of Hudaidah also faces same factors related to the mechanism of implementing the recommendations, and the extent of its powers vis-à-vis the state institutions, especially in the treatment of the lands of the Port of Hudaidah, as well as the lands of the Tihama region, where the general manager of the General Authority for Lands, Survey and Planning rejected to authorize the Commission to address the territory of Hudaidah.
Recently, military forces under the 10th Brigade (the former Republican Guard) broke into the governorate building with the purpose of forcing Governor `Atiyya to sign over land with drinking water wells in al-Baidha area for residential facilities for the Brigade, against a ministerial decree allocating the area for urban or industrial use. This development has created conflict between citizens and the forces of the 10th Brigade.
The judge of the Committee on Hudaidah lands affirmed that some parties have misused legislation to spread the phenomenon of land grabbing in the name of residential compounds and industrial cities do not exist at all.
Issues of land and property in Yemen are a principal cause of conflict within in society and between various communities. Therefore, it seems that the decisions of the establishment of Commissions to address land and offer solutions, it requires seriously re-examining and implementing the principles of transitional justice by applying legal norms and accountability to find durable solutions to the issues of land to be carried out by the parties concerned.
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