The International Day to End Impunity

         A Boxing tournament Episode #9 : Closure…

“If all the songs they wrote for their wars were written for love instead..If all the martyrs they sent to war to die stayed to plant the earth instead…”

I was first introduced to the song above by a friend whom I mistakenly broke down with four days after we had met.  It was a very tough night when I was simply required to write a professional objective report for a very reputable human rights organization. Writing the report was not a problem since research is what I do for a living. However, being away from Yemen brings out the vulnerability I escape with work and this is how I could not help but pour random images painted with stories of blood and tears to a total stranger. Later on and with the way I managed to expose myself to someone for the first time like that, I lost control over my emotions, which were by that time no more than a  human traffic accident with so much collateral damage. Now, that I am back in Yemen and no longer around that person, I can easily see why at certain times he called me a drama queen.

 I only tried healing three times.. First,  when I painted graffiti on RPGs traces on walls with my friends in the streets of Sanaa where soldiers from both sides were watching with their weapons around around. Second, when I opened up to that friend and did what I feared to do here with people I see everyday, but that was not right as it felt horrible later to know how distant in reality that person I exposed myself to is. Third, when I began writing about my boxing tournament in this blog, and even though the results of this one are not immediate, it has been so helpful in making me see where things went wrong and why I cannot with many others in Yemen find closure. Today’s finding is not a first, and I am not a pioneer at writing about it. Still, every human personal input can represent an exceptional perspective and from that angle I want to tell my story with the International Day to End Impunity.

If you google the 23 actions activists and journalists worked so hard on this month in order to get the world to pay attention to November 23rd. and how many closures, like mine, are still pending because of impunity, you will be able to go through  hundreds of pictures and stories. Each story has a way of telling. My own will be told through the same date: November. 23rd.

November.23rd is not when my friend Hassan Al Wathaf was shot. Hassan moved to the area where the third round of armed clashes began in Sanaa on September 2011. He was a young camera man who worked for Al Hurra T.V. I still recall Hassan as a married young man and a father of two daughters not to mention a very professional journalist, but the first thing that comes up to my mind is how soothing his smile is.. I mean was…

Hassan was shot in the face during the clashes 7 minutes away from my house. His camera was still running for a couple of minutes as he laid on the pavement bleeding until he was taken under the nonstop shootings to the hospital where I was donating blood. I did not know that Hassan was upstairs, and I was only told what happened hours later. And as much as I would like to brag about my bravery, I could not go visit Hassan. It was his smile that they shot, and I could not handle not seeing it again. 

Hassan died a few days later, and left us with the last video his camera taped as he fell on the same street he walked over and over again dreaming of the better tomorrow we all dreamed of.

Hassan’s story is the story of so many Yemeni journalists who were shot, tortured and imprisoned in Yemen by Saleh’s regime during a tyranny that lasted for 33 years. Hassan’s story is the story of many others’ around the world but as I said the way this one is told is through this date: November 23rd.

After decades of divisions fed by what Saleh himself called:”Dancing on the heads of snakes”, Yemenis finally managed to teach the world a lesson in non violence when the civilians who own over 70 million pieces of weapons left violence behind along with inherited religious, geographical and tribal conflicts to chant: The People Want a New Yemen. And as history repeats itself, Gulf countries with the blessings of the west supported their loyal son, Saleh, and gave him the time he needed to fuel an armed conflict against his former right hand, General Ali Mohsen. Gulf countries watched Saleh as well as Mohsen drowning the aspirations of millions so that when it’s too late, they throw a straw. The straw was the GCC Initiative which basically gives Saleh and a group of his close ones immunity from any sort of prosecution, not to mention Saleh’s condition that his immunity law becomes part of the Yemeni constitution. The GCC Initiative was signed by GPC, Saleh’s party, as well as the JMP, our so-called opposition, on November 23rd. 2011,  International Day to End Impunity. Yes, I am from a country where those who killed and tortured to rule were given immunity from prosecution on the same day the world demands justice for journalists who were tortured and killed.

So, yesterday I went to the journalists syndicate in Sanaa where journalists and activists had a demonstration demanding justice for Yemeni journalists who were killed and tortured. There were printed posters and T-shirts, but I stayed the night before to make my own… My own poster remembering Hassan.

I may not have the ability to have closure anytime soon. Nobody here can have closure knowing that the very constitution, which begins by telling us that the authorities and legislation are owned by the people has given Saleh and his company a pass to escape 33 years of darkness… I can only keep my tears and hard times inside until closure comes, for we cannot expect our inner struggles to be seen the way we see them when we speak of them to those who don’t know enough about dates, smiles, what used to be and what has become and among all the boxing tournament of someone like me…

Until we get our closure, I will keep asking as I sing along: 

“If all the songs they wrote for their wars were written for love instead..If all the martyrs they sent to war to die stayed to plant the earth instead…”