In the shade of a eucalyptus tree on a banana farm outside Yemen’s second city of Aden, a wise Yemeni friend was musing on how President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s three decades of misrule might end. “The bugs in your own shirt are the ones that hurt you,” was the proverb he reached for.
Events seem to be proving him right. Despite Mr Saleh’s pledge not to repress protesters, some 45 unarmed Yemenis were killed on Friday by snipers while security personnel stood by. The atrocity triggered a rash of resignations; “bugs” of all kinds – government ministers, hitherto loyal tribal sheikhs and ambassadors abandoned his cause.
On Monday, a member of his own Hashid tribal grouping and the man long seen as the second power in the land, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar followed suit, rolling out his tanks to protect the protesters’ square, the state television station and the Defence Ministry. Only a few very closely related “bugs” are still holding tight: the defence minister, four of the president’s nephews who preside over various security services, and his son Ahmad, the elite Republican Guard commander, who has parked his tanks outside Mr Saleh’s high-walled fortress-cum-palace on the edge of Sana'a.