Yemen must save itself from ruinous gun culture

The United States and Yemen top the list of gun ownership worldwide. There are about 113 guns for every 100 Americans, according to a Congressional Research Service report. There are no reliable comparable statistics for Yemen, but estimates vary at between 55 and 300 guns for every 100 people. In both nations, there is a deeply ingrained culture of pride in owning weapons and great reluctance to regulate that ownership, let alone ban it altogether. 
In many parts of the US, purchasing a pistol or an assault rifle is not much more complicated than buying a fridge or a TV set. This laissez-faire gun culture was made plain in the recent massacre of 14 teenagers and three staff members at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The assailant, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, appeared to have purchased his weapons legally, despite the fact questions had been raised about his mental stability.
The horrific incident has reenergized debate in the US over the permissive approach many American states take toward gun ownership. Many hope that this time around the anti-gun campaign will be more effective than before.
The frequency of these killing sprees is staggering. In 2017, the US experienced a total of 346 mass killings — or almost one every day on average — resulting in the deaths and injuries of thousands of innocent people. When you add these mass killings to individual cases, you will find that at least 15,549 people were killed by guns in the US last year (excluding most suicides), a 3 percent increase on 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The 2017 total includes the Las Vegas massacre in October, which was the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the country’s history. The shooter used a variety of high-powered guns to murder 58 people and injure more than 850.
Like the Florida school incident, the horrific Las Vegas massacre also ignited fresh debate about gun laws in the US, but that discussion soon faded away.

Second only to the United States in terms of ownership of weapons, the nation has to fulfill its previous agreement to use the ballot box instead of bullets to achieve political goals.

Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg

Yemen is even more lax about gun ownership and use. The country’s gun culture goes back decades at least and predates the current crisis, which started with the Houthis’ September 2014 coup d’etat against the internationally-recognized government. Yemeni tribes and individuals take pride in owning personal weapons, as well as automatic rifles, missiles, armored personnel carriers, tanks, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. The Yemeni government tried repeatedly, before the crisis, to regulate gun ownership but failed. Even in peacetime, it was not unusual to see men in Sanaa and elsewhere slinging their assault rifles over their shoulders, or placing them casually on the floor or tables of restaurants and cafes. 
Gun ownership in Yemen became an end in itself, a social status symbol taken for granted and not explicitly linked to political goals. 
Houthi rebels have taken this gun culture to its extreme: They graduated from personal weapons, assault rifles and tanks to become the only militia that employs strategic weapons such as ballistic long-range missiles and guided anti-shipping missiles. This culture explains in part the Houthis’ refusal so far to surrender their weapons. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216 of 2015 made it clear that they have to do so and their representatives agreed in principle to hand over heavy and medium weaponry, but they have used creative pretexts to delay that eventuality.
Another example is the Houthis’ ability to recruit so many children, who make up about one-third of their fighting force, according to one UN report. The gun culture made it easy to persuade children and their families to use weapons, which is considered a rite of passage and a badge of honor. 
While Yemeni tribes have codes of honor and chivalry that acted as something of a check on using weapons, the Houthis have distorted those rules.
This distorted gun culture also explains in part how Al-Qaeda — and more recently Daesh and Southern separatists — have been able to plant deep roots in Yemen. The availability of weapons and the permissive gun culture made it easy for these groups to arm themselves.
On an almost daily basis since 2014, the Houthis and these other terrorist groups have engaged in unspeakable atrocities against civilians, taking advantage of lax gun laws and a warped culture of guns and violence. 
Any long-term solution for the crisis in Yemen has to develop a consensus on demilitarizing Yemeni society and politics. Yemenis have to fulfill their previous agreement to use the ballot box instead of bullets to achieve their political goals.
Very soon, the new UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths will start his mission to bring Yemen’s warring parties to the negotiating table. The genesis for the solution will be found in the GCC initiative and its implementation mechanisms, which include parliamentary and presidential elections. By agreeing on a set of outcomes that aim to regulate political life in Yemen away from the culture of violence, Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference, which lasted for 10 months and concluded in January 2014, represented the clearest position yet against Yemen’s gun culture and use of force.
UN Security Council Resolution 2216 called on the various Yemeni parties to implement the GCC initiative and national dialogue outcomes as the basis for a political solution. As such, the path is clear for Yemen to gradually disavow its gun culture and save itself from national suicide.

• Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is a columnist for Arab News. His email: [email protected]. Twitter: @abuhamad1