The human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Tawakkol Karman, has highlighted the essence of confusion with regard to rejected peace roadmap the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, had presented to the parties to conflict in war-torn Yemen.

According to Karman’s point of view, Yemen’s problem does not lie in the absence of initiatives or agreements between the parties to the conflict, but it has to do with the lack of sufficient guarantees that sponsors should offer so that any proposed plan wouldn’t be violated or undermined as it happened to the Gulf initiative and the subsequent agreements.   

She noted shortcomings of the latest plan offered by Ould Cheikh, which was rejected by both Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi who was cited saying that it “rewards the putschists” and the Houthi militia that said the roadmap had “fundamental flaws.”

In a statement posted on Facebook, Mrs. Karman stated the worst thing included in the UN initiative is that it tells nothing about the army and how it could be rebuilt, while it delayed the point of arms handover by the militia until later without any guarantees. 

Yemen’s Nobel laureate viewed that the peace plan in its current form will never achieve any sustainable peace, pointing out that it produces only a temporary truce at its best, expecting that what comes after will be worse than war and warfare.   

As a result of this inescapable failure to achieve peace, she continued, the plan of this kind will have delegitimized the transitional authority represented by the president Hadi and his current government in favour of the putschists whose fascist coup will return to be a justified revolution despite that fact that it took over different cities and overthrew the transitional consensus government, making little of both internal and international legitimacy. 

The founding chairperson of Women Journalists Without Chains has also drawn attention to what she called “fatal mistakes” made in Ould Cheikh’s initiative, which disregarded justice and overlooked victims and crimes against civilians and all human rights violations, while it has not touched the impunity of ousted Saleh and his aides as well as his influence and assets. 

However, she added as an afterthought, “The initiative is still in draft form that is subjected to amendments and additions to accommodate all of the abovementioned so that it could be a constructive roadmap, which could bring about sustainable peace in the country and bring Yemen into welfare and democracy.”    

United Nations’ Special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh, presented on 18 October a peace proposal in an attempt to put an end to the conflict between the Iran-backed Houthi militia with the support of forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh and the legitimate government backed by Saudi-led military coalition. 

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, however, has rejected the proposal, saying it “rewards the putschists” who seized power in Sanaa, while Houthi-Saleh alliance said it had “fundamental flaws.”

The roadmap calls for the appointment of a new vice president and the formation of a national unity government that will oversee a transition leading to elections.

Ould Cheikh announced Monday he will immediately return to the region to try to clinch a peace deal in the coming weeks, even though both sides have rejected his proposals.

The UN Security Council is seeking to turn up the pressure on both the parties to the conflict to end the war that has caused to kill and injure tens of thousands and brought the country to the brink of famine.