The leaders of Yemen and Saudi Arabia are due to meet on Tuesday in an effort to settle a dispute over a security barrier the Saudis are building along their shared frontier.
Saudi Arabia, which is battling against insurgents sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, says the barrier will stem the flow of militants and weapons from its southern neighbour.
Yemeni opposition newspapers have likened it to the barrier that Israel is constructing in the West Bank — though in fact it is a simpler and even odder structure: a pipeline three metres high, supported on posts and filled with concrete.
Yemen, which is said to have three times as many guns as people, has several flourishing markets where rocket-propelled grenades and other items are sold openly.
In remote areas, most men carry weapons for their own protection and some tribes have well-armed militias capable of putting up a serious fight against the Yemeni army.
Saudi border patrols say they intercept weapons smuggled into the kingdom from Yemen almost every day. These include 90 000 rounds of ammunition and 2 000 sticks of dynamite seized since the bombings in Riyadh last May.
The 2 400km frontier, which runs through mountains in the west and the barren Empty Quarter in the east, has always been relatively easy to cross unnoticed for those with local knowledge.
It was not until 2000, after more than 65 years of sporadic conflict, that Yemen and Saudi Arabia finally agreed on where the border lay and began marking it with concrete posts.
Smuggling, not just of weapons, has long been a valuable source of income for Yemen’s border tribes. Among the most important unofficial exports, thought to earn more than £100-million a year from Saudi Arabia, is qat — whose leaves are chewed by millions of Yemenis for their amphetamine-like effect, and which is illegal in the kingdom.
Amid Saudi efforts to tighten border controls in order to prevent terrorism, the smugglers have also become more resourceful. According to a senior Yemeni official, they have begun using ”smart” donkeys which can not only find their way across unaccompanied but can also recognise the uniform of Saudi border guards and avoid them.
So far, the Yemeni government has downplayed the smuggling aspects. When President Ali Abdullah Salih meets Crown Prince Abdullah in the Saudi capital today, he is likely to seek assurances that the barrier will not breach the terms of the border treaty signed almost four years ago.
The treaty provided grazing rights for shepherds in a 20km strip on both sides of the frontier and stipulated that no armed forces could be stationed in the zone.
According to a Yemeni newspaper, the first 40km stretch of the barrier, erected in the last month, is less than 100 metres from the border line.
The head of Saudi Arabia’s border guard, Talal Anqawi, told an Arab newspaper last week that the barrier was being constructed inside Saudi territory but did not specify the exact location. He also dismissed comparisons with Israel’s West Bank barrier, which has sparked international condemnation.
”What is being constructed inside our borders with Yemen is a sort of screen … which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling,” he said. ”It does not resemble a wall in any way.” – Guardian Unlimited Â