2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Read online

  Extract from Trout & Salmon, 18 August

  Comment

  We acknowledge that we have, from time to time, sung the praises of the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence. This organisation had established for itself within the angling community a reputation for good science and common sense.

  Fly-fishing has become ‘cool’ in the USA, and even in the UK we are discarding our waxed jackets for the latest in clothing technology from Orvis, Snowbee and many other manufacturers. Films are made about fishing, once regarded as the most boring of sports. This trend was firmly set by the making of A River Runs Through It in 1992, while television programmes about fishing such as A Passion for Angling and Go Fishing attract prime-time audiences and are repeated endlessly on satellite channels.

  So, fishing is fashionable, and its appeal crosses borders and it is becoming truly international, but nothing so far has prepared us for the idea that the mountains of the Heraz, in the Republic of Yemen, are soon to become the next playground for internationally minded game fishermen seeking the latest salmon fishing thrill.

  Who is making this happen? A prominent and wealthy citizen of the Yemen has teamed up with the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence, an organisation we would not have anticipated would become involved in an adventure of this kind. But money talks and the millions of pounds that Sheikh Muhammad of the Wadi Aleyn is spending are talking loudly enough to grab the attention of the NCFE and even (it is rumoured) the director of communications at Number 10 Downing Street.

  We have looked back through our files to find a similar instance of such absurdity from a government department, but we are unable to find anything to parallel this. At a time when the health of English and Welsh rivers is so fragile, and stocks of salmon and sea trout, not to mention brown trout, appear threatened by climatic change, our best fisheries scientists have been committed to a hare-brained scheme which is of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to our own angling community here in the UK.

  Extract from the Sun, 23 August

  ‘Chest’ wader

  Glamorous Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, the dreamy blonde who is masterminding the crazy plan to bring salmon fishing to the Yemen, refused to talk to our reporter when we rang her today. We contacted her at exclusive West End estate agents Fitzharris & Price, to ask her to comment on her wacky idea—let’s all go salmon fishing in the desert! She couldn’t tell us too much about how it would all work, and refused to say anything about her Yemeni boss, Sheikh Muhammad. So we asked if she would like to get her kit off for our photographer and pose for us in ‘chest’ waders. We’re still waiting for her answer!

  Letter to the editor of Trout & Salmon

  Dear Sir,

  I feel compelled to respond to the recent article about introducing salmon into the wadis of the Yemen.

  Whilst I applaud the intention to introduce the sport of angling where fishing for sport has not so far been widely practised, I am bound to ask what is wrong with coarse fishing? Wouldn’t it be more practical and, dare I say, more affordable for the average Yemeni to have dace or perch introduced to their rivers? What about considering stillwater fishing for rainbow trout in the Yemeni reservoirs, an even more accessible and economical sport for the average fisherman? To me, the decision to introduce salmon into the wadis of the Yemen without any consultation is characteristic of the elitist attitude which still prevails far too often in fishery circles in this country and, it appears, in the Yemen as well.

  Yours,

  (Name withheld)

  Letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph

  Dear Sir,

  I understand that there has been a lot of fuss about a plan to introduce salmon into the Yemen. I served in the Yemen in the 1950s. I was based in Aden and had the opportunity to see local fishermen going after everything from anchovies to sharks. I can well remember the Yemeni fishermen standing with perfect balance on the prows of their boats, setting out to sea to catch all manner of fish. I know that the Yemeni people are natural fishermen, and I am sure would make fine anglers, given the chance.

  I applaud the imaginative nature of this project.

  Yours sincerely,

  (Major) (retd) Jock Summerhouse

  Letter to the editor of The Times

  Dear Sir,

  The Republic of the Yemen has much expertise in the management of its fisheries. The Ministry of Fish Wealth is the responsible party, and the legal framework for our fisheries management is Aquatic Law N°42 (1991).

  The Yemen fishing industry is second to none, being responsible for an annual catch of 126,000 tonnes per annum of different species, pelagic and non-pelagic, both by artisanal and by industrial means. Our annual consumption per capita of fish is 7.6 kilos per head.

  It has been reported in your press that certain individuals are seeking to install a salmon fishery in our Yemeni watercourses. We have no official knowledge at this time of such proposals but we can confirm that such proposals would be entirely in accordance with the excellent Yemen traditional skill and expertise in fishing and fishery management.

  Aquatic Law N°42 makes no reference to the management of a salmon fishery and would have to be amended in due course to include the possibility of a such a fishery. We respectfully conclude that such a project, if true, would be in the national interest and would be symbolic of Anglo–Yemeni co-operation.

  Hassan bin Mahoud

  Assistant to the deputy director

  Ministry of Fish Wealth

  Aden, Republic of Yemen

  8

  Intercepts of al-Qaeda email traffic (provided by the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence Agency)

  Email

  From:

  Tariq Anwar

  Date:

  20 August

  To:

  Al-Qaeda members in Yemen

  Folder:

  Outgoing mail to Yemen

  I send you my greeting from beyond the swamps to your country where there is progress and civilisation—here we have many problems with our brothers the Taliban and they are not always acting in the best way according to the wishes of Abu Abdullah and the whole Nation of Islam. Also we have many adversaries who press from every side—the crusader special forces, even our brothers in Pakistan who have forgotten the true faith and chastise our people with guns and whips.

  We have heard that the Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi bani Tihami is now consorting with the English crusader prime minister and spending many millions of dollars on absurd and dangerous projects to bring salmon fish to the Yemen, and to persuade our brothers in the Yemen to fish for sport and not simply to feed the mouths of their families as is their duty. Moreover since all people in the Yemen must work from dawn until dusk, for six days of the week, just to keep the bread in their mouths and the mouths of their children, it follows that the sheikh will be expecting them to fish on the sabbath, which is expressly forbidden in the Koran.

  This project is evil because it is not Islamic in its nature and because it is intended to distract attention from the greater evils that the crusaders are carrying out against the whole Muslim nation in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Palestine.

  Therefore it must be stopped.

  Abu Abdullah enjoins you to start an operation against Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi. You must call on one of our brothers in Finchley, London. He must carry out an operation against the sheikh with extreme urgency to liquidate him and stop the salmon coming to the Yemen. We have wired $27,805 which is the operational budget, to the usual account.

  We ask God to lead you to the good of both this life and the afterlife.

  Peace be upon you and God’s mercy and blessings.

  Tariq Anwar

  Email

  From:

  Essad

  Date:

  20 August

  To:

  Tariq Anwar

  Folder:

  Incoming mail from Yemen

  Kind brother Tariq,

  We don’t have any people in Finchle
y any more—they have all been arrested or dispersed by the British police. It would be necessary to send someone from here to Scotland to find the sheikh, unless the sheikh should return to his palace and his village here.

  We don’t think this operation will be very popular. The Sheikh Muhammad is known everywhere as a man who follows God’s teaching very closely. The people in his wilayat all revere and adore him. It will be hard to find one who will liquidate him and certainly not for the operational budget you have mentioned.

  Peace be upon you,

  Essad

  Email

  From:

  Tariq An war

  Date:

  20 August

  To:

  Essad

  Folder:

  Outgoing mail to Yemen

  Brother Essad,

  Abu Abdullah doesn’t want to hear your thoughts concerning Sheikh Muhammad. You forget our brother Abu Abdullah himself has family in the Yemen and is very well informed about who is, and who is not, a follower in the true path of God. He considers it very necessary for the sheikh to be liquidated, and at once.

  Operational budget: flights $1000 (one way), car hire $500, food $25, disguise $200. Reward is $30,000 payable to the family of the operative assuming he is himself caught or liquidated by the security service. We will provide a clean mobile. We will provide papers. Total: $31,725, which is an increase of many dollars on what was first proposed. There is no more.

  The needful operational sums will be made available at the Finchley post office in an account in the name of Hasan Yasin Abdullah. They only watch the banking system, not the post office. The reward will be paid when the deed is done.

  Please confirm. Abu Adbullah wants to know your answer.

  In the name of God,

  Tariq Anwar

  Email

  From:

  Essad

  Date:

  21 August

  To:

  Tariq Anwar

  Folder:

  Incoming mail from Yemen

  Brother Anwar,

  Peace be upon you.

  We have found a brother here in the Hadramawt who speaks some English. His thirty goats have all just died from the foot and mouth. Now he has no food, no money and no goats. He will do it. Please send the money and then we will commence the operation.

  In the name of God

  Essad

  9

  Interview with Peter Maxwell, director of communications, prime minister’s office

  Interrogator:

  Please describe the initial reasons for your involving the prime minister in the Yemen salmon project.

  Peter Maxwell:

  Do you know who I am?

  Interrogator:

  You are Mr Peter Maxwell. Please describe the initial reasons for your involving the prime Minister in the Yemen salmon project. Please bear in mind it is in your own best interests to cooperate fully with this enquiry.

  Peter Maxwell:

  Okay. I see. Of course I will cooperate. Why shouldn’t I? It’s in everyone’s interests to get the fullest possible picture of what happened. I am writing a book about it. Or at least I was, until one of your lot took the manuscript away.

  Interrogator:

  Your manuscript is considered to contain material which might constitute a breach of confidentiality and its status will have to be reviewed by this enquiry before a decision can be taken as to whether it can be returned to you.

  Peter Maxwell:

  I’m deeply, deeply hurt by what happened. I’m traumatised. I want that put on the record. I’m traumatised.

  The witness here broke down in tears and required mild sedation. The interview recommenced the following day and is transcribed here verbatim, as far as possible. Operational security details have been withheld from the public record.

  Peter Maxwell:

  My name is Peter Maxwell and I am—I was—the director of communications, prime minister’s office. I had held that post for two years. I am an old, old friend of the prime minister. That’s not why I got the job; I got the job because, false modesty aside, I am absolutely the best guy they’ve got at this sort of thing. I could have held Cabinet office. If I’d been elected as an MP, that is. But that whole ego trip of front-line politics was not for me. I wanted to serve my party from the sidelines, from the shadows. That’s where I operate. In the shadows. Let other people take the credit. Don’t be the story, shape the story: that’s my motto.

  Jay [Prime Minister the Right Honourable James Vent MP] was a godsend for our party. He’s the best prime minister this country has had since Churchill. Since Gladstone. Since Pitt. He lifted this country up out of the Second Division and put it back in the Premier League, world affairs-wise. Right at the top. In the Champions’ League. He had total mastery of the House of Commons. Members bowled seamers, spinners, yorkers—it didn’t matter what—Jay put his bat to them all and carted them out of the ground. Every shot was in the bullseye.

  Interrogator:

  You appear to be quoting from the first chapter of your book. Please can you direct your reply to the question that was asked. How and when did you decide to recommend to the prime minister that he should become involved in the Yemen salmon project?

  Peter Maxwell:

  If you’d just let me answer in my own time, thank you very much, I was coming to that. You see, everyone has an off day. Everyone can get blindsided, sideswiped, no matter how good they are. That’s when I can add some value. That’s what I do. If the news is bad, I present it in the best possible light. If the news is very bad, I come up with a different story. The attention span of most of the media is about twenty minutes, and a new story, a new angle, normally tempts them to drop the bone you want them to drop, and look at the new bone you’re offering them. That’s off the record.

  Interrogator:

  I am afraid everything you say here is on the record. Please, can we proceed to discuss how you first became involved with the Yemen salmon project.

  Peter Maxwell:

  It was one of those bad news days you sometimes get. That was when the Yemen business first came up. I can’t remember what it was that had happened. I think someone had held a map upside down and bombed a hospital in Iran instead of a militants’ training camp in the Iraq desert. Not ideal from a presentational point of view, so I did what I usually do. I have a little email group of friends and right-minded people around the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and one or two other departments, so I sent out the usual ‘Anyone got a good news story for me?’ emails.

  Usually what I get is stuff I have to work very hard at to turn into something I can use. You know, we have opened a new sewage treatment plant in south Basra, picture of a general standing by a ditch. The British Council has sent a group of morris dancers on tour in the Sunni Triangle. Hard work to sell that sort of story at a press conference—some of my colleagues in the trade are a touch cynical these days. But this story sold itself. Herbert Berkshire from the FCO rang me and asked, ‘What do you think of the idea of salmon fishing? In the Yemen?’

  ‘How’s that again?’ I said. I remember reaching for the Bartholomew’s School Atlas, which is never very far from my desk in these days of ethical foreign policy. We have got ethical in so many places I begin to wish I had not given up geography at school. I flip the pages, and the atlas more or less opens itself at the Middle East. Sure enough, there’s the Yemen, and sure enough it’s mostly coloured yellow and brown. ‘It’s desert,’ I said. ‘You won’t find many salmon there.’

  I don’t know anything about salmon fishing. I like cricket, darts, football, salsa dancing, physical fitness stuff like that. Salmon fishing: isn’t that what old men in tweed caps and rubber trousers do in the rain in Scotland?

  ‘That’s the story,’ said Herbert. And he told me about Sheikh Muhammad from the Yemen. Herbert said that the sheikh had always been pro-British. He owned an estate in Scotland and had a power base in the Yemen that included a share of oi
l revenues. Money is a key driver in these situations. If there’s a pot of money somewhere in any project, you’ve cracked it almost before you start. Herbert told me that the sheikh had an obsession about fishing, in particular salmon fishing. He had a strange theory that fishing is a sport which has a calming and beneficial effect on people, and he wanted his own people in the Yemen to have the benefit of that. He actually believed that, said Herbert. I must say, it sounded like total crap to me but, who cared, it would make a good story. He wanted to spend a lot of money with UK fisheries scientists to work on a project to seed Yemeni watercourses with Scottish salmon. With live salmon, that is. He believed that if he spent enough money, he could create conditions in which salmon could be caught during the rainy season in the Yemen.

  Herbert said that the sheikh had both the will and the money to make something happen. The sheikh wanted to spend the money funding a development project by some outfit within DEFRA called the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence. I didn’t realise it still existed; I thought we had reallocated all its grant funding to a programme of building swimming pools in deprived ethnic-minority-type inner-city areas. I remember making a mental note to check that later. My view was, fish don’t vote. When would people get that simple point?

  ‘Herbert, this is going to fail. It has D for disaster written all over it.’

  ‘Think about it for a moment,’ said Herbert. He started to number his points and I could see him in my mind’s eye spreading the fingers of his left hand and then bending them over double with the forefinger of his right hand. It’s an irritating, schoolmaster-type thing which he does in meetings. ‘One: all the news coming out of the region has got worse again just now and it doesn’t make the government look good. This is a chance to get a picture on the front covers that does have the words ‘Middle East’ in the caption, and doesn’t have bodies in the picture. Two: we’ve only just repaired our diplomatic relations with the Yemen after recent terrorist incidents in which Yemeni groups have been involved. Here’s a chance to be constructive and open up a new, non-political dialogue with the Yemen. We can show water with fish swimming in it, in a desert country. It doesn’t matter whether it works or not. The point is, it can probably be made to look as if it works, even if only for five minutes. We put a few fish into a stream, take pictures, then move on.’