Three years have passed since the beginning of the so-called movement of the southern districts of South Yemen. But despite the fact that many may be certain that the motivation behind such a motion among the majority of its components of simple social classes, was a protest against economic conditions, no one knows yet where it might be heading to. This differs from the stated objectives of some leaders of the movement, who tried to take control over the movement at a later time and dye it with their political agenda that calls for separation, in an attempt to make themselves appear as if they were the ones standing behind the movement and the ones determining its agenda. Also, the motives behind the movement confirm that external forces have tried to exploit this issue to put pressure on the ruling regime in Yemen, either for settling previous scores or for pushing it towards making certain concessions, which the current regional scene requires.
The fact that the South is facing economic problems is undisputable, but they are part of the problems of Yemen as a whole, which faces an economic crisis that is becoming increasingly fierce with the passage of time, in light of the lack of economic resources that can steer Yemen out of such a crisis. Oil has not yet been discovered and produced in large quantities as in the rest of the Gulf countries, which might have made Yemen prosper as those other countries did. Also, the recent emergence of the crisis of piracy in the Red Sea has had its impact on an important source of the Yemeni economy, represented in the ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.
Different motives
Those who participated in the South movement were opposing the state which their economic conditions have reached after the unity of the North and the South and the lack of services in some cities, particularly in the suburbs of Yemen, such as Lahajj, Eldalla, and other cities. But some South political leaders, either inside or outside the country, think the movement is an opportunity to achieve political objectives, which have gone to the extent of demanding a separation between the North and the South.
These political motives of the former leaders of the South were probably not taken into account by the ordinary people supporting the movement. The simple citizen, who lacks basic services, was driven by self-motivation to search for the requirements of a decent living, without being motivated by a political will for making a separation, but some exploiters of this motion succeeded in taking advantage of such situation, which led, in some cases, to the authorities responding violently.
We can say that the participation of the Joint Meeting forces in the motion, especially the reformists and the socialists, has given it momentum and strength as the Meeting parties wanted, in accordance with a party agenda, to use the movement as a leverage to face the conference dominance over rule. This dominance has transformed the socialists and reformists from partners in the troika of power to political powers which are defamed by official media. The socialists used to rule the south alone since 1967 until the unity in 1990. Then they became partners in governing unified Yemen till 1994. Meanwhile the reformists kept allegiance to power since the independence of northern Yemen until they were admitted into the presidency council in 1994, and then their exit after the parliamentary elections. After that they joined the alliance of the joint meeting with the Socialist Party and other forces since February 2003.
When we see this exploitation of the Joint Meeting forces with their different stated goals and monitor their discourse, we get the confirmation that the reformist party saw some decline in its discourse, especially from its northern leaders after they felt that this motion was exploited to achieve the goals of the group of Ali Salem Al-Baid and his separatist comrades. The group wanted to eliminate the unity which the reformist party was one of its battle tools in 1994. The reformist party may have sympathized with and even endorsed engagement in its social aspect, but its shift to the political demand of secession prompted the party to issue a statement at the end of the fourth conference last March. The statement called on the regime to "necessarily solve people's problems radically in both southern and northern provinces. At the same time, the statement called upon everyone to adhere to the peaceful path to claim rights under unity."
Therefore, the main player in the unity balance, which is the reformist party - is still the decisive factor to guarantee this unity continuation - on the basis of its strength in the south in addition to the Socialist party. The latter can not achieve its goal of secession alone through social engagement this time after its military attempt had failed in 1994. This will happen as long as the reformist party has declared explicitly its rejection of secession and its resolve to maintain the gains of unity.
Settling scores
Despite the merits of causes for the south engagement - in its social aspect - and disregarding the possibility of any forces supporting it, or it came as a spontaneous protest, the certain fact is that some forces took advantage of this engagement to achieve some goals. Some of these goals are internal such as former regimes in the south with their dreams of a return and dominance. There are also external forces which are giving the current Yemeni regime a small lesson as punishment for its nationalist attitudes. For example, the current regime rejected of the American war on Iraq in 2003, supported the Palestinian rights, and refused turning al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court. These positions encourage internal forces to exploit such conditions in order to influence the Yemeni decision in settling scores, and weaken the Yemeni authority. Some parties failed to draw the Yemeni authority towards pro-Western existing regional alliances in all its policies, even if they contradicted Arab interests.
The only concern, which controls the external forces that tried to exploit "the southern engagement," is Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has become active in Aden, and uses it as a platform to set out for implementing a number of operations against Western interests. This concern was fuelled when al-Qaeda leaders outside Yemen were reported to support the southern engagement. This means that larger areas of the country will be available to Al-Qaeda with the secession of the south from the north. This will happen especially as south socialists now no longer have the same power of the period before 1990, let alone their strength before the bloody war between the poles of the southern regime in 1986, which claimed thousands of lives. Thus the prospects for the socialist party to control the South if the motion was successful will not be sufficient to control or limit the activities of Al-Qaeda.
Therefore, the outcome of the external role is only to exploit this political motion as a way to pressure and weaken the regime, but not to the extent that will lead to secession; because the presence of a central authority in Yemen that maintains open channels with foreign powers, within certain limits, is the most appropriate solution for these powers with their quest to change the degree of this relationship in the direction of their interest.
Future of Political Motion
Betting on the political motion especially by some southern leaders, living abroad or those inside the country, prompted some supporters of such motion to retreat, fearing that it would be exploited in a secession activities that would bring to mind the southern reality before unity. Many political forces know that the negative aspects of unity are much better than the positive aspects of secession, if any. A united Yemen is much better than ruling a region that suffered tremendously during its secession between 1967 and 1990, given the fact of its wide geographical territory which reaches nearly 332,970 square kms. However, the region houses a small population of 3 million people or a little more. This united Yemen should exert more effort to exploit the available resources, and apply a democratic agenda and a package of political reforms, some of which were achieved in the agreement between the ruling Congress party recently with the joint meeting parties. They agreed on postponing parliamentary elections for two years in return for these reforms.
No one denies that the south is facing some economic problems, some inherited by the Yemeni State from the former unity regime, and some resulted from the geographical nature of the South. Some other problems are part of Yemen in general and have arisen from the negative political practices of the regime. The south problems, in essence, are not the discrimination between north and south, but they are problems of the state as a whole. It is a state which is facing economic problems and a shortage of resources and skills basically. The solution does not lie in separation, but in the presence of a single national agenda that helps Yemen out of its crisis and achieve prosperity for all Yemenis. The solution does not lie in describing the crisis that faces the country as problem of a province at the expense of another. I believe the Yemeni president's call for Yemeni political forces, especially the Joint Meeting, to initiate a dialogue as a prelude to a solution to agree on setting engagement factors, work on setting a reformist agenda, and a road map within the limits of Yemen's potential and resources. The Yemeni concern occupies everyone and not Yemenis alone. Its stability and territorial unity serves the regional scheme more than its disintegration, while the quest to give Yemen the "Somali" flavor will hurt everyone, and all parties will pay the price.
Rajab El-Basel -
an Egyptian researcher at Al-Ahram Centre, Cairo specialising in Yemeni political affairs
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The All-out Uprising of the Arabian South: Towards the Ousting of the Yemeni Occupation
The independence of the south, which is around the corner, will not be a cause for the prevalence of violence and the spread of its impact on the region. Instead it will be a pre-emptive strike preventing the spread of such chaos, disintegration, and violence that is becoming a reality day after day.
The uprising of the 7 of July 2009 was considered a distinct shift in the march of the South Liberal Revolution. The supporters of the revolution in all the south provinces have come out in the streets shouting slogans condemning the occupation and calling for the independence of the South. The shouts of the protesting crowds reflected the aspirations of the people of the South for regaining their freedom and Arab identity unfettered by fear and uncertainty.
Today, there is no place for compromising solutions and bargaining among the masses of the South. Unprecedented numbers of people came out to the streets of Aden, the capital, Eldalle, Abyan, Hadramout, Shabwa, and many other districts and villages. They declared it a day of Southern anger, in response to the day when Yemeni forces invaded the southern territory of the capital of Aden and the south five years ago. It was a strong uprising, indicating that it was different from all the sit-ins and rallies, which were many, that preceded it in recent years.
This time, the uprising appeared to cover all the various provinces and districts, as every province and district was crowded with protesters who defied all kinds of weapons that were used in suppressing the South uprising. The anger, resolve, and determination of the protesters was apparent in the reiteration of slogans calling for independence, the waving of the flags of the South state, and the raising of banners claiming the inherent identity of the Arabian people of the south, which the Arabian Socialist Party tried to rob them of, as it robbed them of their freedom and their independent state through the conspiracy of May 1990.
The uprising of the 7 of July 2009 is the beginning of a spark that can not be put out. The protesting crowds continue to roam the streets and resist live bullets, arrests, and weapons of death and murder, declaring that this uprising is no longer a mere expression of anger in the memory of the painful and sad day when the historical capital of the Arabian South, Aden, had fallen in the hands of a tribal, barbaric, and underdeveloped campaign. In fact it is the beginning of a declaration of civil disobedience and continuous peaceful confrontation, until the regime falls and the South breathes the breeze of freedom.
The whole world was watching closely. The media has now come out of its silence, as it is no longer able to ignore this movement. But it transmits a wrong and distorted image of what is happening, in a final attempt to ignore the unique revolution of the people of the South, which has emerged to the surface. The parties in power, which claim that they represent the opposition, such as the Yemeni Socialist Party, also known as the “Houci” party (major enemy of the South and its people), and the extremist Reform Party (claiming to be an Islamic party), which exchanges the role of the opposition and power with the Popular Congress party, were not capable of leading the uprising of the South. Also, no one among the media or the parties known as the joint meeting parties may ostensibly claim that the demands of the protesters are legal demands aimed at reforming the governing system and eliminating corruption. In fact, the call for the independence of the South, and the talk about its independent Arabian identity and independent history, has become the slogan of the flaming revolution of the South.
In the face of this obvious transformation, both the regime and the joint meeting parties – the other side of the occupation authorities – tried to control the people of the South but failed completely in their attempt to do so. Every time the agent parties and the collaborators with the occupation raised a slogan in an attempt to bury alive this revolution, the South people, armed with awareness, raise different slogans and higher ceilings. Once upon a time, those agent and worn-out parties described the rebelling masses as highwaymen and the owners of small shops. Today, these parties pretend to stand up for the South, granting that it suffers from injustice and discrimination, but that the callings of the South people are dangerous and destructive ones. They claim that the call for the independence of the South will not stop at this point. That the South and Yemen will be divided into small fragments, and that the two countries will enter into a spiral of violence that will affect the whole of the region.
Thus, these parties want to justify and legitimize the occupation using these alleged fears which they fabricated and which were circulated by the ruling clique in Sana'a. They ignore the fact that the regime with its current status is following the Somali example, not because of the issue of the South, but due to the total collapse and fragmentation which beset this diseased regime, destroying any hope for establishing institutions and a nation.
One should question the value of a unity and parties that do not consider the interests of the entire population but go in the opposite direction. They seem not to have realized that Yemeni people are enlightened enough and refuse to be oppressed under the name of unity and Arab nationalism.
The independence of the South, which has become imminent, will not be a cause for spreading violence and harming the region. Instead, it will be a pre-emptive strike to prevent the spread of such chaos, disintegration and violence which became a fact that prevails one day after another.
This fact is fuelled by the Yemeni regime which uses it as a card to blackmail neighbouring countries and donor nations to get more aid. This aid goes to the regime's corrupt oligarchy while it does not reach the people targeted with this support.
At the same time, the regime uses this card to prevent neighbouring countries from denouncing the crimes committed by the Yemeni occupation regime against the people of the South. The neighbours are not aware that through their silence they are giving the green light to the ruling regime to commit more follies, crimes, and fuel the situation that went out of hand.
Choosing not to pressure this regime, they do not stop this serious and frightening deterioration. Rather, they escalate the situation towards blocking the doors in front of peaceful solutions and encourage violence which will hit everyone in the Arab peninsula and especially the Gulf.
Yemen today has nothing to lose, so there is no room for talking about investment and tourism. The country has become a hotbed of poverty and terrorism. Corruption, extremists and smugglers became rife, of all types and at the highest levels.
Yemen has also become a base from which these sins spread in all directions. They have already started to infiltrate the southern Saudi border and the Gulf of Aden, where the coalition countries failed with all their capabilities to confront these threats.
A question that remains regarding this issue is why the fact that the so-called Yemeni unity was declared without a public referendum and faced failure since the first moment is widely ignored. This came when the so-called Interim Phase, announced between 1990 and 1994, failed to integrate the two countries and their institutions.
This period witnessed a wave of assassinations and was dominated by violent struggle which culminated in an all-out war between the two countries and two armies. The war lasted for 77 days and ended with the Yemeni forces invading the southern territories and all the resources of the southern state were destroyed. Moreover, public and private property was seized as spoils of war and this constituted a policy that has been practiced ever since.
Why does the world ignore that the people of the south resist this racist and discriminatory policy and the tendency to expel and destroy anything that belongs to the south? This policy has been practiced since the day of declaring the unity in May 1990. What is also ignored is that the resistance has developed and ramified to the extent that most areas in the southern governorates became liberated and Yemeni occupation authorities could only govern the capital Aden mainly and provincial capitals in a more limited manner.
Increasingly, Yemen is facing the difficulty of qualifying as a state which performs the functions that its institutions ought to perform. The regime also brutally suppresses peaceful demonstrations, as they have arrested more than 10,000 citizens in Aden alone on July 7, 2009. The authorities placed them in sports courts and hangars after they jammed prisons, detention camps, and cellars. They were prevented from having water, food, medicine and seeing visitors. In spite of the difficulty for the media to operate in the country, there are even reports of torture being used by the Yemeni security forces.
Another question that has to be asked is why do some people believe that the solution to the problem of southern Yemen will come from outside the country. Past experiences and attempts to patch and cover up for the regime have failed. It is a regime that became exposed and was not covered by all the aid provided by international institutions and donor countries in addition to the huge donations from neighbouring countries, not to mention the national wealth looted from the country itself.
Furthermore, the Arab League has to perform a more active role in this crisis, and not wait for the action of other international actors or powers. All these questions became familiar to our ears, so will the wise people listen to the voice of the Arab people in the south of the Arab peninsula?
Abdou El-Naqeib -
Secretary of the Information Service Southern Democratic Assembly of Yemen “Crown”
The Economic Crisis in Yemen and the Quest for North-South Separation
The fact that the South is facing economic problems is undisputable, but they are part of the problems of Yemen as a whole. Yemen faces an economic crisis that is becoming increasingly fierce with the passage of time, in light of the lack of economic resources that can steer Yemen out of such a crisis.
Three years have passed since the beginning of the so-called movement of the southern districts of South Yemen. But despite the fact that many may be certain that the motivation behind such a motion among the majority of its components of simple social classes, was a protest against economic conditions, no one knows yet where it might be heading to. This differs from the stated objectives of some leaders of the movement, who tried to take control over the movement at a later time and dye it with their political agenda that calls for separation, in an attempt to make themselves appear as if they were the ones standing behind the movement and the ones determining its agenda. Also, the motives behind the movement confirm that external forces have tried to exploit this issue to put pressure on the ruling regime in Yemen, either for settling previous scores or for pushing it towards making certain concessions, which the current regional scene requires.
The fact that the South is facing economic problems is undisputable, but they are part of the problems of Yemen as a whole, which faces an economic crisis that is becoming increasingly fierce with the passage of time, in light of the lack of economic resources that can steer Yemen out of such a crisis. Oil has not yet been discovered and produced in large quantities as in the rest of the Gulf countries, which might have made Yemen prosper as those other countries did. Also, the recent emergence of the crisis of piracy in the Red Sea has had its impact on an important source of the Yemeni economy, represented in the ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.
Different motives
Those who participated in the South movement were opposing the state which their economic conditions have reached after the unity of the North and the South and the lack of services in some cities, particularly in the suburbs of Yemen, such as Lahajj, Eldalla, and other cities. But some South political leaders, either inside or outside the country, think the movement is an opportunity to achieve political objectives, which have gone to the extent of demanding a separation between the North and the South.
These political motives of the former leaders of the South were probably not taken into account by the ordinary people supporting the movement. The simple citizen, who lacks basic services, was driven by self-motivation to search for the requirements of a decent living, without being motivated by a political will for making a separation, but some exploiters of this motion succeeded in taking advantage of such situation, which led, in some cases, to the authorities responding violently.
We can say that the participation of the Joint Meeting forces in the motion, especially the reformists and the socialists, has given it momentum and strength as the Meeting parties wanted, in accordance with a party agenda, to use the movement as a leverage to face the conference dominance over rule. This dominance has transformed the socialists and reformists from partners in the troika of power to political powers which are defamed by official media. The socialists used to rule the south alone since 1967 until the unity in 1990. Then they became partners in governing unified Yemen till 1994. Meanwhile the reformists kept allegiance to power since the independence of northern Yemen until they were admitted into the presidency council in 1994, and then their exit after the parliamentary elections. After that they joined the alliance of the joint meeting with the Socialist Party and other forces since February 2003.
When we see this exploitation of the Joint Meeting forces with their different stated goals and monitor their discourse, we get the confirmation that the reformist party saw some decline in its discourse, especially from its northern leaders after they felt that this motion was exploited to achieve the goals of the group of Ali Salem Al-Baid and his separatist comrades. The group wanted to eliminate the unity which the reformist party was one of its battle tools in 1994. The reformist party may have sympathized with and even endorsed engagement in its social aspect, but its shift to the political demand of secession prompted the party to issue a statement at the end of the fourth conference last March. The statement called on the regime to "necessarily solve people's problems radically in both southern and northern provinces. At the same time, the statement called upon everyone to adhere to the peaceful path to claim rights under unity."
Therefore, the main player in the unity balance, which is the reformist party - is still the decisive factor to guarantee this unity continuation - on the basis of its strength in the south in addition to the Socialist party. The latter can not achieve its goal of secession alone through social engagement this time after its military attempt had failed in 1994. This will happen as long as the reformist party has declared explicitly its rejection of secession and its resolve to maintain the gains of unity.
Settling scores
Despite the merits of causes for the south engagement - in its social aspect - and disregarding the possibility of any forces supporting it, or it came as a spontaneous protest, the certain fact is that some forces took advantage of this engagement to achieve some goals. Some of these goals are internal such as former regimes in the south with their dreams of a return and dominance. There are also external forces which are giving the current Yemeni regime a small lesson as punishment for its nationalist attitudes. For example, the current regime rejected of the American war on Iraq in 2003, supported the Palestinian rights, and refused turning al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court. These positions encourage internal forces to exploit such conditions in order to influence the Yemeni decision in settling scores, and weaken the Yemeni authority. Some parties failed to draw the Yemeni authority towards pro-Western existing regional alliances in all its policies, even if they contradicted Arab interests.
The only concern, which controls the external forces that tried to exploit "the southern engagement," is Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has become active in Aden, and uses it as a platform to set out for implementing a number of operations against Western interests. This concern was fuelled when al-Qaeda leaders outside Yemen were reported to support the southern engagement. This means that larger areas of the country will be available to Al-Qaeda with the secession of the south from the north. This will happen especially as south socialists now no longer have the same power of the period before 1990, let alone their strength before the bloody war between the poles of the southern regime in 1986, which claimed thousands of lives. Thus the prospects for the socialist party to control the South if the motion was successful will not be sufficient to control or limit the activities of Al-Qaeda.
Therefore, the outcome of the external role is only to exploit this political motion as a way to pressure and weaken the regime, but not to the extent that will lead to secession; because the presence of a central authority in Yemen that maintains open channels with foreign powers, within certain limits, is the most appropriate solution for these powers with their quest to change the degree of this relationship in the direction of their interest.
Future of Political Motion
Betting on the political motion especially by some southern leaders, living abroad or those inside the country, prompted some supporters of such motion to retreat, fearing that it would be exploited in a secession activities that would bring to mind the southern reality before unity. Many political forces know that the negative aspects of unity are much better than the positive aspects of secession, if any. A united Yemen is much better than ruling a region that suffered tremendously during its secession between 1967 and 1990, given the fact of its wide geographical territory which reaches nearly 332,970 square kms. However, the region houses a small population of 3 million people or a little more. This united Yemen should exert more effort to exploit the available resources, and apply a democratic agenda and a package of political reforms, some of which were achieved in the agreement between the ruling Congress party recently with the joint meeting parties. They agreed on postponing parliamentary elections for two years in return for these reforms.
No one denies that the south is facing some economic problems, some inherited by the Yemeni State from the former unity regime, and some resulted from the geographical nature of the South. Some other problems are part of Yemen in general and have arisen from the negative political practices of the regime. The south problems, in essence, are not the discrimination between north and south, but they are problems of the state as a whole. It is a state which is facing economic problems and a shortage of resources and skills basically. The solution does not lie in separation, but in the presence of a single national agenda that helps Yemen out of its crisis and achieve prosperity for all Yemenis. The solution does not lie in describing the crisis that faces the country as problem of a province at the expense of another. I believe the Yemeni president's call for Yemeni political forces, especially the Joint Meeting, to initiate a dialogue as a prelude to a solution to agree on setting engagement factors, work on setting a reformist agenda, and a road map within the limits of Yemen's potential and resources. The Yemeni concern occupies everyone and not Yemenis alone. Its stability and territorial unity serves the regional scheme more than its disintegration, while the quest to give Yemen the "Somali" flavor will hurt everyone, and all parties will pay the price.
Rajab El-Basel -
an Egyptian researcher at Al-Ahram Centre, Cairo specialising in Yemeni political affairs
