Many are thinking about the cessation of hostilities in Yemen in the wake of China’s successful mediation to resolve the political and diplomatic schism between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the principal parties involved in the conflict between Yemeni factions.
One significant moment was 10 March, the eighth anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention to support the internationally recognised Yemeni government against the Iran-backed Houthis, aka Ansar Allah.
Since the intervention, Yemen had turned into a battlefield for the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran supports the Houthis, who belong to the Zaydi Shias, a group that makes up under half of the population, while Saudi Arabia supports the Sunni camp representing a somewhat larger demographic segment.
A year into the war, in 2016, Tehran and Riyadh severed diplomatic ties following the storming of the Saudi diplomatic headquarters in Iran as part of the protests organised by the authorities against Saudi judicial rulings. Despite Iraqi efforts towards a rapprochement ties had remained severed until the Chinese mediation.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are involved in conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, but what sets Yemen apart is that the conflict has turned it into the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world in decades,” bringing the poorest Arab country to the brink of famine, according to the UN. A UN-brokered truce signed in 2022 had failed, and the fighting claimed numerous lives, causing scores of injuries and leaving more than half the population in urgent need of relief.
The fact that even the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement has not helped is making it clear that the conflict has its own internal causes that can only be addressed domestically.
It was the end of World War II that ushered Yemen into modern times, but it wasn’t until the (Sunni) republicans’ triumph over the (Shia) monarchists after a decade of Civil War that the country began to experience some semblance of stability. This coincided mainly with the tenure of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled for 33 years from 1978 to 2011, which also saw the unification of Yemen’s two historical states in the north and south into a single republic in 1990.
Development did not take place as effectively as had been hoped due to scarcity of resources, inadequate educational infrastructure, and the dominance of tribal and sectarian affiliations, making the country historically known as “Happy Yemen” the poorest in the Arab world and driving Saleh to forge a robust alliance with Saudi Arabia, which provided aid for decades, improving conditions even as Yemen remained at the bottom of the Arab development index.
“Yemen lacks resources and education, and Saleh’s manipulation contributed to the country’s backwardness,” said Fadl Al-Lahgi, a professor of economics and former official in the Yemeni Ministry of Finance. “Education improved during Saleh’s tenure, but given the growing population, this was not enough.”
War played a major role in normalising underdevelopment. “Even before the unification of Yemen, the Yemenis fought on all fronts, and this exhausted the state,” says Naguib Seddik, editor-in-chief of the Aden-based state-owned daily 14 October and former chairman of the South Yemen Press Syndicate. “South Yemen fought several battles with North Yemen. In addition, the conflict in Sanaa was bitter until Saleh rose to the helm.”
Since the late 1940s, Yemen had witnessed numerous attempts by tribal and military factions to stage coups against the rule of the Zaydi Mutawakkilite dynasty, which had gained independence from the Ottoman empire in 1918, until a revolution led by colonel Abdullah Al-Sallal overthrew Imam Ahmad in 1962.
In the following decade, Yemen witnessed a succession of presidents, including Abdel-Rahman Al-Iryani (1967-1974), Ibrahim Al-Hamdi (1974-1977), Ahmed Al-Ghashmi (1977-1978), and Abdel-Karim Al-Arashi, who held the presidency for only three weeks between late June and mid-July of 1978, before Saleh assumed power. The struggle for power during this period was marked by violence, exemplified by the assassination of Al-Hamdi and Al-Ghashmi in two consecutive years.
On the other hand, the socialists in the south deposed their leader, Qahtan Al-Shaabi, in 1969, only two years after independence from Britain with Egyptian support. Several presidents assumed power, some of whom were assassinated, such as Abdel-Fattah Ismail in 1980, until the regime collapsed in the late 1980s with the cessation of Soviet support, forcing the leadership in Aden to unite with the north, led by Saleh. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the two Yemens fought their own cold war.
“By the end of Saleh’s era Yemen’s political map was tangled,” Seddik said, with various groups vying for power: “the Iranian-backed Houthi faction seeks to establish a regime modelled on the mullahs’ rule in Tehran, presenting a retrograde version of Hizbullah in Lebanon. On the other hand, the Southern movement comprises several factions and figures with divergent demands, ranging from the reinstatement of an independent South Yemen to a federal or confederal system that would ensure more equitable sharing of power and resources.
In the middle are the republicans, who espouse the republican system established by overthrowing the imam’s rule. Although they are not an organised entity, most of them align with the Saleh regime. Additionally, there is the Muslim Brotherhood, which the government employs against the Houthis and the Southern factions.”
The situation in Yemen grew more complex following the ousting of Saleh, as tribal leaders and a segment of the military aligned with the Houthis based on their conservative beliefs, regardless of their affiliation with the Zaydi sect. Conversely, the republicans, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Southern factions sided with the internationally recognised government, along with members of the armed forces who rejected the Houthi insurgency.
Seddik noted that “these factions lack unity, and infighting emerged between the Transitional Council representing the Southern factions and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islah Party, which further muddled the situation for the government’s armed forces.” He added that “the republicans, comprising mainly the working middle class, have largely fled Yemen, resulting in their diminishing influence on events.”
According to Yemeni journalist Mohamed Omar, who previously served as press secretary to former South Yemen president Ali Nasser Mohamed, “an independent South Yemen is not a viable option. No faction has a clear vision for achieving a resolution that preserves Yemen’s unity while avoiding sectarianism from groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Houthis and promoting political and societal compromises.”
Omar added that “there are no forces capable of eliminating the Houthis and the Brotherhood, and their presence only exacerbates the conflict, while the Republicans are fragmented and the army is unwilling to engage in further fighting, as that would entail fighting fellow Yemenis.”
Omar stressed that the root cause of the conflict lies in Yemen’s internal issues, not external interventions, and regional powers cannot broker a peace agreement until those issues are adequately addressed.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 25 May, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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