[ad_1]
The announcement by Yemen’s secessionists that they will establish southern self-government in the regions under their control may have put the war-torn country on an irreversible path to perpetual conflict.
The announcement of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) It does not establish new realities on the ground because it has unilaterally ruled the southern provinces and the key port city of Yemen from Aden since 2015, after it ousted the internationally recognized but powerless government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Plus:
In a statement Sunday, the STC declared a state of emergency and said it would “self-govern” Aden and other southern areas.
Yemen’s civil war erupted in late 2014 when Iran-aligned Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa, along with much of the north of the country, and overthrew the Hadi government.
Nominally, both the Hadi government and the STC are part of the “Arab coalition” fighting against the Houthis.
However, the Hadi government is mainly supported by Saudi Arabia, where it operates, while the STC and its leaders are based in the United Arab Emirates.
The STC measure shows how divergent the goals of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in Yemen. Both are the main members of the military alliance that waged a war in Yemen to oust the Houthis from power since early 2015.
A Saudi statement on Monday rejected the separatist group’s declaration of self-government in southern Yemen, demanding “an end to escalation actions” and a return to a peace agreement signed in November last year.
He called on all parties to honor the Riyadh power-sharing agreement, signed between the Hadi government and the STC in the Saudi capital, in an effort by Saudi Arabia to stop the fight between the two nominal allies.
However, notoriously absent from the statement, there was some reference to Yemen’s territorial unity, indicating Riyadh’s lack of opposition to Yemen’s final division.
Different views
On the surface, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates share the strategic goal of preventing their arch-enemy Iran from securing a foothold in their backyard on the Arabian Peninsula through their Houthi allies.
However, they both have different visions of Yemen’s future.
Yemen was unified in 1990 when the Arab Republic of Yemen (North Yemen) merged with the Marxist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), after the collapse of its main sponsor the sovietic Union.
A civil war four years later resulted in North Yemen occupying the south to keep the country intact.
As a unified nation of approximately 28 million people, Yemen is the second most populous country in the Arabian Peninsula after Saudi Arabia. With proven oil reserves and strategic ports, it has the potential to become a regional power if it stabilizes, becomes democratic, and reduces its extreme poverty, analysts say.
Despite its potential, Yemen remains the poorest Arab nation, and state functions, especially its war-torn health system, are on the verge of collapse. Yemenis across the country suffer from desperate poverty and lack the ability to combat the spread of the coronavirus due to the five-year conflict.
Yemeni separatists declared that self-government in the south of the country as a peace agreement with the government is crumbling [Mohamed Abdelhakim/AFP]
The UAE shares Saudi Arabia’s fear of a long-term Iranian presence at its borders through Tehran’s Houthi allies.
However, the UAE substrategy appears to be to recreate a southern Yemen state by pumping money and weapons, in addition to providing military training and political support, to its southern separatist allies.
Gamal Gasim, a Yemen analyst and professor of political science at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, said the UAE has two main strategic objectives in Yemen.
“The first is to divide Yemen and the second is to destroy the al-Islah party,” he said of Yemen’s largest Islamist political faction with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is currently the main group fighting against the Houthis in the north.
“None of the Gulf nations really supported Yemen’s unity in 1990, especially Saudi Arabia,” Gasim told Al Jazeera.
“Unlike the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia cannot pull itself out of Yemen so easily because it considers it to be part of its sphere of influence in the region. Saudi Arabia’s main objective in Yemen is to keep it as a weak state committed to its goals.” .
The best Saudi Arabia can hope for now is to keep Yemen in a “low-grade” conflict that will maintain its weakness and prevent it from threatening Riyadh’s regional hegemony, Gasim said.
STC’s declaration of self-government complicates the long conflict with the Houthi rebels who control much of the north [Saleh al-Obeidi/AFP]
Southern dream
STC spokesman Nizar Haitham told Al Jazeera by phone from Aden that “the south has had a cause since 1994,” when the nascent secessionist movement was crushed by the north and unity was enforced.
“Since Islah’s party [the main faction of Hadi’s government] He failed to liberate the north, now he is trying to invade the south and this is unacceptable to the southerners, “he said.
Commenting on the latest “self-government” announcement, Haitham said the move would bring southerners closer to their goal of establishing an independent state.
“We are determined to restore sovereignty over our territories and any step on the ground that brings us closer to that goal would be welcomed by the people of the south,” he said.
Gasim said the current fight presents a golden opportunity for the UAE to meet its goal and divide Yemen.
“The United Arab Emirates wants to create a vassal state in the south and prevent the port of Aden from becoming a hub for international shipping routes that jeopardize the viability of its own ports in the controversial Gulf,” he said.
Follow Ali Younes on Twitter: @ali_reports
[ad_2]
