Yemen is in the midst of
a nine-year civil conflict which has left 80 percent of the population – some 24
million people, including almost 13 million children – in urgent need of aid
and protection. Acknowledged by the UN to be “ the largest humanitarian crisis
in the world,” more than 14 million people in Yemen are in acute need. Starvation is widespread. UNICEF (the UN’s Children’s Fund) reports
that as 2022 ended, around 2 million children under the age of 5 were
experiencing starvation-induced wasting, severely in more than 500,000 cases.
On one
level, the situation in Yemen is a product of the fault line that runs through
Islam – the Sunni-Shia divide. The main
protagonists are, on the one hand, the Shia Houthi rebels supported by Shi’ite
Iran and, on the other, the UN-recognized Sunni government aided on the ground
by Saudi Arabia and its eight-nation Sunni Muslim coalition.
For a fair part of the 20th century there were two Yemens, created by political events – a monarchy in the north and a republic in the south, which for a long time was a communist regime aligned with the old Soviet Union. A succession of conflicts between them resulted in 1970 in a dominant north and a subdued south, the two never fully at peace with each other. In 1978 Ali Abdullah Saleh became president of North Yemen. The collapse of the USSR in 1990 triggered the unification of the two Yemens as the Republic of Yemen with Saleh as president.
Saleh, autocratic and
unpopular, was soon facing an ever-growing insurgency from Zaydi Shii’ites
calling themselves Houthis after their charismatic
leader, Hussein al Houthi. In
2011 Saleh became a victim of the so-called
Arab Spring. Mass popular protests forced him to step down in favor of his
vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Saleh, hoping to regain power, allied himself with his former enemies, the
Houthis. Strengthened by Yemeni forces
still loyal to Saleh, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards, the Houthis overran large tracts of the country,
including the capital city, Sana’a.
Saudi
Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran extending its footprint into the
Arabian peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis. Saudi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman
(MBS), assembled a coalition of Arab states, obtained the diplomatic backing of
the US, UK, Turkey and Pakistan, and launched a series of air strikes against
the rebels.
The
unconventional Saleh-Houthi partnership came to an abrupt end on December 2,
2017, when Saleh went on television to declare that he was ready to enter into
dialogue with the Saudi-led coalition. This volte-face was to end
in tragedy. On December 4, Saleh's house in Sana'a was besieged by Houthi
fighters. Attempting to escape, he was
killed.
The Houthis, emboldened, started firing ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia. The political situation was further complicated in 2017.
Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, a former army commander and governor of Aden, and the vice-president of the UN-recognized government of Yemen, announced that under his leadership the eight governorates in the south, including Aden, were unilaterally declaring independence. With the strong backing of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Zoubadi established a form of governance which he called the Southern Transitional Council (STC).
Meanwhile UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg had been hard at work. Painstakingly, he put together a truce between the government and the Houthis which came into effect in April 2022. Extended twice, it resulted in the longest period of stability in Yemen since the start of its civil war.
Although it came to an
end on October 2, and the Houthis refused to renew it, Grundberg reported in
May 2023 that it was continuing to deliver benefits, such as the entry of fuel
and other commercial ships via the Hudaydah port, and commercial flights to and
from the capital, Sana’a.
Grundberg said that his
diplomatic efforts with representatives of the government, the Houthi rebels
and other players were continuing, and that he was encouraged by the positive
and detailed discussions.
“There is clear
determination on all sides,” he said, “to make progress towards a deal on
humanitarian and economic measures, a permanent ceasefire and the resumption of
a Yemeni-led political process under UN auspices.”
Although sporadic
military incidents continue to occur, said Grundberg, hostility levels were
significantly lower than before the truce.
“But the fragility
of the military situation, the dire state of the economy and the daily
challenges facing the Yemeni people, provide us with constant reminders of why
a more comprehensive agreement between the parties is so vital.”
He was adamant that Yemen’s
myriad challenges required an inclusive Yemeni-led political process under UN
auspices.
The ambitions of the
strongman in the south, Zoubaidi, accord only loosely with Grundberg’s hopes. In
an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper in June Zoubaidi maintained
that the west has to accept a new reality in which Yemen’s north is controlled
by the Houthis, and the south is run by his separatist STC. The planned talks on the country’s future, he
said, had to be reconfigured to meet that new reality – including placing the
issue of a separate southern state at the foreground of the discussions.
In short, he is
attempting to cut the UN-recognized government out of the picture.
The STC, he said, would
like to revert to the period between 1967 and 1990 when Yemen was divided in
two with a separate socialist state in the south. Zoubaidi visited the UK
recently and attempted to convince Britain’s Middle East minister, Tariq Ahmad,
that he and a separate southern Yemen state were the key to unlocking peace.
In fact what
Yemen needs is a return to a unified structure, democratic elections, and an
inclusive government. The future of
Yemen largely depends on the Houthis. Do they wish to remain an outlawed
militia permanently, or would they prefer to become a legitimate political
party, able to contest parliamentary and presidential elections and participate
in government? The same considerations
apply to the STC. Zoubadi seems to favor
a two-state Yemen. Can he be persuaded
to a unified federal structure?
In fact UN
Resolution 2216 does embrace the idea of a democratic federally united
Yemen. Backed by a UN peace-keeping
force, a lasting political deal would involve the end of the Saudi-led military
operation, the active involvement of the Houthis, the integration of the STC,
however nominally independent, into a united Yemen, and probably a major
financial commitment by Saudi Arabia to fund the rebuilding of the country. Can
Grundberg bring about negotiations aimed at a peaceful transition to a
political solution for a united Yemen?
Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online as "How can peace return to Yemen?". 15 August 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-754743
Published in Eurasia Review 18 August 2023:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/18082023-the-pursuit-of-peace-in-yemen-oped/
https://mpc-journal.org/the-pursuit-of-peace-in-yemen/
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