Divorce south and north, salvation for Yemenis

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YEMEN has been living in a circle of chaos between the South and the North for about 150 years. The people never agreed on a specific position especially in terms of building a single nation.

Since the 19th century, Aden have had a semi-independent life from Sanaa; even the British were unable to unite the two sides in the 20th century. Thus, the South remained independent and so did the North.

Today, the South is calling for disengagement from the North after enduring for a long time. The voices refusing the North’s domination on the South are increasing, given that the unification came into force in 1990. It was harshly shaken for the first time in 1994 for it to remain a hot coal after the civil war that gave Sanaa an upper hand over the South.

The national curse on the people of Yemen in the South intensified in the hands of the Northerners, especially when the latter monopolized majority of the vital posts in the state, and took over the wealth in a bid to impoverish the Southerners.

If we consider the past experiences, the unification of Yemen, the announcement of which came as a surprise, was a suitable solution at that moment but it did not chime with the cultural differences between the two sides especially in terms of the concept of a state.

At a time when the South was moving confidently towards development and in accordance with the capabilities in hand, the North was struggling with poverty, oppression and weakness.

In the South, the public institutions were able to exercise their role on an acceptable level of law and order but the North was dominated by outside allegiance to some influential groups. This was evident after 1992 when Iran entered Yemen through the Houthis to cause chaos, which later ignited internal conflict with the central authority, in addition to the attempts to infiltrate the Saudi border in 2009.

Those groups weren’t the only ones that were operating based on foreign agendas. The political party “Islah” worked on implementing the concepts of the Muslim Brotherhood Group and other groups that strived to trade with loyalty which they sold randomly. This led to the crisis in 2011, which was resolved by the GCC initiative to prevent the collapse of the country. However, the workers of foreign agendas turned against the initiative in a bid to achieve all suspicious agendas, especially those of the Mullah regime.

The figures in today’s South are now calling for disengagement from the North. They are seeking the preservation of their country from the crises caused by groups in the North. The question here is – What is preventing the granting of such a request? At least, there will be a peaceful and calm Southern country that chimes with its surroundings and is able to exercise its regional role without involving in any of the wars sought by hired Southerners for outside interests.

After about five years of the war imposed on the Yemenis by the Houthis and the Iranian-backed gangs as well as the traders of loyalty, those groups continue to linger around as they are unable to achieve Iran’s dubious objectives.

At the same time, the humanitarian crisis continues to devour the entire population in Yemen. There is a huge possibility for the Southerners to reduce this humanitarian burden by salvaging themselves from the furnace of war so that they do not become the fuel for it, which is what the Northerners want.

Why don’t the countries with influence in Yemen help the Southerners achieve their objective?

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

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