Armies of Liberation

The US Ambassador met with southern leaders (Southern Forum) and urged a common vision, realistic and achievable goals, participation in the election and the coming National Reconciliation Conference. (I think anyway, I’m reading google translate of this article.) He also seems to indicate that full independence is opposed regionally and internationally. But of course these are not the local separatist leaders in the south.

There is a fracture between those who support federalism and those who remain committed to an independent state. In this case, I agree with Feierstein that, in order to be effective, they do need a common vision and realistic goals and that participation in the National Reconciliation Conference is an important step in achieving justice and full citizenship rights (one way or anther) for Southern Yemenis. However the international community by acknowledging the prior atrocities (now that Saleh et al have immunity) might take a step toward confidence building. These are not a bunch of disgruntled dead-enders; its most of the region. They do have a common vision (of systematic institutionalized oppression) but not a common solution if you factor in al Attas and the Cairo conference. Also there is no agreed upon leadership structure or formal mechanism of representation that was ever developed.

The southerners had placed a lot of hope in gaining international and UN support based on Saleh’s violation of UN SC res 928 and 931 in 1994, which in their view supports the contention that the south was illegally occupied or reunited by force following Saleh’s victory in the civil war. Considering Saleh immediately violated res 2014 in 2011 without international consequences or reprimand, it now seems highly unlikely that the UN SC will ever produce a result that is not firstly designed toward the best interest of the permanent members.

The system, norms and authority of international law were undermined by the UN mediated and SC endorsed GCC plan, which undermines not only principles of justice but the right of self-determination. So as I’ve said several times before, including early last year before the GCC debacle, and even had translated into Arabic to be clear, I think participating in a self-governed federalist system with the internationally guarantee of a later southern referendum on unity is the way to go.

There are many more things that can be done to diffuse tensions. enough to participate in a conversation at least. For example, this is one spot-on reader comment, “Why should Mahdi Makwalah, one of Saleh’s country-men remain as the supreme military commandant of the Southern governorates including: Aden, Abyan and Lahj? That is another provocation for Southerners.”

A seemingly related reader comment: Wondering why the Ansar AlShariah (or AlQaeada) have managed – easily – to control provinces and cities in the South where the Southern Peaceful Movement (SPM) has a strong sentiment; areas like Azan (Shabwa), Zinjibar & Jaar (Abyan), and AlHota (Lahj). The Ansar AlShariah took partial or full control of such areas after Central Forces and Presidential Guards handed it over to them, or did nothing material to stop them, and that the Air force made random bombardments on these areas which inflected fear and caused damage to residents and their properties?.

Meanwhile (from the same website) “the Supreme National Council for the Liberation and the restoration of the State of the South” (TSNCLRRSS) said in a letter: “The presidential elections scheduled for February 21, 2012 under the initiative of the Gulf, is one of aspects of prosthetic solutions to resolve the crisis of power and the popular uprising in Yemen, and is not looking at the core of the crisis of authority, devastated by the crisis, the failure of the unity, which was one causes emptying of power to face the struggle of the people of the south and is unable to meet the requirements of its people in the north, raising the people against it.” And that’s a good point. The TSNCLRRSS is calling for a boycott of the election.

Another viewpoint:

Just as the Southern were having a “breath of relief” when Mr. Saleh fell, came up Islah Party trying to impose their Islamic vision on the Southernerns yet by force, as much as, if not firecer than, their predecessor. Yesterday they transported their members from Ta’az joining their countrymen who are residents of Aden City. Their announce purpose is to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the (Failed) revolution, but instead they went to AlMualla district of Aden, the heart of the Southern Peaceful Movement strong hold area.

Wondering why they didn’t make their celebration in Saada instead of AlMualla?
Saana gangs have extrem uncompromising disagreemets among themselves, but, ironically, at the same time, are having a full mutal strategy on the South. Whatever they do, they make sure it doesn’t effect their iron grip fist on the South.

Yemenis are fleeing (not joining) al Qaeda where ever they appear. However the vast majority of civilians lack the funds to rent an apartment or to buy food once they leave their farms and possessions behind to be looted by AQAP. But if they stay, they are subject to both al Qaeda dictatorship and US drones. The US may label those who don’t flee as collateral damage or as providing material support (as the Bedouins were in the Dec 2009 US strike in Abyan that killed 43 women and children when General Patraeus implied they were acceptable deaths because they selling vegetable to AQAP, despite the fact the villagers had appealed twice to local authorities to expel the group.)

Certainly AQAP bears the responsibility for sheltering in populated areas in the first place but people in the al Qaeda occupied territories of Yemen want to know where the refugee camps are. Seriously, where are they supposed to go? And it is a US problem when an al Qaeda presence means the potential of US drone strikes. The 120,000 who fled Zinjibar last May are still in the schools of Aden. I know Yemenis’ rights are very low on Obama’s priority list, but there must be a part of the plan to increase US drone use that will deal with the public panic and mass displacement that will occur as US drones follow AQ from province to province threatening people’s lives and homes. Over 15,000 fled Raada within days of Tariq al Dhahab’s (and al Wahishi’s) appearance. They were escaping both the al Qaeda fanaticism and the threat of US drones.

While the Obama administration may try to maintain the myth in the US that they know exactly who they are hitting, and its always a precise targeting, the non-lethal impact on civilians must be considered as well. The US is playing right into al Qaedas hands with nearly every policy from the re-imposition of a dictatorship through the GCC deal to Saleh’s visit to increased drones. The US is focused on vulnerable land when it should be focused on vulnerable people.

Basically, the US is going to bomb Yemen in order to pull off an uncontested election that nobody wants (except the US, the GPC and Islah elites) in the interest of “stability.” If the expired parliament gave Saleh immunity, it can appoint Hadi. The bogus show election isn’t worth more Yemeni lives or the displacement of tens of thousands, and it certainly wont confer legitimacy when there’s only one candidate that was selected by the US. The most politically disenfranchised are going to boycott anyway: civil minded protesters, southerners and Houthis.

The National: Yemen will increasingly rely on US drone strikes to target Islamist militants threatening to disrupt a transfer of power this month, Yemeni government officials said.

The president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is meant to hand over power to his vice president, Abdurabu Mansur Hadi, on February 22.

The run up to the transfer is being overshadowed by growing protests, including within the military, which have grounded Yemen’s air force across much of the country.

Two aides in Mr Hadi’s office said they expected a rise in drone attacks against Al Qaeda militants.

The strikes will be intensified only if necessary, to ensure that militant groups do not expand in vulnerable areas, said one of the aides. Both asked to remain anonymous. (Read on …)

Its a monthly report on state violence and other HR violations including by AQAP that is always precise in terms of names, dates, photos and locations, and it usually is issued within a month or two of the end date, except for those months with large massacres. The recently issued report for December 2011 lists three dead, as opposed to earlier months and years when many dozens were killed and hundreds were wounded in state violence against southern protesters and activists. The fatality totals in the southern protests (2007-2011) far exceeds the number killed by the state since the broader rev began in 2011, a distasteful metric of murder. (The UN SC forgave 33 years of atrocities in Yemen in the interests of “stability,” providing little incentive for Assad to stop his butchery.) In the following, I pulled out some AQAP violations of human rights for a future project but the entire report is available here at archive.org.

SOHR report Dec 2011

On Monday, December ,5 Sheikh Tawfiq Ali Mansour Juneidi ,nicknamed
“Hawas “the leader of the People’s Committees in the town of Lauder of
Abyan province ,died as a result of wounds sustained by a blast of an
explosive package targeted him on Friday, December ,2 and which also
caused the death of his colleague ,Ali Nasser Houshan .The Web site” ,Taj
South Arabia “reported that the People’s Committees protect the district
from the al-Qaeda operatives ,since it is believe that the al-Qaeda is behind
this assassination….

“Al Qaeda “operatives on the evening of Monday, December , ambushed
two vehicles to target a number of people from Almayaser Tribe from the
Farajs when they were passing in” Ekd “area between the districts of Lauder
and Wadiea .Aden News Agency said that the ambush caused injuries
among three people ,they are :Ahmed Hussein Ashal ,Hussein Ali Ashal and
Ahmed Mohammed al-Ghairi. (Read on …)

As the title indicates, this is a guest post by Nedhal Moqbel

The South and the Northern Government: A Persistently Troubled Dialogue
By Nedhal Moqbel

A recent episode of “Agenda Maftouha” (Open Agenda) program, broadcast by BBC Arabic TV, discussed Yemen’s security situation. Among the program’s guests were the Southern activist Saleh Al-Jabwani and Colonel Abdullah Al-Hadri who represented President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s opposition. Mr. Al-Hadri dilated on Saleh’s crimes against protesters in Sanaa and Taiz squares and the destruction he left behind. However, Mr. Al-Hadri obviously got nervous and impatient when the issue of Southern secession was raised. As he responded to Mr. Al-Jabwani’s comments, Colonel Al-Hadri used an emotional speech and a sharp tone, contending that the current situation is the cause of the entire “Yemeni nation.”

“Our cause is one . . . why do you want to divide us amidst this continuous uprising?” added Mr. Al-Hadri. Wait a minute! Wasn’t it a “one Yemeni nation” when Southerners began their own uprising after 1994, demanding their right to a merely dignified life? Wasn’t it a “one Yemeni nation” when you and your boss (Saleh) brutally persecuted them? Weren’t those protesters your fellow citizens and, therefore, part of this “Yemeni nation”? Moreover, Mr. Al-Hadri stated that General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar was an honest military man who refused to stand by a dictator, and so did Colonel Al-Hadri and many others in the military. He said, “Yes, we used to be Saleh’s partners before. But when he stained his hands with blood and began to distort the country and foster Al-Qaeda, we decided to stay away and choose the homeland and the nation.” How devious! How provocative!

In a sympathetic tone, Mr. Al-Hadri spoke of Saleh’s crimes during the recent protests in North Yemen, stressing that this bloodshed was the reason he (Al-Hadri) and others like General Al-Ahmar seceded from Saleh. As if Saleh’s hands were clean until before these protests! What about the blood he has shed in the South since 1994? What about the thousands of Southerners whom he and his allies killed and wounded in that short-term civil war with military tanks and rockets? What about many extra thousands of Southerners whom they have killed, detained, tortured, and wounded since the outset of the Southern Peaceful Hirak? Why did Mr. Al-Hadri and his fellow military men not distance themselves from Saleh while he was shedding those bloods in the South? Why did they continue to support him, to represent his iron fist over the South? Why did they turn against Saleh only when his victims were Northern citizens?

Of course, my intention is not to attack anyone. I simply reject the twisted language Mr. Al-Hadri used to obscure the Southern cause. He went on, using the same emotional appeal: “It’s shameful to talk about South and North now . . . our cause now is that of a homeland and a nation.” Well! What is really shameful is that Colonel Al-Hadri does not consider the Southern issue itself a cause of an entire homeland whose lands and natural resources and jobs have been robbed, an entire people that used to exist independently but now is under a real occupation. What is really shameful is that Mr. Al-Hadri’s words echoed Saleh’s attitudes toward the South even though the former was presented in the program as an anti-Saleh figure. The same old regime being reproduced! No wonder that most of the oppositional figures affiliated with the “new” government participated in various ways in the 1994 war against the South. No wonder that they still unjustly and irrationally compare the Southern cause (a cause of a homeland) with the Huthi issue (a cause of a sectarian group).

Northern military figures like Colonel Al-Hadri know well the many injustices from which Southerners have suffered too long. Therefore, it is unacceptable that he accuse them of having “ruptured the country.” The country has been torn apart since the 1994 civil war. I wonder if Mr. Al-Hadri still remembers when his citizens in the North celebrated their “victory’ over the South on 7/7/1994; the Sanaa official TV then displayed Northern women uttering trilling cries of joy and Northern men chanting on streets, “Allah Akbar! Long live our leader Ali Abdullah Saleh!” On the other side of the country, Southerners were collecting the dead bodies of their loved ones in order to bury them. This black day, with all the sad memories it carries to Southerners, was made an official holiday and a national day to celebrate annually. Technically, unification ended in 1994 and was replaced by an occupation of the South and a robbery of its natural resource revenues, history, culture, and dignity. Who, then, tore up the previously unified Yemen?

The General People’s Congress and the Joint Meeting Parties are two faces of the same coin. The talk about having given Saleh immunity from prosecution is only half the truth. This “new” government has, in fact, given immunity to itself, too, since the majority of its officials were yesterday’s strong allies of Saleh’s. What we see now in the Sanaa government is the same old regime, and what we hear is the same old language, especially when it comes to the Southern problem. This government’s officials may undergo internal conflicts, but the Southern issue is always the thing that eventually brings them together due to their shared fear of losing the South with all its many treasures. Until Southerners achieve their goal of liberation, we will continue to hear the same rhetoric from Northern officials (and from Northern ordinary citizens) who often argue fearfully and impatiently, “there’s only one Yemen . . . unity is a red line . . . we’re ready to die for it . . . we’ll protect it with our own blood . . . unity or death.”

Comment by Jane: It is true that the atrocities toward the southern protesters (2007-2010) provoked little if any outrage in other parts of Yemen. During the Saada War, civil groups aligned themselves with the concept of civilian immunity without taking a stand on either side of conflict itself. Conversely during the southern protests, the arrests, torture and cold blooded killings elicited little sympathy. Beyond the absence of media attention, some in Sanaa expressed the opinion that southern protesters deserved it. In 2007/8, Southerners were really expecting that their counterparts in the north would join their uprising against the regime.

The lack of domestic solidarity against the state’s systematic attacks on unarmed southern protesters that in part caused the shift in demands from equal civil rights to independence. Remarkably, some of the current revolutionaries (who are seeking to overthrow the regime) deny that southerners have the right to seek independence although both movements deny the legitimacy of the state. From the outset of the current revolution, few efforts were made to reach out to the southern secessionists. And many southerners viewed the year long protests in Sanaa and other parts of the country in a disconnected way, not wholly unsympathetic, but as if the bloody events were occurring in another county. As I’ve said before, many view the unity government as an re-branding of northern power. some also view all northerners as privileged and part of the oppressive structure, when in fact disenfranchised northerners are very poverty stricken and thoroughly without basic services.

In terms of raw numbers, Saleh’s trail of blood, more southern protesters were killed than “northern” protester fatalities over the last year of the rev, and it occurred week after week in an atmosphere of domestic and international silence.

(10/5) The YT explains the blocks within the southern movement and that the more moderate positions are represented by external actors, but many southerners within Yemen are still firmly committed to independence. I posted a plea after the article to give a sense of the depth of sentiment in the south.

Yemen Times SANA’A, Oct. 5 — The Southern Movement’s recent preparatory meeting in Cairo revealed significant differences among the movement’s ranks in terms of how it imagines the future administrative system of Yemen. The meeting, held on 26 and 27 September, 2011, aimed at preparing for a large-scale conference to be held soon in order to facilitate the creation of a unified southern position in Yemen’s politics. (Read on …)

It also could be state retribution for the massive pro-independence demonstration in Aden on Oct 14. 9/20 Update: or the whole thing is regime propaganda…

Yemen Post: Thursday evening, residents in Aden reported heavy shelling in the Crater area, saying that the explosions were so numerous and violent that they had to take cover into basements and nearby buildings….In other parts of the city gun-battles are raging between men in civilian clothes and regular Adeni residents.

With so much confusion and contradictory statements, it is really difficult to establish a clear picture. Some anti-regime protesters are claiming that the government is attacking the Revolution, while others are claiming that al-Qaeda elements are trying to take control over Aden as the town is strategically of great importance.

Continuing

AM Australia: Fears al Qaeda is behind attacks on Port of Aden, Saturday, October 22, 2011 08:03:00

(Read on …)

The southern movement held protests across the south yesterday, 10/14/11, the 48th anniversary of the birth of the anti-colonial independence movement in 1963 that led to the expulsion of the UK and the formation of the PDRY in 1967 . Large pro-independence protests were seen in Aden, Hadramout, Lahj and Shabwa in contrast to the previously low, if not non-existent, turn out by southerners for the 2011 Yemeni Youth Revolution protests. Protesters were asked to go to Aden or Radfan if possible. These numbers as shown in the photos are at about the levels that southerners protested from 2007-2010. The Southern Movement seeks an independent state and claims that the south was occupied by Northern Yemen following the 194 civil war, contravening UN SC resolutions 928 and 931.

SM leaders and members within Yemen reject efforts by expats like al Attas and ANM to find a consensus for a federal system, including results of the Cairo conferences. Last month, General Nassar al Nuba invited UN envoy Jamal bin Omar to the south to discuss the SM position and opportunities for resolution. Beyond a handful of individual efforts by YRR activists, no international or official YYR efforts have been made to engage the Southern Movement. Several southern leaders were appointed without discussion to the National Revolutionary Council and all immediately resigned. The photo below was taken yesterday in al Mansoura, Aden:

The following in Radfan, Lahj:

Photos Hadramout here and also here.

SOHR’s June report includes updates of activities of the Southern Movement, and its civil and violent repression, fatalities from across the south (warning graphic photos) and the events in (Zinjibar) Abyan, Aden, Lahj, Dhalie etc.

To download in English, click here

For Arabic, click here