Healing the Nations – Book Now!

The Next Century Foundation’s 
Healing the Nations
Summer Conference

 

The Next Century Foundation is holding a ten-day online conference over the end of July and the first week of August.

Events will be taking place covering all of the Foundation’s key nations and areas.
 

CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS

To book, contact ncfmepp@aol.com with details of which sessions you are planning to attend.
 

Sessions will run in the mode of the NCF’s successful weekly meetings, mixing input from knowledgeable speakers and key players with both breakout room and round table discussions.

This conference provides a unique opportunity to take stock of the geopolitical situation in the Middle East and beyond, and gain on-the-ground insights simply unavailable in mainstream reporting.

We would be honoured if you would join us in confronting the key issues in these countries and working towards peace and positive change through constructive discussions – just have as we have for the last three decades.
 

VIEW MORE DETAILS  / SIGN UP

Conference Sessions
(London BST)
   
Thursday 30 July 
11.20 am US/UK 
3 pm Lebanon

Friday 31 July
3 pm Palestine 

Saturday 1 August
3 pm Libya

Sunday 2 August
3 pm China

Monday 3 August
11.30 am Afghanistan 
3 pm Iran 

Tuesday 4 August
11.30 am Iraq
3 pm Syria 

Wednesday 5 August
11.30 am Kashmir 
3 pm Yemen

Thursday 6 August
11.30 am Israel 
3 pm Sudan

Friday 7 August
3 pm Bahrain

Saturday 8 August
3 pm Conclusions
 

 

Image: Sunrise in San’a, Yemen taken by yeowatzup / CC BY

Donors scale back Yemen funding amidst pandemic

Catherine Shakdam, the Head of the Next Century Foundation’s Yemen Unit, talks on Asia Today about the aid catastrophe that is now adding to Yemen’s problems:

For NCF Secretary General William Morris’ latest podcast on the complex dimensions of the crisis in Yemen click on this link: Yemen today – Understanding a Nightmare

Yemen’s exiles … millions live in limbo unable to return home

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch called on the United States government to extend and redesignate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Yemen, which expires on March 3, 2020, so that those Yemenis who found themselves stranded in the US when the war broke out in late March 2015 would not end up being forcibly deported back home – which home it needs to be said has become a thing of nightmare.

“Given the US role in the Yemen conflict, it would be particularly cruel not to extend TPS for Yemenis in the US,” said Andrea Prasow, acting Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “Washington needs to make clear that it won’t send people back to a country wracked by war and famine.”

While few people will need to be reminded that Yemen remains in the throes of a devastating and brutal war, it is seldom the press has spoken of the millions of Yemenis stuck in exile across the world, more often than not, in abominable conditions due to governments’ refusal to offer due protection and status. In Turkey where many managed to escape due to a kinder visa policy, immigration officials have so far refused to allow Yemeni refugees to obtain work visas, making it virtually impossible for families to meet their needs.

Forced into poverty, tens of thousands have had to rely on hand-outs and work on the black market – a euphemism for human exploitation. 

Refugees in Turkey and Malaysia have reported back-breaking work conditions in factories which equate to slavery to the full knowledge of the local authorities.

Ali Ahmed, a former student in engineering at Sana’a University who escaped to Turkey in early 2016 claims that Turkish local officials are playing the refugee crisis to their advantage, using undocumented migrants to ‘furnish’ rich industrial factories for a fraction of the cost of local labour, in exchange for handsome backhanders. “This is human exploitation at its most basic … we have no choice but to accept whatever work and whatever pay they will give us. And if we refuse there is always the fear of deportation,” said Ali. “It’s not like we can say or do anything. I tried to file a complaint at the UN refugee agency but no one is listening to us, we are invisible,” he added.

Since 2015, reports and investigations have exposed poor wages, discrimination, and child labour by refugees working in the Turkish garment industry. Apart from the widespread use of casual labor, Turkey’s garment industry heavily relies on migrant workers. Long before Syrians and Yemenis arrived in Turkey, garment workshops employed Azeris, Afghans, Uzbeks, and other (domestic and international) migrants who were willing to accept jobs unattractive to local workers. 

For refugees like Ali, exile has become a daily battle for survival. Charities have been overwhelmed by the ever-expanding refugee situation. It is becoming increasingly clear that disinterest is driving the bus.

For all the promises of humanitarian aid the United Nations and other international agencies vowed to deploy in Yemen, few officials have looked into Yemen’s exile crisis. There are an estimated three million Yemenis in exile, of those three million too few were offered asylum under the UNHCR. 

Let me rephrase that … of the 3 million refugees currently waiting for their status to be legalised, the United States accepted only 50 since 2015, and about zero since President Donald Trump entered the White House.

The issue is not merely bureaucratic or political, it stems from complete and utter disinterest in Yemen’s plight. Forgotten and abandoned by a system which ought to have offered refuge and safety, Yemen’s exiled population has been relegated to the shadows.

In Djibouti where the UNHCR erected make-shift camps in a baboon-infested area, families have had to fend for themselves as their tents are regularly torn apart and their food stolen by the wild animals.

To say that the international community is failing its mandate is a gross understatement – at what point should carelessness qualify as a crime against humanity?

Because countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Malaysia systematically refuse to revisit Yemenis’ application for work and residence thousands of families have been made vulnerable to human traffickers, prostitution rings and other criminal organisations – not to mention religious radicals who would love nothing more but to coerce a few more souls to their dogmatic ways.

Several families in Malaysia are said to have contemplated selling their organs to make ends meet. The Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking, a Sanaa-based non-governmental organisation documented 300 cases of organ sales in Egypt as of September 2017. Malaysian sources have claimed this number to run to several thousands as of September 2019. 

While organ trafficking largely predates Yemen’s war, it is clear that desperation and the ever-pressing need for cash has forced many exiles to resort to such measures to survive. Elham al-Dulaimi, a doctor at the University of Science and Technology Hospital in Sanaa, told Al Jazeera in an interview back in 2017 that he has documented cases in which Egyptian hospitals have bought organs from Yemenis for $5,000 and then sold them to affluent customers from the Gulf or Western countries for nearly $100,000. 

Those stories of course have seldom pierced through the thick screen of self-censorship which seems to become the new ‘normal’. After all Yemen’s holds a mirror to the international community few officials have dared looked into …

This article was published first in the New Eastern Outlook

The Depletion of Yemen’s cultural capital

There is an important aspect of the war in Yemen has been so far ignored – under sustained bombing Yemen, an important world historical, religious and cultural landmark has seen its patrimony and its heritage disappeared, exploded and overall annihilated.

Whether such a campaign is by design or by default remains to be determined. It is nevertheless important at this stage to recognise that such loss of national cultural capital will gravely, and irrevocably affect the future of the impoverished nation – and beyond, that of the entire region.

The loss of historical landmarks – mosques, shrines, UNESCO listed landmarks, museums and other precious reminders of Yemen’s rich and buoyant cultural makeup will weigh heavy on both the economy and the country’s socio-religious fabric. Without a past to hold on to and associate with, without landmarks to remind a people of the bonds which unite them and make them who they are as a nation-state, Yemen could be claimed, and re-invented by such groups as al Qaeda, or ISIS.

Yemen, a country with three UNESCO world heritage sites – the Historic Town of Zabid, the Old City of Sana’a and the Old Walled City of Shibam – and a further ten on the organisation’s tentative list, has suffered greatly since March 2015. As well as the large-scale loss of life, important historic sites have been severely damaged, more often than not, intentionally.

Countless other sites and cities are at risk of annihilation: Al Qahira Castle in Taiz, (10th century) which suffered damage during an airstrike in June 2015 according to UNESCO. And then Taiz museum in 2016 when a fire engulfed the premises.

The Old City of Sa’ada – founded in the 9th century and on UNESCO’s list – has also seen a number of its historic buildings destroyed. Sa’ada, like Sana’a, is of worldwide cultural importance due to the extensive survival of its medieval architecture – including its city wall and 16 gateways, houses, palaces and mosques – and its importance as an early centre of Islamic learning. Sa’ada has almost completely disappeared under Saudi fire.

In July 2015, an emergency action plan for the safeguarding of Yemen’s heritage was announced by UNESCO, with the goal of raising awareness, gathering information and providing technical assistance to heritage experts in Yemen.

In July 2015 the Old City of Sana’a and the Old Walled City of Shibam were added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage in Danger – in reaction to Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the war.

The UNESCO-listed residential neighbourhood of Fulayihi quarters has been hit by airstrikes.

A study conducted by the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies in collaboration with the Islamic Heritage Foundation established disturbing bombing patterns leading them to the conclusion that sites were being systematically targeted.

Speaking to the Middle East Eye in September 2015, Anna Paolini, UNESCO’s representative for the Gulf countries and Yemen slammed the kingdom for its intentional targeting of historical sites, warning that unless stopped such systematic destruction could claim more precious and irreplaceable sites.

In August 25, 2016, the ninth-century mosque of the Prophet Shuaibi in the Bani Matar area of Sana’a, was destroyed by an air strike. The country’s General Organization of Antiquities and Museums and the General Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities confirmed the destruction.

Beyond the evident loss of patrimony, questions pertaining to the intent behind such campaign beg answering. Should Yemen’s cultural, religious and historical heritage had been declared war on, as part of asymmetrical military campaign strategy, such actions might be categorised under war crimes.

Movable heritage has also suffered severe losses, as in the case of the Dhamar Museum, which used to host a collection of 12,500 artifacts, and which was completely destroyed in May 2015.

Taiz National Museum also suffered many attacks – ancient manuscripts were damaged and and historic documents were burned.

More troubling still is the long term impact and social repercussions such a loss will carry to Yemen the nation-state. If we bear in mind that such radical groups as Daesh aka ISIL/ISIS or al Qaeda have been worked to erase History so that they could rise their own dystopian and warped religious and socio-cultural markers, Yemen could be made ready for a re-engineering of sort.

In August 2016 the Director General of UNESCO, Irana Bokova described Yemenis’ plight accurately saying: “It is evident that the destruction of their culture directly affects the identity, dignity and future of the Yemeni people, and moreover their ability to believe in the future.”

It has been unable so far to assess financial losses as such as teams have yet to investigate the extent of the damage. Economically speaking, Yemen is expected to suffer a dramatic income loss on its tourism industry for years to come – maybe permanently in some cases.

In an interview Amin Jazilan, former director general of Ibb tourism office confirmed that prior up until March 25, 2016 Yemen tourism industry was well set to exceed yearly expectations. “According to Yemen Tourism Ministry, the tourism industry generated an annual income of $848 million in 2012 as opposed to $780 million in 2011,” he noted.

The war in Yemen has cost so far an average of $6 billion per month or $200 million per day. If such resources were spent towards reconstruction Yemen’s future would be secured.

The Yemen War: capitalism and the rise of a Black economy

Yemen has become yet another domino to fall in a well-organised terrorist system in which human misery is a tradable commodity. Take a look at the broader region, particularly those countries which have suffered at the hands of  radicals, and we see a disturbing pattern emerging: Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and now Yemen, all these countries have seen vulnerable communities targeted by sex traffickers and their children sold into a system which profits and draws satisfaction from child abuse and dehumanisation.

Systemic sexual abuse is conducted by terrorist militants for three purposes: to strike fear into the heart of communities, for self-gratification, and for financial gain.  Behind every abuse and every abuser has towered a system which has strived for, benefited from and leaned on sexual enslavement to assert its dominance.

As world powers continue to argue Yemen’s future – often by speaking over Yemenis, rather than to them – a great tragedy has unfolded, unspoken and unchallenged.

For a country which has already lost too many of its sons and daughters to war, seeing its children and young people stolen by the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS is one abomination too many.

So far, and due to the nature of these crimes, communities have been reluctant to come forward. Stigma, fear of social exclusion, fear of repercussions, shame, and distrust of the media, have driven many families to keep silent.  Still, a few brave souls have now decided to break this unspoken code of silence, albeit under the cover of anonymity, so that abusers can be outed and victims rescued.

Hundreds of children – mainly young girls aged 6 to 15 – have been kidnapped across Yemen, to be sold as sex slaves by al-Qaeda’s trafficking network.

Tribal sources in Abyan – a former stronghold of al-Qaeda, which also happens to be President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s home province – have confirmed that children have been trafficked out of south Yemen through Mukalla and the seaport of Aden by militants affiliated to Al Qaeda.

Yemen’s run-in with human trafficking has run parallel to the rise of terrorism.

In 2014 the US State Department Trafficking in Persons report read:

“Yemen is a country of origin and, to a lesser extent, a transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour, and women and children subjected to sex trafficking. Some Yemeni children, mostly boys, migrate to the Yemeni cities of Aden and Sana’a, or travel across the northern border to Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, to Oman, where they are subjected to forced labour in domestic service, small shops, or as beggars. Some of these children are forced into prostitution by traffickers, border patrols, other security officials, and their employers once they arrive in Saudi Arabia; some children are forced to smuggle drugs into Saudi Arabia.”

With the collusion of its patrons, Al Qaeda has built up an entire shadow economy generating millions of dollars through the exploitation of children.

As Yemen remains entrenched in a protracted and multi-fronted military conflict, socio-political dynamics as well as economic realities have evolved, and shifted to reflect needs – more often than not, to the detriment of civilian populations.

If war in Yemen has brought a litany of suffering, it has also opened-up financial “opportunities”; de facto allowing for the rise of a Black Economy.

While it has often been assumed that only the Houthis  have dabbled in less than holistic activities to sustain their war efforts, whereas all factions, on both sides of the fence, have had a hand in the looting of Yemen’s sovereign economy, in clear violation of the law – national and international.

Since war broke out, the Houthi-Saleh/GPC alliance [General People’s Congress, former ruling party) has transformed and evolved into a state-like construct whereby the two forces: comprised both of a para-military and political branches, joined together into an organic third entity, which purpose has been to survive the military onslaught by ensuring financial survival.

It is also worth noting that a certain fluidity has been observed between self-proclaimed warring factions as far as financial interests are concerned. Where very clear lines might have existed in the early stages of the conflict, in that individuals, tribal entities, political factions and coalition groups sat on very distinct shores, needs, and an imperious desire to generate money to overpower the opposition, have often led opposite sides to negotiate ‘access’.

For example: weapon dealers based in South Yemen – in those areas under tacit Saudi control – have smuggled weapons and ammunition to North Yemen via old tribal trading routes, as well as diesel, and other supplies. While such activities betray immediate military interests, it appears war has created too much of a lucrative space for any one party to ignore – safe maybe from those invested in peace.

Yemen’s descent into socio-economic, political, and to a greater extent: sovereign instability, since territoriality and national identity have been put under great stress as a result of a new rising narrative of war: sectarianism, tribalism and regionalism, has empowered radical elements within Yemen. The likes of Al Qaeda have been handed an ever-expanding space to thrive. Out of every vacuum this war has created, it is al-Qaeda and ultimately its patrons which have risen stronger still.

Yemen’s war has become too much of a liability to regional stability for parties to still entertain the notion that a further military entrenchment will generate positive results. War at this stage is a blessing for Al Qaeda and those parties benefiting from the annihilation of Yemen’s national sovereignty. Such an eroding of Yemen’s nation-state could have terrible repercussions, since it could allow for the rise of another socio-political system – that of the Islamic Caliphate.

Beyond all blame and culpability Yemen’s biggest threat remains Terror.

 

 

 

 

Yemen’s Timeline – An Overview

The unrest in Yemen is not a single conflict but is instead a mosaic of multifaceted regional, local, and international power struggles that are the legacy of recent and long-past events. The following timeline offers readers a summarised overview of Yemen’s many struggles and ills.

1918 – Yemen’s modern political history realistically began with its independence from the Ottoman Empire, following which North Yemen came to be ruled by Imam Yahya.

While Imam Yahya safeguarded North Yemen’s territorial integrity, tensions among several of tribes, and various factions’ pursuit of power, prevented the nation from truly developing meaningful state institutions, at least in a manner which would have offered political continuity and stability.

To a great extent old tribal upsets have plagued North Yemen, forever preventing the acceptance of an overarching political entity – that of the state. 

1948 – Ahmad ibn Yahya inherits the reins of power from his father amid growing calls for an end to the feudal rule.

1962 – Following Ahmad’s death, high ranking military officials break ranks to establish the Yemen Arab Republic – largely under the influence of pan-Arabism. This begins North Yemen’s civil war which sees Saudi Arabia (royalist) and Egypt (republican) battle for influence.

1970 – North Yemen’s republican forces win a long war of attrition against the royalists, putting the newly formed Republic on a crash course with its theocratic neighbour: Saudi Arabia. From then on, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will look at Yemen with much unease and concern.

1972 – As North Yemen’s various factions battle for political power, skirmishes at the border with South Yemen – then under control Communist rule, reach new heights.

1978 – Ali Abdullah Saleh becomes President of North Yemen. He will remain in power for three decades.

1986 – Following a mini civil war, Haidar Abu Bakr Al Attas, then Prime Minister of the People Democratic of Yemen (South Yemen), begins negotiating the reunification of Yemen with President Saleh.

1990 – North and South Yemen unite under the presidency of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, marking the end of the communist era in the Arabian Peninsula. Before it fell to the control of the communist party South Yemen was under British rule (1969).

1994 May-July – Yemen sees a violent but short-lived attempt by southerners to secede, under the leadership of the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP) from the newly formed Republic of Yemen. Backed by Saudi Arabia, Ali Abdullah Saleh breaks the southern secessionist movement. This victory will allow the Saleh clan to consolidate its hold over Yemen’s state institutions and economy.

The short civil war left the YSP in political shambles, thus allowing control to fall within the hands of the General People’s Congress (Saleh’s political faction) and Al Islah (a loose coalition of Islamists and tribes loyal to Al Ahmar clan).

Over the next few years, the effort to reorganize politics and to strengthen the voice of the south in Yemen’s political life was hampered in part by the inability of the YSP to resuscitate itself; at the same time, strained relations within the GPC (Saleh’s General People’s Congress) / adn Al Iṣlaḥ coalition led to increasing dominance by the GPC and to an oppositional stance on Al Iṣlaḥ’s part. The political conflict and unrest that accompanied and followed the civil war marked by a thinning of political freedom and subsequent religious radicalisation under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood whose members found protection under Al Islah’s political umbrella.

This tension between Yemen’s political and tribal factions has plagued Yemen’s political discourse and prevented many efforts towards national reconciliation. 

For three decades, Yemen now saw the reelection of Ali Abdullah Saleh at the presidency. Saleh’s rule, like that of many of his contemporaries,  was to be marked by nepotism, corruption and political manipulation.

While President Saleh maintained relatively close ties to Saudi Arabia – often benefiting from Al Saud financial largesse, his decision during the 1st Gulf War to support then-President Saddam Hussain (Iraq) marked a sharp turnaround in Riyadh-Sana’a relations.

Arguably Saudi Arabia will never completely forgive Saleh’s ‘betrayal’ and would learn to look at Yemen with much suspicion indeed. 

Thus began a long game of cat and mouse between Saleh and Al Saud for control over Yemen’s politics and economic future.

2004 – The Houthis emerged out of Yemen’s mountainous far north from ‘Believing Youth,’ a revivalist Zaidi movement fuelled by local fears of encroachment by Sunni ideologies. Under threat of ‘absorption’ by the Muslim Brotherhood, several Zaidi tribal leaders decided to come together and fight. 

While initial fighting was largely limited to the Houthi strongholds of Sa’ada,  it soon spread to the province of Amran and al-Jawf, near the border with Saudi Arabia.

Though kept in check under Saleh’s presidency, the Houthis grew both in strength and ambition, and continued to do so in 2012 as President Hadi (a member of the GPC and successor to Saleh)  looked to consolidate his rule through a series of alliances aimed to counter Al Islah’s political ambitions.

January 27, 2011 – On the back of Egyptians’ call for regime change protesters in Sanaa decide to mobilise against then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, asking for his resignation and new elections after three decades in power.

September 12, 2011 – Saleh signs a document giving Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi special power to negotiate a transition of power under the guise of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Joint Meeting Parties – Yemen’s political opposition parties.

December 2011 – Saleh announces that he handed power over to his designated Vice President, Hadi, under the terms of the GCC-brokered transition of power initiative (see here for the full text).

January 2012 – Saleh and several of his close allies and family members are given full immunity by parliament.

February 21, 2012 – Hadi is confirmed president of Yemen in a one-man “election”. His term is set for two years, during which he will oversee Yemen’s institutional and political transition in keeping with the National Dialogue Conference resolutions.

January 2014 – Members of the NDC (National Dialogue Conference) reach a tentative agreement in the capital Sana’a. The terms of a draft constitution are finally ironed out so that Yemen can finalize its transition of power.

September 2014 – The Houthis reach Sana’a following a blazing campaign against Al Islah in the highlands. Abdel Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi movement, calls on Hadi to commit to the implementation of all NDC resolutions, per the January 2014 agreement. A deal is signed in Sana’a and a new coalition government is formed.

January 2015 –  Following months of political wrangling and rising tensions Hadi announces his resignation. His entire cabinet resigns. Hadi and several ministers are immediately put under house arrest by the Houthis as Jamal Benomar, then-UN Special Envoy to Yemen, attempts to return all parties to the negotiating table.

February 2015 – Hadi flees Sana’a for Aden (former capital of South Yemen), where he announces Aden as the new capital of Yemen, essentially splitting Yemen in two. Sana’a becomes a diplomatic ghost town as all foreign embassies withdraw their diplomats from the city.

March 2015 – The United States of America announces the evacuation of its troops from Al Anad airbase near Aden.

March 25, 2015 -Saudi Arabia unilaterally launched an attack on Yemen with the backing of eight Arab countries — Kuwait, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, Egypt, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan — and the support of the United States and European Union under UN Resolution 2216.

 

 

 

Including women could offer Yemen a way out of violence

For the greater part of its republican history (the Yemen Arab Republic was established in 1962) Yemen has been plagued by recurrent and emerging armed conflicts, terrorism, radicalisation, record levels of mass displacement of population, famine and disease. 

While Yemen’s crisis is dire, it is symptomatic of a wide-spread malaise. Our 21st century has been defined in terms of violence and political instability, and as data shows, standard peace-making methods have proven ineffective at addressing such trends –  nearly half of the conflict-resolution agreements forged during the 1990s have failed within five years of their signing.

Recidivism rates for civil wars are alarmingly high, with 90 percent of civil wars in the 2,000’s occurring in countries that had already experienced civil war during the previous thirty years. It is this reality all actors engaged in brokering Yemen’s peace must grapple with and overcome. For Yemen to attain peace and security, new thinking is needed.

Perhaps Yemen’s solution may lie with the one demographic that has been systematically overlooked: women. 

Back in 2016 the World Bank estimated Yemen’s female population as 49.8 percent of Yemen’s total population. Today the balance is believed to have tipped in favour of women to just over 51 percent.

Ignored, unrepresented, and abandoned, the women of Yemen, as the song goes, have remained ‘unspoken’, and yet it is women who have born the brunt of the conflict. 

As of 2018 the United Nations claims that 76 percent of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are women and children, and an estimated 3 million women and girls are at risk of gender-based violence. While only a year has passed since the publication of these numbers, women’ suffering and vulnerability have skyrocketed – spurred on by an escalation in violence as militias have pushed the boundaries of the tolerable to reinvent themselves in the unspeakable cruelty of radicalism.

While many will dismiss the thought of women’s socio-political engagement by arguing the need to prioritise issues of national security, Yemen’s dismissal of women as powerful actors for change, stability and growth is what led Yemen to unravel so completely under the thumbs of armed religious ideologues.

A growing body of research suggests that women’s participation in conflict prevention and resolution advances security interests. One study found that substantial inclusion of women and civil society groups in a peace negotiation makes the resulting agreement 64 percent less likely to fail and, according to another study, 35 percent more likely to last at least fifteen years. Higher levels of gender equality are associated with a lower propensity for conflict, both between and within states. Despite growing international recognition of women’s role in security, their representation in peace and security processes has lagged.

Strengthening women’s participation in a country such as Yemen, which suffers from a litany of overlapping and interrelated issues, could allow for strides to be made towards stability as well as cementing much needed socio-economic advancement – in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which formally acknowledges the benefits of women’s participation.

Women can offer unique, substantive, and measurable contributions to securing and keeping peace. And although traditional efforts by governments and nongovernmental organisations to combat radicalisation typically focus on reaching out to political or religious leaders – who are predominantly male  – recent research shows that antiterrorism messages are effectively disseminated through families and communities by women, who are well placed to challenge extremist narratives in homes, schools, and social environments, and have particular influence among the young.

The 2016 joint U.S. State Department / U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) strategy to counter violent extremism around the world explicitly recognized that women’s groups can help to identify and address the drivers of violent extremism within their families, communities, and societies.  Yemen could greatly gain by including and empowering women – to the benefit of all, including regional actors. 

High levels of women’s participation have proven to overwhelmingly strengthen state institutions while boosting financial growth all the while reducing levels of poverty, Yemen absolutely ought to aggressively bridge its gender deficit – if anything is to guarantee that peace will hold once it is brokered.

But minds would need reforming. Yemen’s tribal and patriarchal social norms are key factors contributing to women’s exclusion from both the political arena and the work-force.

Female access to paid employment has been challenged by a widely-held belief that women’s primary role is domestic, rather than academic or entrepreneurial.  Such thinking has kept women in a state of social and political infancy, putting Yemen at a severe disadvantage in comparison to other countries. Yemen has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world, and yet it is signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

According to an ILO labor force survey conducted in 2013-2014, only 6 percent of women participated in the labour force prior to the conflict, while just 7 percent of jobs were held by women. Since 2015 women have been further pushed to the edge of society – their plight heightened by radicals’ cries for absolute gender segregation.

Yemen’s future will depend on how its officials shape Yemen’s peace. War cannot last forever. That said, to end a war does not equate with stability, and ultimately it is stability that Yemen most craves if it is to rebuild and thrive.

And until decision-makers come to terms with the fact that Yemen’s future will be most likely written by its women, this impoverished nation will forever chase its tail.

 

 

 

 

 

Building a Lasting Peace in Yemen by Getting Ahead of the Generational Gap

While Yemen remains locked in a grand political dispute, its people bound by the competing ambitions of various factions and militias, it is likely that peace will require more than a coming together of those warring parties … Peace will call for an institutional rethink of the proverbial ‘generation gap’.

Waves of protest are currently engulfing not only the region (Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq) but the world (Chile, Hong Kong and Barcelona). And while each country faces its own socio-political problems, all have a common denominator: a disenfranchised and disillusioned youth.

And though Yemen’s peace will undoubtedly be brokered when all actors – whether local or regional, find enough common ground to formulate a political solution to their respective upsets, no resolution will be worth more the ink with which it’s written if Yemen’s generation gap remains unaddressed.

Though statesmen can formulate a nation’s future, it is the people who ultimately determine how such a future actually turns out. Today Yemen needs a vision which will allow its youth to look into the future with confidence, strong in the knowledge that tangible actions are being taken to address their most immediate needs.

Interestingly enough Yemen offers a perfect demographic mirror to what is fast becoming a global challenge – there are more young people than ever (41% of the world population) and almost all share a common fear of a future scarred and marred by economic inequalities, social grievances, and a lack of true political representation.

Yemen has the youngest population in the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa, with three-quarters of its population under the age of 30, and so Yemen is today the most vulnerable state of them all.

Give the effect that war exacerbated poverty, a complete meltdown of all civil institutions, and the pressure internal population displacement has had on cities such as Sanaa and Aden, it appears evident that Yemen’s political future and its very viability as a nation-state hinges on its political elite’s ability to meet pressing socio-economic demands.

Over 20% of Yemen‟s population is aged between 15 and 24 and, according to UN estimates, by 2025 that will have increased by 69% – the second fastest growth rate in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Yemen also has high rates of illiteracy and together with Egypt and Iraq, holds three-quarters of the 10 million illiterate youth in the region – two-thirds of whom are girls.

Yemen’s pre-existing social deficit, the profound lack of basic services such as housing, education, healthcare, sanitation and jobs, has been compounded by political volatility, religious radicalisation, armed conflicts, shortages of food and water and dwindling natural resources as a consequence of mismanagement and corruption. And though those issues are currently swamped by the politics of war, at least as far as the media are concerned, those realities will ultimately determine the true face of post-war Yemen.

A strong causality exists in between poverty and radicalisation – whether political or religious, even more so among the youth, and more still among the uneducated youth.

In the face of such challenges Yemen truly sits in the eye of a dangerous storm … Needless to say it does not sit there alone. Whatever upheavals Yemen faces in the coming months and years will dramatically impact the Gulf region.

Yemen’s saving grace may lie in the state’s ability to apply itself to long-term development goals – preferably in keeping with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Priority should be given to increasing and strengthening educational and economic development opportunities for the young, with a focus on improving female participation.

Funds should be devoted to ensuring increased educational access for girls, and employment opportunities should be centered on manufacturing industry, services and other new, expanding sectors, rather than on agriculture and the civil service.

Concrete steps must be taken to redress former failures. After all, there will be little left to argue over if Yemen ceases to exist as a sovereign state, notwithstanding the nightmare policing a failed state would turn out to be for Yemen’s immediate neighbours.

This article was first published in New Eastern Outlook

Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood Remains the Biggest Obstacle Towards Peace

The elephant in the room that no one wishes to directly address Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood, also known as Al Islah party has become the single biggest impediment to peace. Unlike many of its political counterparts who remain willing to compromise to see an end to the violence and bloodshed, the Brotherhood has adopted a contrarian attitude, choosing instead to pursue socio-political hegemony by actively foiling peace negotiations, promoting divisions and sectarianism while carrying out acts of senseless violence against civilians to better play into the anti-Saudi narrative within Yemen proper.

And though no one is under any impression that Yemen’s war has not been the scene of atrocious abuses by all warring factions – each caught in the rationale of their own respective ‘legitimacy’, Al Islah has inflicted pain on Yemen … all in the name of political survival and a heightened sense of entitlement.

Very much the poisoned well many came to drink to in view of leveraging their position, Al Islah has plotted so that its men could eventually rise to the very height of power and claim the very seat which for decades has eluded them – the presidency it needs to be said is Al Islah’s end-game. Or rather the platform which its ‘practitioners’ intend to use to mould Yemen to their image: one of radicalism.

A remnant of the former government’s political, social, and religious hierarchy, Al Islah has already proven it is willing to sacrifice however many men, women and children is required to manifest its ambitions. In Taiz such rationale has resulted in Al Islah’s unholy alliance with Al Qaeda and many of its offshoots, all the while utilising its contacts to both Ansarallah and President Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s supporters to prevent the formulation of any resolution to the overdrawn military stand-off.

A former stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood the city of Taiz has long become centrestage to a destructive power struggle between the many factions which laid claim to Yemen. As war has ravaged the impoverished nation the southern city of Taiz has become a perfect representation of the complexity of Yemen’s war. At the heart of it all is Al Islah – a dangerous power-broker with links to Terror and a well-documented propensity to play out those connections to better arm wrestle officials into complying with their wishes.

Let us not forget that Sheikh Abdel Majeed Al Zindani, who, since 2004 has been listed by the United States as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”, is still numbered among Al Islah’s most senior leaders.

Made strong by the chaos which war created, Al Islah has oftentimes, since late March 2015, flaunted its ties to Al Qaeda, mainly on social media, but somehow few ever clued up to the ramifications of such an admission of collusion in narrative and politics … not even Hadi felt he ought to create distance.

For a lack of support within Yemen, Hadi has often turned and leaned on Al Islah to prop up his fading base and thus hold onto the title he well knows is as hollow as his claim of return to the presidential helm.

The Muslim Brotherhood first emerged in Yemen in the 1960s and 1970s, when UN-sanctioned Abdel Majeed al-Zindani – the founder of the Brotherhood’s branch in Yemen – led a group of clerics to establish a religious schooling system in northern Yemen. When Yemen was united in 1990 the group then decided to reinvent itself as a coalition by opening its ranks to like-minded individuals, all seated in different places within the spectrum of religious radicalism. Saudi Arabia designated Al Islah as a terrorist organization in 2014.

The risk today is that the Brotherhood through its medium: Al Islah will attempt a re-enactment of the 1980s Jihadist movement which eventually led to the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the subsequent rise of the Taliban.

By limiting our analyses to the actions of Saudi Arabia’s war coalition, Ansarallah and to some extent the Southern Transition Council we are truly closing our eyes to a serpent which patiently awaits to strike.

Despite the chasm that still stands between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis both parties remain committed to brokering an acceptable peace. The same cannot be said of the Muslim Brotherhood since the faction’s very existence is articulated around the formulation of an enemy and the need to wage war against that enemy.

Today the Brotherhood is playing the populist card, hiding itself behind a convenient narrative of false morality, nationalism, and calls for reparation in the face of disturbingly rampant human rights violations.

Tawakkul Karman, a long-time member and poster child of the Brotherhood has often used her fame to argue against any and all rapprochement between warring factions on the basis, she claims, their will is not that of the ‘people’.

A well-oiled dogmatic machine the Brotherhood should not be discounted … as often in times of great unrest it is those who can best hold onto order and efficiency who will ultimately seize power.

Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood exists today in political suspension as it waits to see what fate will strike its opponents. To look away now would be to condemn Yemen to the fate which befell Afghanistan … hopefully this time around we will learn from History and not allow another pocket of radicalism to claim territories to its name.

This article was first published in the New Eastern Outlook 

NCF Yemen Boss on Riyadh Agreement

Yemen’s internationally recognised government and UAE-backed separatists have signed a power-sharing deal to halt infighting. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the agreement between the Yemeni government and southern separatists to end a power struggle in the war-torn country’s south, Saudi state TV reported on Tuesday. Prince Mohammed decribed the “Riyadh Agreement” as a crucial step towards a political solution to end Yemen’s bloody four-year war. Al Jazeera’s James Bay reports.

The Houthis’ grand military complex – A movement defined in battles

If the Houthis movement was initially structured as a conduit for positive social advancement in the Highlands as well as a mean to reaffirm Yemen’s very own religious idiosyncrasy: Zaidism, the past two decades have transformed this once aspirational outfit into a veritable military apparatus, one capable of wielding the most deadly of weapons and acquire high grade military technology.

In less than two decades the Houthis managed to rise themselves a military power capable of challenging not one army but a coalition of armies made up of several superpowers – beyond that, and because the movement is not constrained by those diplomatic and political ties which force nations to play according to well-established rules, its leadership has been freed to act out guerilla-type operations against its designated enemies. 

2018 marked a decisive change in direction as the Houthis moved away from a typical resistance set-up, confined within the borders of Yemen nation-state, to redefine their war efforts in direct retaliation. Rather than push against Saudi Arabia’s military coalition, the Houthis chose to bring on their homeground, war was brought to the Kingdom by way of drone attacks and ballistic missiles. 

And though many of the attacks have been choppy and ill-directed, the Houthis are honing their skills, making them terrifying enemies indeed, if anything by virtue of their learning curve.

• On January 5, 2018, Saudi state-owned media confirmed the kingdom’s defence forces intercepted a Houthi missile over the Najran province, on the southern border with Yemen, before it could hit its intended target. Keen to advertise their new reach the Houthis took to Twitter, saying its military arm had a “successful launch of a short range ballistic missile at a military target in Saudi Arabia”.
• On March 31, 2018, Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired by the Houthis targeting the southern city of Najran.
• On June 24, 2018, Saudi Arabia confirmed its air defence forces intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles over Riyadh.
• On July 25, 2018, The Houthis  attacked a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea, causing slight damage, according to the Saudi-UAE-led coalition.
• On August 9, 2018, Saudi Arabia intercepted two missiles fired by the Houthis at its southern Jizan province, the official Saudi Press Agency quoted a military spokesman as saying. Al Masirah TV reported that the Houthis had fired a number of ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, targeting the border provinces of Jizan and Asir.
• On April 3, 2019, the Saudi Arabia war coalition said it intercepted two drones launched by the Houthis towards the city of Khamis Mushait. Spokesman Colonel Turki Al Maliki said debris caused by the interception of the two drones wounded five civilians in the city.
• On May 14, 2019, Saudi Arabia confirmed armed drones struck two of its oil-pumping stations west of Riyadh. The Aramco East-West pipeline, stretching across the country to the port and oil terminal at Yanbu, was damaged in two places.
• On May 20, 2019, the Saudi military said it shot down two ballistic missiles reportedly heading towards the cities of Jeddah and Mecca. The Houthis denied their missiles were targeting Mecca, a pilgrimage site some 70km (43.5 miles) from Jeddah and 50km (31 miles) from Taif. 
• On June 12, 2019, the Houthis fired a missile at Abha airport in southern Saudi Arabia, wounding 26 civilians in the building’s arrivals hall, according to the Saudi-UAE-led coalition. The coalition says a projectile hit the arrivals hall at Abha airport, causing material damage. Three women and two children were among the wounded, it adds, noting that they were of Saudi, Yemeni and Indian nationalities.
• On June 17, 2019, the Houthis launched a drone attack targeting Abha airport, the group’s Al Masirah TV says. There is no immediate Saudi confirmation of the attack.
• On June 20, 2019,  the Houthis hit a power station in Jizan province with a cruise missile Al Masirah TV said. The coalition confirmed shortly after that a desalination plant in al-Shuqaiq city had suffered an attack but that no damage had been recorded.
• On July 2, 2019, a new Houthi attack on Abha airport wounded nine civilians.
• On August 1, 2019, the Houthis fired a long-range missile at the port city of Dammam in Saudi Arabia, hundreds of kilometres away from Yemen.
• On August 5, 2019, the Houthis launched several drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid Airbase and Abha and Najran airports.
• On August 17, 2019, a drone attack claimed by the Houthis sparked a fire in a remote oil and gas field in eastern Saudi Arabia. A Houthi military spokesman noted at the time that the group targeted the Shaybah oilfield with 10 drones, calling it the “biggest attack in the depths” of the kingdom. Saudi Aramco said the attack caused no casualties or disruption to production.
• On August 25, 2019, the Houthis said they fired 10 Badr-1 ballistic missiles at Jizan airport, killing and wounding dozens. The coalition said it intercepted and destroyed at least six ballistic missiles fired by the group targeting civilians in Jizan, in the southwest of the kingdom. It gives no details about casualties or damage.
• On August 26, 2019, Houthi militants claimed to have attacked a military target in Riyadh. According to a spokesman for the rebels, the attack was carried out with an armed drone. Saudi Arabia denies there was an attack by the Houthis.
• On September 10, 2019, the coalition forces intercepted a drone over Yemen’s Saada province, Saudi Press Agency reports.
• On September 14, 2019, drone attacks claimed by the Houthis caused fires at two major oil facilities run by Saudi Aramco. Citing a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, the official Saudi Press Agency said the blazes at the facilities in Abqaiq – home to the company’s largest oil processing plant – and Khurais were under control.

For all intents and purposes the Houthis, outside of their self-declared political mandate in Yemen have long outgrown the title of ‘rebel force’ or ‘militia’ we continue to assign them … by virtue of its reach and the weaponry the group has acquired since it first defined its agenda in armed struggle (2004) Ansarallah has become a de facto potent military power.

In a report published in the Washington Institute on September 2018, Michael Knight noted: “The Houthi rebels have been at war with the Yemeni government almost constantly since 2004. In the first six years, the Houthis fought an increasingly effective guerrilla war in their mountainous home provinces, but after 2010, they metamorphosed into the most powerful military entity in the country, capturing the three largest cities in Yemen. The Houthis quickly fielded advanced weapons they had never before controlled, including many of Iranian origin. The story of how they moved from small-arms ambushes to medium-range ballistic missiles in half a decade provides a case study of how an ambitious militant group can capture and use a state’s arsenals and benefit from Iran’s support.”

If we consider the Houthis’ growth span and the speed with which the group has manifested its power over North Yemen – often it needs to be said for a lack of clear opposition and/or resistance, it is evident that the Ansarallah movement has become an unparalleled contender in this race for absolute power over Yemen’s institutions.

Marieke Brandt summarised the Houthis’ key to success best when she writes in 2013: “The Houthis rebellion works through carefully developed plans and brilliant moves on the chessboard. They rely on alliances, both secret and openly visible … The Houthis strategy is based on a precise knowledge of the local tribes and on widespread social presence in their areas; they set up a tight network of checkpoints and patrol in the hamlets in operations that local sources describe as Houthis operations to feel the tribe’s pulse.”

If the Gulf coalition imagined it would have quickly dislodged the Houthis and thus restore Yemen’s First Republic, it greatly underestimated its adversary’s ability to adapt, transform, and absorb state resources to sustain its advances. Since becoming a state-level actor with powerful international allies for example, the Houthis have been effective in recruiting, motivating, and training forces to fight in its military. As for the remaining resources of northern Yemen – taxes, printing of currency, and manipulation of fuel market – they have been poured into sustaining Ansarallah’s military and political efforts.

Beyond that, the Houthis have sustained support to their ‘cause’ through indoctrination, often targeting the young and those made most vulnerable to both replenish and reinforce the movement’s base. According to Amnesty International, Ansarallah imposes recruiting quotas in the areas it controls and will discipline clans who default. 

A formidable machine the Houthis have become all what North Yemen know and operate under.

The Ansarallah movement – A Political Genesis

The emergence of the Houthis/Ansarallah movement in Yemen’s Highlands is a complex process which cannot be reduced to its sectarian component, but also features political and social aspects. 

In the Sa’ada area, the elite transformations which were triggered by the 1962 revolution led to the empowerment of certain tribal leaders at the expense of the sayyids (title for the descendants of the Prophet), the religious and administrative elite of the former Shia Zaidi Imamate. This new tribal elite was subsequently reinforced and cemented through the politics of patronage exerted by the central republican government, often at the behest of Saudi Arabia.

In the Sa’ada area, the political and economic patronage of certain shaykhs and the development ostracism of large parts of the average population resulted in economic imbalances and a vastly unjust distribution of economic resources, mainly because a small group of people began to control a disproportionate amount of wealth and political power.

Social unrest was further aggravated by the spread of radical Islam. Zaidis and Salafis have increasingly crossed swords over the decades – even more so when Salafis took in the habit of inciting local communities to rise against the prominence of the ‘sayyids’ and other centuries-old Zaidi traditions their clergy deemed un-Islamic and thus nefarious.

As confrontations became more and more intense in their violence (beginning of the 1980s) the state took a predominantly Sunni-friendly position, a move which surprised many since President Saleh and most of his family members hailed from Zaidi Islam themselves. 

It is against the backdrop of such a sectarian discourse that the Houthis defined themselves in opposition of the central government and by extension the Republic – at least as formulated under President Saleh. 

It is important to note here that since the onset of the Ḥouthis conflict (2004), multiple attempts at de-escalation and conflict mediation have taken place to defuse the crisis and to restore peace and stability in Yemen. The appointment of mediators and mediation teams is not surprising, as mediation is the socially and politically preferred way of conflict management in Yemen. The Yemeni tribes, in particular, have well-established and effective mechanisms for channelling crises into negotiation.

For well over a decade the Houthis conflict has witnessed every possible kind of mediation and mediators: official and unofficial mediations, ‘insider-partial’ and ‘outsider-neutral’ mediators, mediation by persons, tribes, states, and international organizations, local emergency mediation, meditation of sub-conflicts and attempts at comprehensive conflict settlement. Yet after years of negotiations with the Ḥouthis, no sustainable solution and no golden formula for achieving mediation success have yet been found. Despite at times intensive efforts the conflict could at best only be temporarily stopped, and no sustainable results have emerged from mediation.

The Houthis dossier as it were, requires a complete rethink, and beyond that a fresh innovative approach to conflict resolution.

To better grasp the breadth of Yemen’s unrest – both its scope and its history, one needs to come to terms with the failures of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule in that he allowed for much of the Highlands to become economically and socio-politically marginalised. The unjust distribution of economic resources and political participation, coupled with the unfettered spread of radical Islam in the Zaidi heartland ultimately led to the emergence of a complex Zaidi countermovement. One could argue that it is Sana’a attempt to use brutal force over integration which gave both credence and clout to the budding Zaidi reactionary ideology. Needless to say that years spent in perpetual military confrontation hardened all Houthi militants to the harsh demands of war.

From 2004 onwards, the most influential wing of this movement, the Houthis, waged six wars (the so-called Sa’ada Wars) against the Yemeni government. These wars escalated from round to round due to tribal involvement, but ended in 2010 in a draw. 

Since 2004, the Houthis have been exclusively led by members of the eponymous Al Houthi family, sayyids from the Marran Mountains southwest of Sa’ada city. Since 2006, their leader has been Abdel Malek Al Houthi, a younger half-brother of Hussain, the first leader of the rebellion, who was killed in 2004. 

In between 2004 and 2006, Badreddin Al Houthi, father to both Hussain and Abdel-Malek briefly held the mantle of power. A well-known politician and religious scholar of Zaidi Islam he was one of the founders of the Party of Truth in Yemen and the spiritual leader of Ansarallah movement.

Much of the Houthis’ success lies in its leadership ability to combine Zaidi revivalism with sharp political criticism of both local and international actors, thus  crafting a historically rooted discourse of justice and empowerment that has resonated throughout the region.

Hussain Al Houthi was able to create a strong network of devoted followers in Yemen’s north, where Zaidism remained strong despite the overthrow of Yemen’s Zaidi Imamate in 1962, in part due to the political liberalisation that accompanied the unification of Yemen in 1990 as well as the crisis within Zaidism precipitated by the growth of Salafist influence in the region. 

Al Houthi’s growing influence in the late 1990s was accompanied by increasingly contentious behavior on the part of his followers, which in turn prompted the government, acting partly in response to shifting international dynamics, to overreact.  The manhunt that eventually killed Al Houthi unleashed a spiral of violence beginning in 2004 that became known as the six ‘Sa’ada Wars’.  

The group then transformed from a grassroots Zaidi revivalist network under Hussain Al Houthi’s leadership to a strong insurgent fighting force under the leadership of Hussain’s younger half-brother, Abdel Malek. By the sixth war in 2009, an aura of invincibility surrounded Houthi fighters as they pushed the fighting beyond Yemen’s borders. In November 2009, the Saudi Arabian military intervened to support the Yemeni government in its fight with the Houthis. 

Three months later, the Houthis accepted a Qatari-negotiated cease-fire that teetered along during the following year.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, the Houthis managed to dramatically expand their territories, putting the movement on a crash course with Sana’a central government and evidently President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

The rest as they say is history …