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Southern sentiment: “The Yemen’s Southern Movement and the Saleh-Hamid Game”
Filed under: Post Saleh, South Yemen, guest posts — by Jane Novak at 12:03 pm on Monday, August 22, 2011

The following article by a southern activist is a good snapshot of the southern viewpoint and distrust of the revolution and Hamid al Ahmar in particular. It makes the point, which seems accurate in my view, that southerners have been sitting out the rev, and few have changed their goal of independence. Many view it as a mechanism to retain the proceeds from natural resources which are found mostly in the south.

From the inception of the revolution, there have been no formal overtures to the southerners and it was assumed they would come around or that there really wasn’t strong support for the two state solution. Part of the huge disconnect between north and south is a function of the regime’s censorship and poor infrastructure.

Many northerners were quite shocked when southern protests broke out in 2007, and apparently shocked again that the 23 southern leaders resigned the national council last week. Southerners were shocked the north did not rise up with them years ago, and that the atrocities committed by the Saleh regime were largely met with silence in Sanaa and elsewhere. Some leaders in the national council were active against the south in the 1994 civil war.

The Yemen’s Southern Movement and the Saleh-Hamid Game
By Nedhal Moqbel

Amidst the growing political crisis in Yemen , the Southern cause remains South Yemenis’ top priority. The injured president, who is being treated in Saudi Arabia , left behind unresolved political conflicts, and multiple parties and individuals are now competing for power. President Saleh’s return is becoming more possible as the state seems to be falling apart. Moreover, violence is escalating, and the Islamic extremists are gaining more strength. While the country’s future is unknown, the well known fact now is that most Southerners are maintaining their goal of secession.

As the backstage facts of the anti-Saleh protests are gradually revealed, the Southern struggle is standing out with its spontaneous outset and clear goal. According to an article by Jumana Farahat of the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper (dated April 9, 2011), the current protests against Saleh were basically a plot by the powerful political and tribal figure Hamid Al-Ahmar, a scenario he began to prepare for in 2009. Citing several Wikileaks cables, Farahat assures that Hamid has been in contact with the American embassy in Sana’a since 2009, providing officials there with some details of his plot to overthrow the president, which they did not take seriously. His plan centered on weakening Saleh by opening up multiple communication avenues with the latter’s enemies in Sa’ada and the South, urging them to escalate their pressures. Regardless of the responses he received from them, Hamid did not give the green light for the anti-Saleh protests until he was sure the time was right.

Additionally, a Reuters article published on June 1st this year reveals one reason why yesterday’s friends (Saleh and Hamid) are now today’s enemies. The article refers to a “confidential State Department cable” that confirms a “long-standing monopoly” by Hamid Al-Ahmar and Arcadia Petroleum, an oil trading firm owned by Norway’s billionaire John Fredriksen, of Yemen’s oil exports. Because he was the firm’s undeclared agent in Yemen , Hamid used his powerful connections to let Arcadia win most oil export tenders at below market prices, earning in return a big fortune from the firm. However, Saleh managed in 2009 to break this monopoly, handing the case to an oil council under the control of his own son.

This verifies that hidden internal disputes upon Yemen ’s rich resources – most of which exist in the South – were behind the recent protests. Hamid first pushed for “organized chaos,” using Farahat’s words, through increasing the pressures upon Saleh by his North and South opponents. After that, he set the stage for the protest movement that demanded the president’s departure. However, loyalists of Saleh responded with massive demonstrations in support of their president, which caused riots on North Yemen ’s streets to be significantly divided.

On the other hand, one sees a different picture when it comes to the Southern Movement. This struggle did not spring from “organized chaos,” but from shared discrimination at the hands of the Northern government. The long-standing persecution of Southerners that particularly began in 1994 was translated in 2007 into an organized entity called the Southern Peaceful Movement that represents all South Yemenis. Its goal is the restoration of the occupied South, with its immense natural resources over which Hamid and Saleh have been fighting.

Unlike the divided protest movements in Sana’a and Taiz (pro-Saleh and anti-Saleh demonstrations), the Southern protests have always chanted the same slogans, raised the same flag (that of the pre-unification South Yemen ), and demanded one thing: the liberation of their land from the Northern troops that invaded the South in 1994. This peaceful struggle is continuous despite the government’s violent and suppressive response to it.

Saleh fought the Southern cause brutally, Hamid Al-Ahmar made use of it in his battle with Saleh, and those standing today on the Yemeni political stage are in disagreement about it. While Hamid now is more powerful than before, Yemen is still run by Saleh’s sons, relatives, and allies who still control the security authorities and a significant chunk of the military. The scene is foggy, and the game is not over. However, whoever wins this power game will have to eventually confront the persistent Southern struggle for secession.