Weekend fighting in the South Yemen capital city of Aden has left UAE-backed separatists in control of most of the government buildings. Fighting picked up again Monday, with tanks in the streets of Aden fighting, and at least nine more people killed.
Aden is intended to be the “interim” capital of the pro-Saudi Hadi government, but is also the historical capital of South Yemen. The South Yemen separatists have been trying to reassert themselves, and are enjoying no small measure of success in recent days.
The Saudi-led coalition doesn’t seem inclined to bail them out, either, while urging both sides to exercise restraint, coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki suggested that the Hadi faction explore the demands of the separatists and seek talks.
Hadi and his allies are calling this a “coup,” though Hadi’s ability to do anything about it is very much limited by him being under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for nearly a year. This also suggests the Saudis aren’t particularly determined to protect Hadi’s faction if this southern secessionist movement takes power.
The UAE and some other coalition members have soured on the Hadi faction because of its reliance of support from the Muslim Brotherhood, something the separatists do not. With current battle lines roughly in line with the pre-1990 split between North and South Yemen, just letting the separatists take over may be the simplest path to ending the war.
The worst ever blunder in recent Yemeni history was the merger of North and South Yemen in 1990. The two had nothing in common; their religion, tradition, form of government, everything was different, and they’d been on opposite sides in the Cold War when the same Saudi Barbaria which now pretends it is protecting Sourh Yemen was assisting the North in its confrontation with the South. The “merger”, just like West German annexation of East Germany, was basically the colonial subjugation of the South by the North. By 1994 the merger had already broken down and the South announced secession, whereupon the North invaded it. I recall Houthi militia sacked Aden and drive back home in convoys loaded to the brim with loot from the houses and shops of Aden people. The South has never forgiven or forgotten that episode, which is why Southern militia fought the Houthis so hard in Aden but have refused to pursue them into North Yemen. Unlike the North, the South dues not want to colonially rule half the country. Their it has as little use for the puppet Hadi regime as it
I’ve always said give the north to the Houthis and the south to the separatists. If a deal can be brokered between the two then the Saudi genocide stops. Fingers crossed.