The historical capital city of South Yemen, the port city of Aden, has fallen to southern separatists on Tuesday, ending just over 48 hours of fighting in and around the city, and giving the UAE-backed group de facto control over the city.
The pro-Saudi government, nominally headed by Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is under house arrest in Saudi Arabia at any rate, is holed up in the presidential palace in Aden, and the Saudi-led coalition has advised them to negotiate instead of expecting the coalition to retake the city for them.
Yemen was unified militarily in 1990 after a protracted war, but an active secessionist movement remained in and around Aden ever since, and they appear to have finally found an opening to reassert themselves.
The current battle lines in Yemen are close to the same as the old border between North and South Yemen, and the rise of the secessionists might provide an opportunity to end the disastrous Saudi War by simply allowing Yemen to divide in half once again.
“Yemen was unified militarily in 1990 after a protracted war.”
What war? There never was a war between the two sides before”unification” (de facto colonisation of the South by the North, just like the annexation of East Germany by the West). There were border clashes that had ended many years ago.
Yemen has four parts, not two. Aden was the British colony. The British set the rest of the hinterland against each other, to keep the colony safe. The colony of Aden proper was created by the British around a natural port useful to them on their route to India, and always separate from the internal life of Yemen.
The rest of Yemen consists of two well-watered hill regions, and a low desert between them. The two hill regions are North and South Yemen, and the desert was a shifting battleground between them when it had enough water to be worth fighting about at all. Water in the desert region is highly variable, from rather little to near none. The British supported both sides in the struggle for that barren middle, to keep them occupied.
When the British left, Aden itself was heavily under the influence of communist groups supported by the Soviets. In order to keep the Soviets from having more influence, the colonial period was ended with every effort to minimize the political role of Aden from any influence over North or South or their endless struggle for the middle desert.
Yemen never got past this post-colonial mess. Instead, it feel under the control of a Western supported strong man, who held power for decades until blown up in his palace by an insider with a bomb. Then the Saudis tried but failed to set up a new strong man under their control, who ended up living in Saudi Arabia, not even in Yemen.
Aden was not a colony, it is an ancient and prosperous trade city.
it was developed to the exclusion of all other parts which before the British where protectorates of Aden.
When the British arrived, Aden was a small village of about 600 people. Yes the harbor had a long history of use, but what is there now was created by the British as their crown colony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aden#British_administration_1839%E2%80%931967
How would that change the equation for the Saudis who want to dispatch the Houthis? They will just keep the blockade on forever just like the U.S. keeps sanctions on forever.
Divide or join? It certainly won’t be the will of the people which decides, when the USA/UK/Saudis are busily killing and destroying Yemen so effectively and with impunity.
Sounds like good news to me. The Houthi’s should swallow their pride and make a phone call to Aden. Any chance to f**k the Saudis puts a smile on my face.