The Trump Administration Must Not Ignore Grievances in Southern Yemen

Co-authored with Matthew Hedges (@Mhedgesh), an advisor at Gulf State Analytics (@GulfStateAnalyt), a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy.

LobeLog published this article on August 14, 2017

On July 27, the Saudi-led coalition’s air defense forces shot down a ballistic missile in Taif province, which Houthi rebels fired from Northern Yemen. Despite the successful interception, the launching of this missile, which made it 43 miles south of Mecca, illustrates the extent to which Saudi Arabia and its regional allies have failed to achieve a key objective in their war in Yemen: to deprive the Houthi militants of the means to threaten Saudi national security with heavy weaponry and missiles sourced domestically and abroad.

As Yemen’s gruesome civil war bogs down into a stalemate, with millions of civilians suffering from catastrophic humanitarian and food security crises, only a diplomatic settlement can offer hope for a resolution to the conflict. For any roundtable talks to have a realistic chance of bringing peace to this Arab country, all parties must take seriously the legitimate grievances of Yemen’s major communities. This not only includes the Houthis concentrated in the north but also the southerners who live in the territory the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (aka South Yemen) governed from 1967-1990. In Aden and parts of southern Yemen, longstanding grievances against central rule and Yemeni factions from elsewhere in the country are re-fueling a separatist movement seeking to recreate an independent nation-state in the south amid the chaos of the civil war.

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