Yemen Crisis–What it means for the World

For the Last few weeks, Yemen has been hitting headlines in the global media, of course, for wrong reasons. Yemen, which was once acknowledged as the “Fortunate Arabia” or “Happy Arabia” by ancient geographer Ptolemy, now has become a cauldron of insurgencies–Shia insurgency, South Yemen insurgency, Al Qaeda insurgency and finally Islamic State insurgency. The Shia insurgency in North Yemen, popularly known as “the Houthis “is carried out by Zaydi Muslims (a Sub sect of Shia) which constitutes 35-40% of the Yemen Muslim population.

If someone attributes the present day Yemeni crisis as the mere Shia-Sunni power struggle, it amounts to oversimplification of the issue as Yemen is largely a tribal society and around 400 Zaydi tribes are operating mostly in North Yemen area. Inter tribal and intra tribal tensions crop up in controlling and distribution of economic resources and power sharing arrangements as well. The internal struggle for power between long competing factions remain at the core of Yemeni crisis. Subsequent joining of Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran etc by supporting the fighting factions either directly or indirectly and similar joining of terrorist outfits like Al Qaeda and Islamic State in the power struggle, provided a unique and complicated dimension to the Yemeni crisis.

A dispassionate scan of the historical and political developments of Yemen throws ample light on the root causes of the present day crisis .Till 1990, two states existed in Yemen - one in the North and another in the South of Yemen. In 1967, the southern state of Yemen was formed and the socialist state was officially known as “Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen”. After six years of civil war(1968) between Hamiaddin royalists supported by Saudi Arabia, Britain and Jordan on one side and the republicans backed by Egypt on the other side , the republicans came out victorious and formed “Yemini Arab Republic” .However the power struggle between “Yemeni Arab Republic” and “People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen” continued with fresh fighting. Finally with the Arab League brokered peace in 1990, both states reached an agreement on the joint governing of Yemen. Both “Yemeni Arab Republic” and “People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen” were merged and paved way for the formation of the present day “Republic of Yemen” and Ali Abdullah Saleh became the president. In order to honor the power sharing agreement, vice president was taken from the South Yemen. The fragile peace brokered by Arab League did not last long and lead to 1994 civil war .In spite of Saudi Arabia actively backing south Yemen leaders, the south Yemeni armed forces got defeated and many Yemeni socialist leaders and other southern secessionist leaders fled into exile. Ali Abdullah Saleh became the first directly elected president of Yemen in 1999 winning 96.2 % of the vote.

Like the English language varies in its accent and usage from continent to continent, the form of democracy and conduct of elections to establish democratic institutions also varies significantly from country to country and continent to continent. The conduct of elections for democracies in

Arab and Gulf countries, differs from the elections conducted in United States and Western countries in a number of aspects. Unlike the western models of democracy, the democracies in Middle East exhibit a significant variation in their form and conduct of elections owing to the fact that they have to accommodate the interests of monarchies, autocratic leaders, sheikhs and other power forces of their society.

The deep divide persisted between the Shia Muslim dominated in North Yemen and Sunni Muslim influenced in South Yemen, general poverty levels of the populace, oppressive government which is widely acknowledged to be corrupt, a large number of weapons in private hands are some of the contributing factors to the present day crisis. Sensing the chaotic situation, Al Qaeda exploited the situation and conducted a number of attacks on Yemeni military convoys and mosques despite Ayaman al Zawahiri’s guidelines advising against attacks on mosques .Not wanting to lag behind, the Islamic State in March this year, deployed four suicide bombers at two Houthi mosques in the capital Sanna, killing more than 100 worshippers.The Islamic State further threatened to carry such attacks more in future.

In the beginning of 2011, encouraged by the popular ouster of Tunisian government, street protests started in the Yemini capital, Sanna. The protests were initially against unemployment, adverse economic conditions and governmental corruption. Additionally the proposed amendment to the Yemini constitution sought to allow the then president of Yemen, Saleh, to remain in office for life. It was strongly believed that his son Ahmed Saleh was being groomed to eventually take over reins from his father. The Houthis participated in the Yemini revolution in 2011 along with other insurgent groups, socialist groups, Islamist groups, student bodies, anti government tribes and opposition parties.

As a result of the peace brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the last part of 2011, Saleh handed over power to his deputy Abdu Rabbo Mansoor Hadi. In 2012 presidential elections which were also boycotted by the Houthis as well as southern insurgents; Hadi got 99% of the vote.

Another factor which contributed to the Houthis capturing power is the Yemeni government withdrawal of fuel subsidies in July 2014. It was estimated in 2013, the fuel subsidies in Yemen costed $ 3 billion -roughly 20% of the state expenditure. The Houthis capitalized on the frustration among diverse segments of the population over the Sunni dominated government decision to discontinue the fuel subsidies.

The Houthi insurgency in Yemen started way back in 2004 when Yemeni government alleged that the Houthis were seeking to overthrow the government. The Houthi leaders denied the allegations by saying that they were only defending themselves from the government attacks .Since then regular attacks and counter attacks between the Yemeni government forces and government supported militias on one side and the Houthis on the other side continued, resulting thousands of casualties on both sides .The Houthi insurgency reached its pinnacle in Feb 2015, when the Houthis took control of the House of Representatives in Sana and installed a Revolutionary committee to administer the country.

The internationally recognized president Hadi was chased out of the capital by the Houthis in Feb. The president made an unsuccessful attempt to establish his authority in Aden (South Yemen) before being forced to flee to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

With a view to destroy military bases and armed depots of the Houthis ,Saudi Arabia led the coalition air raids on Hourthi held out areas .The GCC( Gulf Cooperation Council) countries participated in the air raids in one form or the other. While US, UK,France, Turkey, Belgium supported Saudi Arabia’s military action on Yemen, Iran, Russian and China opposed the military action on Yemen. It is too early to determine whether the Saudi led airstrikes will resolve the crisis or it will prolong and deepen the crisis, particularly due to the historical reality that mere air superior power is not enough to win battles. Ground troops remain an indispensible factor to win a war in spite of air superior power. From all accounts, it appears that the current coalition air strikes against the Houthis,are likely to be a long haul and may even drag for months. The aerial strikes by coalition forces may halt further spread of the Houthis on the ground but they are not adequate to dislodge Houthis from their mountain terrain in North Yemen. The air campaigns elsewhere in the world did not yield encouraging results either – like the one in Libya which had resulted in only a chaotic nation with very little hope of improvement in the near future. Similar is the case with coalition air strikes in the occupied areas of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria which did not resolve the crisis.

Another striking feature of Yemeni crisis is the conspicuous absence of United State’s active role. For the last two decades United State was playing a predominantly active and leading role in Middle East crises but in the current crisis in Yemen, the lead role remained with the Saudi Arabia. Is it due to a shift in United State’s policy in Middle East? It is more likely that United States did not have economic interest in Yemen’s energy resources, particularly after the discovery of shale gas deposits which transformed United State’s status from an oil importing country to that of an oil exporting country in the global energy scenario. More over the United State’s interest in Yemen seemed to have more focused on containing the expansion of Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula.

Initially Pakistan’s participation in Saudi led air raids on Yemen was contemplated in some quarters but the unanimous resolution passed by Pakistani parliament clarified its position and stated that Pakistan should have a mediating role and not get involved in the fighting in Yemen, though reiterated their commitment to defend Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity and the holy places of Mecca and Medina. The Pakistan‘s stand might have been driven by two considerations – Pakistani security forces are overstretched in tackling its own insurgencies and internal resistance movements. With 20% Shia population in Pakistan, it can ill afford to field ground forces for Yemeni conflict. In February this year, during the visit of the Chairman of the joint Pakistani Joint chief of staff to Riyadh, it was widely believed that an agreement between two countries was reconfirmed whereby, Pakistan if asked, will supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear war heads.

This arrangement was intended to counterbalance threats to Saudi Arabia emanating from Iran’s nuclear program. Pakistan’s decision to stay away from Saudi led air strikes on Yemen and its likely impact on its relationship with other Gulf Coordination countries may alter the exiting geopolitical equations in Middle East.

The current unstable security situation gave a serious blow to ailing economy of Yemen. In spite of having sufficient oil and natural gas resources for both domestic demand and exports , the crisis in Yemen had adversely impacted on the exploration and transport of these energy resources .Being oil revenue based economy, the chaotic security situation further drained its economy and the contributed to the significant levels of unemployment. Moreover Yemen’s support to Iraq during Persian Gulf war 1990-91 contributed further strain on its economy – Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reduced their economic aid to Yemen significantly and on top of it Saudi Arabia expelled one million Yemeni workers from its territory.

The successful advances and capture of the Yemini capital by Houthis and coalition strikes of Sunni Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia created chaotic conditions of insecurity to the general populace which, in turn, prompted evacuation of people by their respective countries. The first and foremost to initiate the process is the United States. It pulled out 100 of its military advisers who were imparting training to Yemini counter terrorism personnel to battle Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Soon followed the United States Embassy staff. Out of 24 million populations of Yemen, 3.5 million international migrants was estimated to be staying in Yemen.

A few years back, various pull factors in Yemen like better paying jobs, improvements in the quality of life lured both skilled and unskilled workers from various countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines. However the recent crisis resulted in massive evacuation of migrant workers by their respective countries. India fielded two commercial aircrafts and Indian Navy vessels and successfully evacuated around 5000 stranded Indians from Yemen. They are mainly health workers, academicians, engineers, IT professionals, skilled and semi skilled workers, though paramedical personnel and hospital staff formed the dominant group.

Unlike many Asian countries, India maintained a deep rooted historical and trade relationship with Yemen. The vibrant commercial and cultural contacts between two countries lead to the migration of thousands of people of Yemeni origin to India and settled down in Hyderabad. Some reports indicated presence of 300,000 strong Yemeni –origin Diaspora in India. Similarly an estimated 100,000 people of Indian origin are concentrated in South Yemen and they enjoy fair degree of cultural and religious freedom.

Besides regular people to people contacts between India and Yemen, prominent leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose also visited Aden (South Yemen) and Aden remains on the Hajj route for Indian pilgrims.

Some reports of 2011 indicated that India is the fourth largest consumer of oil and petroleum products in the world after United States, China and Japan. India depends significantly on imported crude oil from other countries mainly from the Middle East. A stable Middle East and unhindered oil supply routes remain vital to the India’s energy security interests, particularly due to Aden’s strategic location on the global oil supply routes.

The intensified coalition air strikes on the Houthis may prolong the struggle and likely to confine to North and South Yemen, leaving vacuum in the Eastern and North-Eastern parts of Yemen. Seeing the crisis situation both Al Qaeda in Arabian peninsula and Islamic State will compete to fill the vacuum and strive to realize their dream of establishing their own caliphates in those areas and thereafter Yemen crisis may not remain a mere problem between two groups or two countries, rather it may assume a regional /global dimension. The international community need to get alerted on this potential threat from insurgency groups and mobilize diplomatic and political efforts to resolve the Yemen crisis before it becomes too late to handle.

By K.C.Reddy

The author is Distinguished Fellow at Centre for Human Security Studies, Hyderabad. He was Fomer Chief Security Advisor, United Nations.