Devastating civil war in Yemen: Is it of any concern to the UN? (Oct. 27, 2009)
The UN did it again! Civil wars in non-oil producing Arab States are left to run its natural steam until the State is bankrupt and ready to be picked up at salvage price. The UN tends to get busy for years in collateral world problems when civil wars strike Arab States; occasionally, the UN demonstrates lukewarm attempts for a resolution in oil producing States as long as it is under control. Lebanon experienced 17 years of civil war. Morocco still has a civil war in south Sahara for three decades. Sudan has been suffering of a rampant civil war for four decades. Algeria is experiencing a resurgence of a devastating civil war that started in 1990 because Europe refused to accept a democratically elected Islamic majority in the parliament. Iraq was totally neglected while Saddam Hussein was decimating the Chiaas and Kurds in Iraq for three decades, even after the US coalition forced the Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. Somalia never got out of its miseries for four decades so far. Mauritania is rope jumping from one military coup to another. The other Arab States are in constant low level civil wars overshadowed by dictators, one party, oligarchic, and monarchic regimes.
A week ago, a few trucks were allowed to cross Saudi borders carrying tents and necessary medicines to stem rampant diseases where hundred thousands of refugees huddle in refugee camps on the high plateau of North-West Yemen by the borders with Saudi Arabia that closed its borders and chased out any infiltration of refugees.
The most disheartening feeling is that you don’t see field reporting of this civil war by the western media. The written accounts are from second hand sources and decades old. They abridge the problem by stating it is a tribal matter. They feel comfortable blaming Iran; then how this land locked region can be supplied by Iran needs to be clarified. The western media is easily convinced that Al Qaeda moved from Saudi Arabia and was ordered to infiltrate the Somali refugee camps in South Yemen; then how Al Qaeda got to be located in a region of North West Yemen with Chiaa Yazdi population is irrelevant.
The population of North West Yemen forms the third of the total and it is Yezdi Chiia that agrees to seven Imams and not 12 as in Iran; the Yazdi sect does not care that much about the coming of a “hidden” Mahdi to unite and save Islam. The western media want you to believe that this war, which effectively started in 2004, is a succession problem to prevent the son of current President Abdallah Saleh from inheriting the power. Actually Saleh’s son is the head of the Presidential Guard which has been recently involved in the war after the regular army failed to bring a clear cut victory.
Yemen was a backward States even in the 60’s. South Yemen had a Marxist regime backed by the Egyptian troops of Jamal Abdel Nasser against North Yemen ruled by an ancient Yazdi Imam; a hereditary regime labeled the “Royalists” and backed by Saudi Arabia. After the Soviet Union disintegrated Yemen unified in 1990. Since then, South Yemen and North West Yemen were deprived of the central State financial and economic distribution of wealth. President Saleh could present the image of a “progressist” leader as long as Yemen was out of the screen and nobody cared about this bankrupt State.
Yemen is on the verge of being divided into three separate autonomous States, the South, North West, and Sanaa the Capital. The problems in the Horn of Africa have migrated its endemic instability into Yemen; refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan have been flocking into the southern shores of Yemen for same climate. Heavy influx of contraband products are keeping the people of these two regions precariously afloat. The deal between Hillary Clinton and Israel foreign affairs Levny to patrol the Indian Ocean was not just meant for Gaza but mainly to prepare President Saleh for his 2009 campaign against the rebels in North Yemen by monitoring contraband arms shipments to the “hawssy” rebel.
Saudi Arabia, during the duo power brokers of Prince Sultan and Neyef (respectively Ministers of Defense and the Interior) did their best to destabilize Yemen on account of fighting the spread of the Chiaa sect in the Arabic Peninsula. Yemen has no natural resources to count on and the population is addicted to “Qat” that they chew on at lunch time for hours.
Yemen was the most prosperous region in the Arabic Peninsula for millennia; land caravans started from Taez and then passed by Maareb from which town the caravans split to either Mecca (then to Aqaba and Syria) or took the direction to Persia and Iraq. All kinds of perfume, seasoning, and textile landed by sea from India and South East Asia; incense were produced from a special tree grown in Yemen and Hadramout. The British Empire didn’t care about this region; all that it wanted to secure were sea ports for commerce and to defend the entrances of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to Egypt.
The UN is inheriting the same lax attitude of the British Empire; as long as the US bases are secured in this region then the hell with the people. Qatar arranged for reconciliation in 2007 and Saudi Arabia interfered to fail it. Archaic tribes fighting one another wearing daggers as symbol of manhood are all that there is in Yemen.
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