Southerners have abandoned peaceful means to achieve independence from the north

Image Credit: AFP

Al Mukalla: A month after Al Houthi militiamen seized control of the Yemeni capital in September, southern Yemen separatists have taken concrete steps to push for their independence from the north by setting up training camps in Al Mukalla and Aden, two strategic port cities in the south. Seperatists are have set up new recruitment and training centres for southern fighters seeking secession from the north.

Since the beginning of their peaceful uprising against the government in 2007, southern Yemen separatists also known as Hirak held continous demonstrations in the south, hoisting the flag of the former South Yemen and shouting slogans against the north Yemen demanding the termination of unity deal that brought together former South and North Yemen in 1990.

The two camping sites in the two cities had become gathering points for thousands of separatists who urged Al Houthis, who similarly suffered marginalization by the former regime, to pay attention to their cause.

“There was political upheaval in the north, so we decided to strike to draw attention to our demands for liberation and independence,” Aidaroos Al Yaheri, a professor of Chemistry at Aden university told Gulf News.

Al Yaheri was among the earliest academics who pitched a tent for the educated elite in Aden to discuss how to build the south after the departure of the northerners.

Similarly, Al Mukalla’s camping site used to be a vibrant spot attracting people including tribal leaders and local government officials who showed up to express solidarity with the protesters.

Now, the two camps have gathered dust after the protesters deserted them and joined battlefields to fight off an Al Houthi incursion into the south.

The Al Houthi advance into the south sparked bloody confrontations in the heartlands of the separatists in Dhalae, Lahj, Shabwa, Abyan and Aden. Separatists say they are not fighting to reinstate Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi as president, but they are fighting to revive the fight for the indpendence of the south.

The seperatists say that even if Al Houthis pulled out, they would not stop fighting until their demand for independence is reached.

“We will not go back to our peaceful protests,” Al Yaheri says.

Interestingly enough, seperatists used to cooperate with Al Houthis in the past, as Al Houthis condemend the former regime’s crackdown on the south under Ali Abdullah Saleh.

However, the former cooperative relationship has been replaced with hatred, since Al Houthis started to attack southern cities.

“Al Houthis showed their ugly face. They are more destructive than Saleh’s forces. They break into houses and wreak havoc in Aden,” Al Yaheri said.

Al Yaheri says, however, that immediate secession from the north is not a good idea given the current upswing in violence.

“We want a scheduled transitional period under regional and international sponsorship. We are not in a hurry for a state unless there is a political settlement,” he said.

Yasser Al Yafae, the editor of Yafae News, an independent weekly newspaper based in Aden, said that the change in the separatists’ mood is mainly linked to the proliferation of arms.

“They know that immediate secession will lead to infighting since heavy arms are everywhere in the south,”