Civil rift: ‘Yemen war is not sectarian’

Speakers discuss background of the crisis and present an analysis of the current situation.

KARACHI: The war in Yemen might have started due to different factors, but it is not a ‘sectarian’ war.

Senior political analyst and media consultant Muqtida AK Mansoor and Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology social sciences head Dr Riaz Ahmed Sheikh shared these views at a discussion on the prevailing crisis in Yemen at the Karachi office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“The main problem originated from the rearrangement of the states of the Ottoman Empire,” he said. According to him, Yemen has always been rich because of the presence of huge quantity of fuel resources — something not liked by Saudi Arabia.

While he talked about the background of the Yemen crisis, Sheikh presented an analysis of the current situation. “The war in Yemen is not sectarian,” said Sheikh. According to him, it is only a ‘civil war’ of the country.

He said that problem in Yemen had started in 1990 when North Yemen and South Yemen became one country. He also considered the Arab Spring of 2011 a major factor contributing to the current situation. “The major disturbance was caused when Abd Rabbah Mansur Hadi was the president of Yemen,” said Sheikh. According to him, it was during this time that the Houthi rebels started their protest against the rule of Hadi ‘as the economic situation of Yemen had started deteriorating’.

“Houthis include both Shia and Sunni protesters,” said Sheikh, adding that this group arrived in Sana’a on November 30, 2014, to stage a protest. Sheikh blamed Saudi Arabia for giving a wrong slant to what was purely a civil war of a country.

According to Sheikh, another factor that contributed to the start of the Yemen crisis was the pressure of Saudi Arabia to divide Yemen into six zones. “The people of Yemen wanted a country that was divided into two zones only,” he said, adding that the culture of Yemen is ‘very strong, unlike that of Saudi Arabia’.

“A Yemeni woman is a Nobel prize winner,” he said, citing examples of the ‘strong’ Yemeni culture.

Talking about the recent visits of the Prime Minister and Army Chief of Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, Sheikh termed it a visit to ‘fix’ things. He suggested that a guarantee must be taken from Iran and Yemen that both of these countries will not disturb the boundaries of Saudi Arabia.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2015.