Mr. Martin Griffith, We Seek Peace and We are Sick of Being Stooge
From Aden, Capital of the South, we send you peace. From patient Aden, we send you peace. From hostage Aden, we send you peace.
Dear Mr. Griffith, don’t you see that we only have peace? We hope it for ourselves and send it to you. They deny us food and water but we are still patient and hope for peace. We lack fuel and electricity but assert peace. We are forcefully dismissed without salaries or pensions but stick to peace. Our children are not starving to death in Al-Azarek only, but also, they die in peace in Aden! Our kids are frightened to go to schools for fear of being shot from behind the walls where bullets of treachery may penetrate their young bodies to burn our sad hearts. Peace have left our schools and kindergartens.
They kill our cadres and youth everyday while we conceal our pain and send them to their graves hoping for peace afterwards. They insist on treating us as cards on a political gamble controlled by lord of war. But we insist on being humans with feeling. We can feel sadness and happiness just as everyone can. We only want to live in peace, just like you and no more. We want to live as we want, in peace and without war and nothing more.
We are sick of war that started in 1994 and didn’t end till now. We want to try to live in peace without oppression nor humiliation, without occupation nor invaders.
Dear Mr. Griffith, we listened to your briefing and remarks of Mr. Mark, Mr. David and Mrs. Rasha. We are happy with your words as you keep reminding the world that we have a cause you call it the southern (file) while we call it the southern (people). Hearts of Mr. Mark and Mr. David were broken from one visit to our real world. What do you think about our hearts while we live this reality? You only saw the surface while we live deep down. You only saw the peak of an iceberg float over a sea of misery where are people are force to swim. To Mrs. Rasha I say thank you and as the Egyptians say “blood never turns into water”.
Dear Mr. Griffith, we know that you understand our cause but you are bound to decision number 2216. We know that powerful lobbies of interest are exhausting all tries of yours and your predecessors to reach a solution. We know that you are serious and determined to find necessary support to overcome all obstacles.
Dear Mr. Griffith, you say that you heard us in the south and we say to you that we know you did but we want you listen carefully and directly to us, without third parties. We are what we are, not what is told to you from third parties, nor what they try to introduce to you as alternatives for us.
The southern transitional council got sufficient public delegation with political will and determination. The council is open to all parties and is the most representative entity of the southern people. It is the most legitimate too. It is also the most capable body to enforce any agreement and maintain inclusive security and stability and preserve peace and stop a war that we have never take part in starting it but we can take part in stopping it.
Dear Mr. Griffith, our southern people is looking forward to just peace that guarantee them their right to live in dignity. We are positively looking forward to work with you to reach this end. We can do that directly and we have the will and ability, supported by legitimacy of our demands to restore of independent sovereign state, either through talks and negotiations between the northern and southern governments or by referendum on self-determination.
Dear Mr. Griffith, we repeated again. Any try to stick to a failure union (even if they try to decorate it with fancy names or regionalization) will lead us again to the same disaster and will lead the region and the whole world to a crisis where plausible solutions are no longer possible. Creating national partnership governments, one in the south and the other in the north, is more plausible especially with international will and support. This is the only guarantee a permanent rightful solution as the two governments, under auspices and supervision of the United Nations, can reach agreed upon understandings or go directly to self-determination referendum for the south as a solution under international law.
To be achieved, peace requires partners with real interest in it. But, to demand peace from lords of war is something irrational. Permanent inclusive peace can only be built upon justice and overcoming the southern cause and its rightful representative can never be just and therefore, can never lead to peace.
Rightfulness of your decisions depends on the rightful cause of the southern people and will certainly lead to desired peace. With you, we will do our best to reach it. We were forced to two wars. We are still living under the bombard of artillery and landmines. We are still sacrificing thousands of martyrs and injured. We are still having hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows. Isn’t that enough to establish our right to live in peace without being threatened again from Mareb, Sanaa or any where else? Isn’t that enough for us not to be crushed for the third time under the notion of “Union or Death” which they trying by all means to restore it until they vanquish us again by occupation?
Dear Mr. Griffith, please help us to reach a safe path and live in peace. We are sick of being oppressed by power or being outnumbered. We are sick of being stooge. We have no intention to be patient any more.
Best regards
