opinion
Presence of the Southern Transitional Council in Upcoming Dialogues is a Necessity for Ending the War and Establishing Peace in the Region
Without military determination, an alternative should take place to end the war, this is the political solution. It is the best way to solve many problems and crises. This means dialogue among conflicting parties as many wars all over the world ended that way by political solution.
Who are the conflicting parties? And who can discuss the wat situation and how to end it?
Of course, conflicting parties are the ones who are concerned with negotiations. These are the parties that carried weapons in all battel fields.
A war could start with two parties, but with the continuation of war and its complications, other parties and powers could interfere in battels, either through coalitions or through direct fight according to the necessities of situation and overlapping interests and agendas of several powers on the internal and external fields. This means that the nature of such coalitions and de facto status on the ground should be acknowledged according to the situations in battel fields and its consequences.
World events and experiences confirm the principle of recognizing acting powers on the ground and its attitudes during post-war stage. This leads us to know general principles according which the international society deals with resolving armed conflicts in most parts of the world. That is recognizing de facto policy.
War in Yemen is unique as following the sequence of the war, its causes and its outcomes will lead us to know that this war took several dimensions where several goals and interests of various national and regional powers are overlapping. Although war began between two distinct parties representing the legitimacy authority and coup forces, today, this status no longer exists according to battel fields.
Specifically, we should deal with this war according to political reality and away from flat vision. We should know the facts of this war that are deeply rooted in previous stages due to accumulation of several causes that led the situation to war. Most of these facts are from inside Yemen because of previous wars like the six wars of Al-Houthis (now coup forces), supported by external powers, against the authority (legitimacy) from 2004 to 2009, in addition to the war between the north and south that led to invasion of the south by northern troops supported by terrorist and Jihadist groups in 1994. This war raised the southern cause that remained unresolved till today.
The southern cause is the core of the Yemeni crisis although it got no response internally or externally. Peaceful demonstrations and southern movement continued for eight years and represented a moral background for this war as the southern resistance saw this war as a very important alternative to revenge from northern troops that invaded the south in 1994. For the southern, they saw it aa a chance to get rid of the tyranny of a regimen that oppressed them for 25 years. The armed southern resistance found a clear justification to carry weapons and face these troops.
From the very beginning, southern resistance fought coup militias when they arrived at southern governorates. Their motive to participate in this war was the coalition between coup militias and troops of the ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh during the invasion of the south and oppressing it under a military regimen for more than twenty years. Coup militias used the south as a stage for their war against the legitimacy in 2015. It is note worthy that more than forty brigades stationed in the south confronted coup militias in the south under the notion of chasing president Hady.
In March 2015, before the war, Al-Houthis attacked the Salafist Group in Dar Al-Hadeeth institute in Damaj – Saada. Large numbers of members of this group belong to southern governorates. So, they left Saada beck to their homes in the south, including Aden, and war was a chance to take their revenge from Al-Houthis.
Southern movement and Salafist groups formed the southern resistance as a major power in the war. They formed a coalition with the legitimacy with support of the Arab Coalition and managed to achieve victory and expel Al-Houthis from the south. This is the only victory the legitimacy claims, unfortunately.
Therefore, the southern transitional council, as a political and military commandership of the southern resistance, actually controls the ground in all liberated southern governorates according to international reports and ground facts. Accordingly, it is very important that the council should be part of any upcoming dialogues concerning establishing peace and ending war.
We can say that final count down for solving the Yemeni crisis is approaching as the decision of ending it was taken by the regional and international societies with political solution as a tool of determination according to the efforts of UN Envoy to Yemen.
In general, political solution means the existence of all acting parties of the conflict to end the war and arrange post-war settlements. Here we should ask how fire igniters can turn into fire fighters? All evidences clearly indicate that both parties (legitimacy and coup) used this war to serve their own interests and control resources, foreign support and offices in the territories under their control.
It is illogic to search for solutions without considering changes of reality resulting from battel fields. Here we can see the variable that played a key role in forming the actual reality in war. This is the third power that had the determinative effect in war and its interests overlapped with the goals of the Arab Coalition. This power proved loyalty to the coalition while being fully southern (the southern resistance). Being southern clearly indicates that the topic and goals of war were not the ones declared at the beginning of war as war started as a conflict over power. Instead, this war is now threatening to the security of the whole region and this led the Arab Coalition to interfere. This was proved during the past three years of war.
Reality says that the southern fought under the southern flag and sacrificed thousands of martyrs while other conflicting powers didn’t. the southern people managed to liberate their lands from coup forces. This clearly indicates that northern powers (legitimacy and coup) are actually one power although undeclared. They maintained the north under control of Al-Houthis supported by Iran. This explains their attitude against “Storm of Determination”, either through clear challenge, as seen in the attitude of coup forces, or failure and lack of seriousness to end the war in northern territories, as seen in the attitude of legitimacy, in addition to the fierce campaign launched by the Reform Party media tools against one of the acting powers of the war, a specific member country of the coalition.
Although the coalition provided legitimacy troops with massive financial and military support in northern territories, that exceeds what was provided to the southern resistance that shortly determined the war, soldiers of the coalition suffered treachery in northern territories by legitimacy troops who stood, with coup forces, against the south and evidences of that are very clear.
Any upcoming political settlement should necessarily consider ground facts of reality that clearly indicated the southern cause as a major factor in the Yemeni conflict and in regional balance. The south now is politically organized more than ever before under a unified national political body, that is the southern transitional council, and forms a strategic ally to the Arab Coalition troops.
As long as this is welcomed internationally, it is necessary that the council should exist in any upcoming talks to end Yemeni crisis and establish regional peace. Return to previously mentioned war parties will do no good. This is proved during their previous talks and their investment of three years of war just as princes of war who do nothing but collecting money and weapons and controlling public offices and resources in the territories under their control. They are the remains of previous authorities that led the country into the oven of repeated wars and armed conflicts.
