The way to a solution in Yemen

Resolving the problem in Yemen is actually not that difficult at all. The prolongation of the operation launched six years ago by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates stems neither from the Houthis being very strong nor from the coalition being very weak or inept. The only reason the matter has dragged on this long, and even become more intractable with each passing day, is that the Coalition has deviated far too much from the aims it declared when entering Yemen.

The stated aim was to rid Yemen of the Houthi coup-making, to prevent it from presenting faits accomplis and establishing control by force over all the components. Of course, behind this Houthi coup and its spread there was the assessment of Iranian interference; hence, for the people of Yemen, the spread of the Houthis also meant an Iranian occupation. Yet the Houthis too, though their share of the population is very small, were part of the Yemeni people, and had they not attempted such a coup, they would constitute an element that could never be ignored in the reconstruction of Yemen.

When the Coalition decided to intervene six years ago, it had declared its aims as strengthening the legitimate government in Yemen and bringing the country to stability. But over time, neither could the legitimate government be strengthened, nor could the unjust domination of the Houthis be ended, nor could Yemen attain stability.

The reason is actually very simple. The UAE in particular put aside the aim of rescuing the country from the Houthis and strengthening the legitimate government as soon as it entered Yemen. It set out to stage its own coup in the places the Houthis could not enter, to establish its own domination, and to occupy Yemen's lands, ports and airports. By wrecking the port of Aden, it locked the outlet through which the legitimate government could breathe. It destroyed Aden Airport in such a way as to make international flights impossible. By spreading chaos in Aden through its militias, it tried to create a suitable ground for its own arbitrary interventions. Yet Aden was already in the hands of Yemen's legitimate forces. Here it set up countless assassination squads and had important opinion leaders and political figures killed. It forbade Yemenia aircraft from staying overnight at Aden airport, and it also destroyed al-Rayyan airport in Mukalla and turned it into its own military camp and prison. The port of Mocha is still under its occupation, and by obstructing the export of Yemen's gas and oil in general, it in effect conducted its war primarily against Yemen's legitimate forces. That was not enough.

It occupied the island of Socotra, encouraged its armed militias to seize the local administration there, and expelled the island's official, legitimate governor. There was nothing in this intervention that could be explained in the name of fighting any destabilizing element present there, the Houthis for instance, because there was neither a Houthi nor any element other than the residents of Socotra there. The incident is nothing but a full-blown occupation.

Meanwhile, its relationship with the Houthis amounts to a complete betrayal of its own coalition partners. It has been proven that it supplied the Houthis with various weapons, including drones, and money, while its aircraft many times supposedly accidentally struck the Yemeni army, which it is officially bound to support, killing and wounding thousands. By coincidence or not, each of these mistaken bombings ended up blocking the Yemeni army's moves to deal the decisive blow against the Houthis.

In Yemen the Coalition's junior partner is in fact far more active than the senior partner and contributes far more to the deepening of the problem there. In doing these things it in fact drags SA ever deeper into a serious quagmire in the long run, and betrays it too in many respects. But the senior partner, SA, is bound to bear the moral and legal responsibility for what is happening in Yemen. Whenever the legitimate government asks the Security Council to remove the UAE from the coalition, SA mediates and gets the request withdrawn. The UAE's occupation of Socotra could not have happened without SA's turning a blind eye and giving permission, because that place was under its control by agreement. Truth be told, there are many developments secured most recently by the Riyadh Agreement, but since SA has no insistence at all on the implementation of these provisions, the present situation simply continues.

Yet the present situation is one in which serious human rights violations accumulate every day in the name of the coalition. Perhaps the UAE sees considerable benefit in this situation from the standpoint of its own policy, but for SA it is piling up very serious problems that will confront it in the future.

Returning to our initial question, ending the problem in Yemen is actually not difficult at all. Especially now, all the parties in Yemen are far more willing among themselves to build a Yemen that has territorial integrity, is independent, stable and reconciled. The first condition for securing this stability right now is nothing other than the saviors leaving the scene.

The supporters of legitimacy in Yemen, the Houthis, the Zaydis, the Islah supporters or the supporters of the General People's Congress party are all essential components of Yemen, and it is possible for all of them to come together on the basis of a national dialogue, recognizing one another's rights and existence.

It is not possible for anyone to annihilate anyone. Everyone knows and sees that where one group's forceful domination over others leads is instability and despotism.

The solution is for everyone to recognize one another and accept one another's rights, and for a ground of Yemeni National dialogue to be established within a framework of mutual respect.

As far as we can see, all the parties in Yemen, the Houthis included, are ready for this solution right now.

The first step is for the coalition that entered Yemen to save it to return to the promise it made on entering, and to withdraw from among the parties to this dialogue.