The Return of the Repressed in Yemen

BY AARON CHRISTENSEN

For a country supposedly obsessed with the misadventures of militant groups in the Middle East, the American media’s silence regarding the ongoing conflict in Yemen has been deafening. Perhaps this disinterest is grounded in the fact that Yemen, an arid rectangle in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is the backwoods of the Middle East. Yemen is poorer and has a lower life expectancy than any other country in the region. The silence of the US media has certainly not been for a lack of excitement within Yemen—on September 21, an offensive by Yemen’s “Houthi” rebels succeeded in capturing Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a, from government forces. The Houthis are now in negotiations with the Western-backed government to determine the country’s future.

After the 2011 Arab Spring unseated longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s central government has been struggling to cope with three independent rebellions at once. South Yemeni separatists frequently stage both protests and terrorist attacks to demand independence for southern Yemen, a region with a distinct history and economic interests. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the local al-Qaeda franchise in central Yemen, has been waging an insurgency against the Yemeni army and American drone campaign. Finally, the Houthis constitute the biggest and most enigmatic of these rebellions, and this rebellion best represents the future of Yemen.

Sunnis and Zaidis

The Houthis’ formal name is Ansarallah (the partisans of God), but they are better known as the “Houthis” after the clan of their leaders. They come from northern Yemen, where they have fought an on-and-off insurgency against the government since 2004. Whereas most Yemenis are Sunni, northerners predominantly subscribe to the Zaidi sub-sect of Shi’a Islam. It may seem easy to write off their rebellion as a simple Shi’a versus Sunni conflict, but the reality is significantly more complex. The Zaidi sect of Shi’ism is the closest to Sunni Islam, and in decades past, Zaidis and Sunnis coexisted peacefully in Yemen.

While there was an identifiable religious divide, it did not divide the country into hostile political camps. Saleh was himself a Zaidi, but he fought ruthlessly against the Houthis all the same. Sunnis and Zaidis in Yemen hardly hate the other sect, and must invent excuses for why they are today fighting each other. Some Sunnis say that, while the Houthis claim to be Zaidi Shi’as, they secretly belong to the Imami Shi’a sub-sect (dominant in Iran) and are trying to import foreign, Iranian culture to Yemen. Supporters of the Houthis, in turn, claim that their opponents are led by fundamentalist Wahhabi Sunnis from Saudi Arabia. The Houthis insist that they receive no Iranian support. If they do receive Iranian funding, it is not significant. The Houthis started their rebellion on their own, and are friendly with Iran out of a mutual hatred of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Saudi Arabia has proven itself a strong supporter of Saleh’s regime; in 2009, Saudi troops intervened in northern Yemen and fought the Houthis at Saleh’s request.

Although the Islamist and sectarian dimension of the Houthi movement is undeniable, the rebellion’s origin lies more in the Yemeni government’s mistreatment of the north. Zaidis were initially content with rule by Sana’a, but in the 1990s, Saleh aligned himself with Saudi Arabia and began promoting the Saudi ultra-conservative Wahhabi sect. Many Zaidis feared that they would be neglected or persecuted by Sana’a, sparking a Zaidi religious revival that morphed into the Houthi rebellion. Northern Yemen is particularly poor and underdeveloped, and the Houthis claim that the government has economically neglected the north. One Houthi spokesman recently claimed, “Our demands are like the demands of the Yemeni people, who seek a decent life, a good economy, security, stability, [and] freedom of expression”.

This is not to say that the Houthis are a lower-class movement seeking social equality. The Houthis are led by very powerful tribal elders, after all. But it does seem that a quest for social autonomy and economic prosperity animates the Houthis. In ceasefire negotiations, the Houthis routinely demanded development aid and greater political autonomy. Houthis wanted the Red Sea port of Hodeidah added to northern territory to give their territory better economic prospects. Indeed, the Houthi offensive that seized Sana’a began after the government increased the price of gasoline.

The Center in Retreat

The rise of the Houthis as a major force in Yemen began with the 2011 Arab Spring. Although Saleh resigned, his regime survived, with Saleh’s vice-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi succeeding him in a single-candidate presidential election. Saleh’s old political party still ran the government, holding a majority of seats in parliament. Although the regime itself survived, its power and authority were significantly reduced by the civil unrest. The regime was unable to provide safety and services to peripheral areas of the country, like the Zaidi Shi’a north. This created both the motivation to stage an uprising, to create a new government more responsive to the people, and the ability to do it, as Sana’a’s authority was weak in the north.

The Houthis’ recent advances have been intermittent, in part because they lack the military firepower to advance more quickly, but also because their advances serve more than desires of territorial acquisition. The Houthi offensives have been bargaining chips in negotiating with the central government and other players in Yemen. Houthis would typically capture an area, pull back or loosen their presence, and then enter negotiations to receive demands for a better political situation. The seizure of Sana’a came after months of failed negotiations to reach a peaceful agreement that satisfied the Houthis. Immediately after Sana’a fell, President Hadi began more productive negotiations. After seizing Sana’a, the Houthis captured their sought-after port of Hodeidah without a fight, probably the result of a secret Houthi-government deal.

Even as negotiations continue, the Houthis threaten the government with a renewed offensive if an acceptable resolution is not reached. Interestingly, the Houthis have no interest in running the Yemeni government, only in lobbying it to fulfill their wishes. In different negotiations, the Houthis have requested either a handful of ministerial positions or none at all. They want a new government that is more amenable to Houthi desires but not totally Houthi-dominated.

The rapid Houthi advance gave Yemen’s other discontented periphery factions opportunities to finally get what they want from the embattled central government. Most notably, the Houthi offensive is inspiring the southern secessionists to escalate their protests for increased autonomy. The Houthis have traditionally been sympathetic to the southern cause, and have demanded that southerners be well represented. Although the Yemeni government is not under Houthi control, it may find it difficult to resist armed Houthi “lobbyists” in the future.

The Return of the Repressed

Despite the conflict, Yemen is not splitting apart any time soon. Secession is not on the table for the Houthis; they demand autonomy, federalism, and privileges for their region, but have no plans to secede. The Houthis recognize that the impoverished north cannot survive in a vacuum. The North’s economy depends on trade with the South. The South Yemeni secessionist movement is not in any position to create a new country, and must work with the government and other Yemeni parties. AQAP is making no progress in expanding or escalating its insurgency.

One thing, however, is certainly changing: The repressed demon of regionalism is returning to haunt Yemen. Unlike failed states like Somalia, Yemen remains one entity, but one with powerful, competing parts. After the fall of Saleh, many of the country’s tribal and sectarian blocs began to make their weight known. The Houthis are the most recent (and perhaps most dramatic) example. Saleh’s successors control the government but little else. The central government survives in Sana’a and the surrounding areas, but it can no longer control the country’s peripheries. Indeed, the peripheries are now trying to control the center, as the Houthis use military force to negotiate a good position in a new Yemeni government.

Yemen’s future will still be bleak, and conflict is certainly to be expected. AQAP is not going to lay down its arms anytime soon, and the Houthis and southerners may very well use violence as a means to secure an advantageous political end. However, a kind of federalist compromise is emerging. The central government and those who support it cannot control the entire country. The different segments of Yemen are unable to live on their own, so they now try to find some way to live together. The peripheries can put demands on the center, not so much pushing the center as pulling it toward their particular interests.

For the United States, the fate of Yemen is not of utmost concern, but the events happening there should be disconcerting. Several years ago, the United States could have negotiated with Saleh directly and could have known that he spoke for all of Yemen. Now, however, that government is beholden to the interests of independent factions across its own country, pulled along by the appetites of its regionalist drives. And however insignificant it may seem, the Houthi phenomenon will not be confined to Yemen. This is an increasingly common trend throughout the Middle East, as long-repressed regional, sectarian, and tribal divides resurface with a vengeance. The internal divisions papered over by authoritarian regimes are splitting apart again. Where centers of power once dominated, their peripheries are now rising on their own. If the United States wants to take advantage of a changing Middle East, it must confront the painfully complicated realities of situations that can no longer be ignored.