Yemen’s Houthi rebellion and Bani Hushaish: what’s really going on?
June 16th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Since 2004 the Yemeni government have fought several wars in Yemen’s northernmost governorate Sa’da against a movement calling itself The Believing Youth, mostly known as ‘The Houthis’ after its late founder Badr ad-Din al-Houthi. According to the government, the movement is aiming to re-establish the Shia-Zaydi imamate that ruled Yemen until the republican revolution of 1962. However, anyone who has spent time in Yemen knows that government sources cannot be trusted, and due to the information blackout that has been in effect related to anything to do with the conflict, hardly any independent sources exist. The few journalists who have braved the government ban on writing about have been arrested. The most well-known is Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani who only last week was sentenced to six years in prison for ‘belonging to a terrorist cell’ after writing about the wars in Sa’da.
Very little information exists about what is going on in Sa’da. According to human rights activists and NGOs, 100 000 people have been displaced in the province since 2004, 50 000 only this year. How many that have been killed are not known, but conservative estimates are in the thousands; and many of the victims are civilians. The government’s tactics of indescriminate bombing of whole villages is what journalists like al-Khaiwani have been punished for trying to uncover. Although the conflict has been going on since 2004, there have been various mediation efforts, and an official comittee from Qatar has been to Yemen several times to broker a peace deal. When cease-fire agreements have broken down, both sides have been quick to blame the other. What seems clear, though, is that the government has only agreed to negotiations in the first place when the military offensives have stalled in the extremely hostile and difficult mountainous terrain of northern Yemen.
So who are Houthis and what is really going on?
Trying to portray the movement as an illegitimate force of extremists, president Ali Abdullah Saleh and his ministers increasingly paint the conflict in sectarian rhetoric. They say that the Houthis are extremist Zaydis, a branch of Shia Islam that was established in the northern part of Yemen in the 9th century, and claim that the Houthis seek to establish themselves as a Hizbollah-like organisation with the backing of Iran. What the president forgets to mention is that the Zaydis constitute between 35-50 percent of the population of the country and that he himself, as are most Yemenis north of the Sumara Pass halfway to Aden, is Zaydi.
Historically, there have been relatively little friction between the Zaydis and Sunnis (of the shafi’i school) of Yemen as there are few doctrinal differences between the two. Yemeni Zaydiism has few of the elements that are typical of the Iranian ‘Twelver’ Shiism. What has happened in Yemen instead, is a slow ‘Sunnification’ of the mainstream Zaydi population in a Sunni-Wahabi direction. Extremist Islamism has long had a relatively free reign in Yemen and the government has been accused of making deals with extremists whereby they are excluded from persecution in Yemen as long as they do not target Yemeni interests. The extremists are furthermore useful for the regime as private militias doing the dirty work in the various conflicts. They were widely used when the government in 1994 crushed an uprising of loyalists of the former Marxist South Yemen unhappy with North Yemen’s dominant role in the unified Yemen, and they are reportedly being used again in Sa’da to fight their Shi’a enemy. Most people in the former North Yemen rarely contemplated their religious affiliation before the current conflict. Now, however, sectarian identity is being brought to the fore, as the government labels the rebels heretics and traitors. Random imprisonment of Zaydis in areas of conflict is taking place, and in Sana’a Zaydi imams are reportedly being removed from mosques in favour of Sunni preachers.
This sectarian rhetoric is a very dangerous development in a conflict that is probably mostly about politics. The political exclusion of large segments of the Yemeni population (see earlier article) has lead to various counter-reactions in the population. In a country like Yemen, where the government’s power extends only as far as the asphalt road, armed uprisings in the countryside should come as no surprise. The Yemeni government, and above all the president himself, has always bought legitimacy through the linking of loyalty and development. Powerful tribes and their sheikhs have been tied into the political system by the promise of roads, wells and schools. In the remote areas, though, few have seen the benefits of joining the Yemeni state. Political disillusionment is a likely catalyst for the rebellion.
Fighting just outside of Sana’a
Until now, few people have taken an interest in the conflict as it was confined to a far-away governorate on the border with Saudi Arabia and seemingly waged against a band of rugged tribal elements with unknown grievances. However, since the latest flare-up that began in April that has lead to the heaviest fighting since 2004, the conflict has taken a worrying turn. It started with the spread to Harf Sufyan in Amran governorate only two hours’ drive north of the capital. Then, a month ago, the government reported that it was combating Houthi fighters who had infiltrated the Bani Hushaish district, one of the most fertile districts of northern Yemen, just outside of Sana’a and overlooking Sana’a International Airport. By the end of May, the rebels had supposedly been defeated and the approaches to Sana’a were said to be secure, but for the past two weeks the fighting has continued with the government’s use of helicopters, fighter jets and artillery. The huge security presence in the capital shows just how worried the government is, and this turn of events points to a different dynamic that is only now becoming clear.
What until now has been portrayed as a limited tribal conflict could in fact have become a much larger uprising against the increasingly repressive regime of President Saleh. The fighting in Bani Hushaish points to a shift in loyalties and the recruitment of local tribes in Bani Hushaish to join the rebellion. If this is the case, the potential for an escalation as new tribes join with the Houthis to overthrow the regime, is likely. Yemen is already struggling with widespread unrest in the southern governorates that sees the former North’s domination as colonialism. Rising food and fuel prices are making life difficult for the large segments of population that are living in poverty. Could this mean that people of different tribes and backgrounds are drawn to the Houthis in order to generate change, basically at any cost?
Not surprisingly, the government response is more of the same: increased repression. Sa’da governorate is already largely cut off from the rest of the country with telephone and mobile networks closed and strict control of all traffic and trade. In the government view, the civilian population is largely to blame for letting the rebels operate in their towns and villages, and this is how any outbreak of violence is perceived. According to the latest edition of the English-language newspaper the Yemen Times, Bani Hushaish is facing a blockade of petrol and foodstuffs. According to an official of the office of the Sana’a governorate, the aim is to make life as difficult as possible for the locals to make sure they stop supporting the rebels. The logic is similar to that of economic embargos elsewhere:
“The way Yemeni society is structured in tribal areas would never allow state control without the locals’ acceptance. By creating this siege, we are pushing the locals to understand that they must cooperate with the state against the Houthis even if they are their relatives or neighbors,” said the Sana’a Governate Office source. “When they begin to starve and their source of income is interrupted, they will eventually hand over the Houthis in their area. Also, we try to prevent any ammunition or supplies from reaching the Houthis in Bani Hushaish in order to weaken them,” he added.
This strategy has so far failed miserably in Sa’da and only led to more suffering and resentment. If the strategy will lead to the banishment of the Houthis from Bani Hushaish remains to be seen, but it could also mark the beginning of a much more dangerous turn in the conflict.
Yemen’s Failing Democracy
June 11th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Another article written by me and published in the brand new magazine ‘The Arab‘, this time about the political crises in Yemen.
An Iran on the Mediterranean?
May 23rd, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
I wrote a reply to a friend of mine about Lebanon and figured I might as well publish an edited version here. My issues, as always, comes from how Lebanon’s problems (that is to say the government and the opposition) are portrayed in the media. From here it all looks very simple: The freely-elected and Western-backed coalition of Lebanese religious and sectarian groups are clinging to power under the onslaught of the Shia Hizbollah, a terrorist group that seeks to extend its power over all the country and turn it into an “Iran on the Mediterranean” as the Lebanese government put it. I am no fan of Hizbollah, but it benefits no one to portray what is going on in Lebanon in this way.
1. The whole notion of Lebanese democracy
The idea that there exists a democracy in Lebanon is a Western idea based on someone fighting someone we don’t like through the political system. True, Lebanon has VOTING, but that is not the same as a democracy. Democracy requires representation, and that is a dubious term in Lebanon, not least because those in power are scared to do another demographic census (last one was in the 1940s if I remember correctly) because they know the situation has changed a lot since then. The Lebanese political system is based on a Lebanese invention of The Confessional System where the different religious groups and sects are given positions and seats in parliament according to their percentage of the population (70 year ago). Here’s a cut from Wikipedia:
The Parliament is elected by adult suffrage (majority age for election is 21) based on a system of proportional representation for the various confessional groups. Most deputies do not represent political parties as they are known in the West, and rarely form Western-style groups in the assembly. Political blocs are usually based on confessional and local interests or on personal/family allegiance rather than on political affinities…
Lebanese political institutions often play a secondary role to highly confessionalized personality-based politics. Powerful families also still play an independent role in mobilizing votes for both local and parliamentary elections. Nonetheless, a lively panoply of domestic political parties, some even predating independence, exists. The largest are all confessional based.
Democracy in the Western sense is “one man one vote”, where vote implies that you can vote for whoever you want. This is not the case in Lebanon. Politics is run by the same families that have always controlled different sects in different areas. The fact that they prevent an opening of the political system to let anyone vote for any party or person is clearly because they stand to loose out in a new and truly democratic system. As it stands now, most of Lebanon’s politicians are more concerned with their own power and privileges than creating opportunities for all the Lebanese. This disdain for the politicians can be found on all levels of society and in all sects.
2. The ‘Everyone against Hizbollah-syndrome’
In the media, the political conflict in Lebanon is portrayed as the Western-backed alliance of Sunnis/Christians/Druze against the Shias of Hizbollah. However, what is always left out is that there are two huge political ALLIANCES that are opposed to eachother in Lebanon. It is not as if all non-Shia Lebanese are on one side and Hizbollah and Amal on the other. The sectarian system in Lebanon requires alliances with ALL sects in order to be a viable political alternative (as the president has to be Christian, the prime minister a Sunni etc). Hizbollah is the most powerful partner in the opposition, but they are allied with political parties from the other sects in Lebanon, including Christians, Sunnis and Druze as this is the only way to fill all positions in government and parliament. Now, you could say that the others are only in there for their own personal gain, but that describes the situation for Lebanese politics in general. In other words, the conflict is more political than sectarian. What Hizbollah wants is representation, something they feel is being denied to them. That’s where any conflict resolution needs to start as that is the basic grievance. And this is where they have now come to agreement in discussions in Qatar. Now, if everyone was against Hizbollah, giving them their proper representation (which is considered to be around 40 percent or maybe a bit less) it would not give them the ability to control the government as they do not have the majority. This is where the ALLIANCE comes in, as their allies would give them a majority in parliament. That might be frightening as it is an unknown force, but that is the weakness with democracy. Is democracy only a good system as long as a country’s inhabitants vote for people we like? Or does it give them the right to vote for whoever they want (as long as they follow the constitution of course)?
3. Hizbollah as a foreign import.
Portraying Hizbollah as a foreign import simplifies the matter in a way that is very dangerous, a simplification that is related to the idea that Iraqis would welcome foreign soldiers just because they hated Saddam Hussein so much. True, Hizbollah was formed as a resistance movement in the second half of the civil war, largely in opposition to Israeli interventions. But it is an inherently Lebanese phenomenon built on Lebanese experiences and politics. A lot of the time it is described in terms of being an extension of Syrian and Iranian interests, but that is to put the problem on its head. A lot of the time there are converging interests between the three, but this does not make it a foreign import. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” applies here as elsewhere and Hizbollah, especially as long as they have a ‘valid’/'acceptable’ reason to struggle (politically or militarily) they are going to take support from whoever is willing to give it to them (just like the Christians of Lebanon have been supported by Israel and just like all factions in the political struggle in Lebanon currently have foreign sponsors, as they’ve always had). This is why Hamas, a strict Sunni-Islamist organisation takes money from Shia Iran. Hizbollah is concerned with Lebanese interests and not Iran’s interests (which is why they stay out of the whole Sunni-Shia conflict elsewhere in the Middle East). The reason it’s portrayed as a foreign import by the current government is of course because they know this is what triggers support from abroad. They therefore describe the conflict as “The beleaguered democrats”, that are clearly identifiable and easy to sympatise with from our perspective, against “the crazy fundamentalists working for the Axis of Evil that want to take away everyone’s freedom”.
4. Hizbollah as crazy fundamentalists
This is where it’s getting tricky as it’s hard to make judgements about an organisation that has never been forced to convert its rhetoric to actual national politics. However, there is a lot more to the story than Islamism. Even if Nasrallah wanted a country where everyone is forced to live according to the sharia, he knows this is not conceivable nor possible. And he has said as much, expressing all sects’ right to live according to their own rules (as has always been the case). Analysing Hizbollah only according to the black and white idea of good (non-Muslim) secularists versus bad (Muslim) fundamentalists is pointless. Hizbollah is a political movement. This is why (with the exception of revenge killings) Hizbollah is not on neither the UN’s nor the EU’s lists of terror organisation and the group has never used terror outside of Lebanon (and Israel of course). Furthermore, since the civil war the party has stayed on the political path in the internal conflict. Demonstrations, sit-ins and so forth are all legitimate political tools and is found in Europe also. This time they crossed the line and used force (only the target was militias and not the national army or government institutions.) Furthermore, Hizbollah is praised by many non-Shias for its integrity and honesty (which is always relative and becomes so clear-cut when opposed to the rest of Lebanon’s corrupt politicians) and I think it would get many votes from non-Shias if the voting system was changed to let everybody vote for whoever they wanted (just like many Shias would abandon it as they now had proper political representation).
Reality is never black and white.
The mess that is Lebanon
May 15th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
For those who feel like reading a simple and good article about what has actually been going on in Lebanon over the past ten days, should read the linked article written by the Syrian analyst Sami Mobayed. Forget all the nonsense in the headline-driven media about Hizbollahstan and coups.
The never-ending mess of Iraq
April 10th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
We are told that “The Surge” in Iraq has been a success as the increase in US troops, in addition to local agreements with wardlords, strongmen, sheikhs and mullahs, has brought the violence in Iraq down considerably. In reality, Iraq has become completely dysfunctional and decentralised and the central government has virtually no control on the ground. The country has become a patchwork of ethnic enclaves protected by walls and private armies.
As the following article in Rolling Stone explains, this solution will only exacerbate the ethnic and religious divisions and conflicts that it was supposed to solve.
Excerpt:
Now, in the midst of the surge, the Bush administration has done an about-face. Having lost the civil war, many Sunnis were suddenly desperate to switch sides — and Gen. David Petraeus was eager to oblige. The U.S. has not only added 30,000 more troops in Iraq — it has essentially bribed the opposition, arming the very Sunni militants who only months ago were waging deadly assaults on American forces. To engineer a fragile peace, the U.S. military has created and backed dozens of new Sunni militias, which now operate beyond the control of Iraq’s central government. The Americans call the units by a variety of euphemisms: Iraqi Security Volunteers (ISVs), neighborhood watch groups, Concerned Local Citizens, Critical Infrastructure Security. The militias prefer a simpler and more dramatic name: They call themselves Sahwa, or “the Awakening.” [Read the whole article]
The Sound of Yemen
February 10th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Article published in the brand new magazine ‘The Arab‘ about my last experience before leaving Yemen during Eid 2007.
Click HERE to read.