Mr.
Jabber, the scruffy old rabbit, was very concerned over the human fatalities in
Yemen.
Ms. Blabber said excitedly, Yemen is the land of Biblical Queen
Sheba, one of the oldest centres of ancient civilizations. The Greeks and the
Romans referred to as Arabia Felix – “the Happy Arabia”.... my
grandma told me.
It’s around two thousand in three months, he
muttered.
As he sighed, a munching sound which was originating
amid the darkness under my bed stopped abruptly and Ms. Blabber hopped into
light hurriedly.
You know my grandma once visited Aden, the entrepôt of Yemen, said she.
You know my grandma once visited Aden, the entrepôt of Yemen, said she.
I was gobsmacked once again. Oh Really! … Now
my pet has a globe-trotter in her ancestry, is it! … And of all places Yemen!
Who goes to Yemen? I tried to think whether I know somebody personally who has
ever visited there. But no! No one’s face crossed my mind.
Ms. Blabber continued, my grandma told that in
those days Aden was under Bombay Presidency of the British Empire and the
official currency in that far away land was the Indian Rupee. Grandma went to
Aden when her human family relocated there. The master of the house was
an Indian engineer who was engaged by the government for laying out water
supply and underground drainage system of the Yemeni port city. At her time
there were many Hindu temples in Yemen which were later taken over when the
Marxists who took power of South Yemen in 1969 and overhauled the society towards
the Soviet Block. Later, in 1990, South Yemen merged with North Yemen with Ali
Abdullah Saleh as its President. However, in a short while the Southerners
became unhappy about the unification and a new civil war began.
Mr. Jabber said, he UN sponsored inclusive consultation among
warring parties of Yemen would not yield result easily. Peace-talk in true
sense of the term itself seems a far away thing, let alone solution, he lamented. What would happen to the people of a country which is
torn by age old sectarian misunderstanding resulting into perpetual violence
and affected by terrorist movements of the Islamic State and the deadliest
faction of Al Qaeda, dwindling water reserve, soaring food prices and ebbing
oil revenue. With days, Yemen’s territory has evolved into a war ground of
religious and regional rivalry, he said.
In Yemen tribes are powerful actors in the
country’s socio-cultural as well political arena, Mr. Jabber said. Outside the
major cities, each tribe is practically ‘the sovereign’ in its own territory
where civilians possess huge cache of arms and local tribal militias habitually
overpower the national army. The Ansar Allah is a group of militia or rebels who follow the Zaidi Shiah jurisprudence and are
popularly known as Al Houthi. The Zaidi sect comprises about 40% of Yemen’s
population. There are around four hundred Zaidi tribes in the northern
mountainous region of the country. The Houthis in alliance with forces
loyal to Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and backing from Iran swiftly took
control of most of Yemen including its capital Sanaa and most important city
Aden. They then ousted its sitting President early this year.
The UN-recognized President of Yemen, Abd
Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the leader of the Southern camp, who resigned as the
President of the country in the face of Al Houthi militia’s takeover of the
country’s capital and later repealed his own resignation, fled to the shelter
of the flamboyant guest-palaces of Saudi Arabia. Hadi gave ascent to the
Saudi-led ten-nation Sunni coalition’s bombing in Yemen. The more Mansur Hadi
is backing Saudi airstrike in his own country in delusion of a victorious
retreat, the more his control over his supporters is decreasing. Now, the Saudi
invasion in Yemen has resulted into a humanitarian crisis rather than serving
the purpose of stalling the advancement of Al Houthi force, said Mr Jabber.
He continued, the international community is criticizing
the humanitarian crisis caused by the bombing of the poorest of the Arab
countries by troops led by the richest one. Television channels like Al Manar
and Al Masirah confirmed civilian killings. Organizations like the Human Rights
Watch (HRW) condemned ‘flouting of global standards’ by use of the US-supplied
cluster-munitions like CBU-150 by the Saudis, highlighting that civilian have
been historically the primary victims of such death traps. A
cluster-munition contains multiple bombs, many of which remain unexploded and
fatal threat to the civilians long after a conflict ends. As retaliation, Al
Houthi militias have began sending Scud missiles within Saudi Arabia for
highlighting the vulnerability of that country’s defence capacity, however,
this in turn has resulted into stronger resolve of the Saudis.
Before immigrating to Saudi Arabia, Osama bin
Laden’s family used to live in southern Yemen. The Al Qaeda base in Yemen
became the deadliest one after its Saudi chapter merged with it to become ‘Al
Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula’ – the AQAP. The faction’s religious ideology is
based on radical schools of Sunni theology and therefore hostile to the Shiah
Houthis. AQAP continued to spread its territory during the ongoing crisis but
failed to push the Al Houthi force backwards. The AQAP did not even forge an
alliance under Mansur Hadi, said the rabbit.
Mr Jabber pointed out that many experts say that
the Houthis have overstretched its boundaries and are now lacking supply of
essentials while their opponents are ready to fight them till death. Therefore,
it might be difficult for the Houthis to hold much of their new conquered
territories for long. Iran, the country which supports the Houthis allege that
the US and Israel are backing Hadi and pointed out that Ansar Allah forces
recovered a cache of Israeli arms from the Saudi Embassy in Yemen. Senior
Iranian leader Alaeddin Boroujerdi in a meeting with European Parliament
delegation earlier this month reiterated Iran’s belief that solution to Yemen’s
crisis is possible through diplomatic means.
Interestingly, the rhetoric of Khaled Bahah,
Vice-President of Hadi’s Yemeni government in exile, is a sharp contrast to
that of its President. Unlike Hadi who sticks to his “no negotiations” stand,
Bahah is speaking of “peaceful tools” to resolve the crisis and in the days to
come, he might become a prominent unifying figure, optimistically said Mr.
Jabber.
The rabbit said that though some are speaking
of peaceful means to end the hostility, the regional conflict over Yemen would
not die easily. Firstly because the location of the transportation hub Aden is
highly strategic – at the south-western tip of Arabia; it is close to all major
naval routes between the Asia and the west through which pass millions of
barrels of oil every day and secondly, because the ongoing war would gradually
be fuelled more and more by the hunger of power between Shiah Iran and Sunni coalition
rather than domestic sectarian differences.
When the present crisis began, India had
played a good role in Yemen, said Ms. Blabber, when thousands of expatriates
were stranded in the war-torn nation amid cross-fires and bombings India
requested the Saudi Authorities to pause bombings for a while and evacuated
both Indian and foreign nationals including Pakistani citizens. The other day I
heard Mr. Prime Minister inform these to an applauding crowd in South Korea.
