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RCIT: “Contrary to many pseudo-socialists who denounce the Yemeni civil war as reactionary on all sides, we have unconditionally supported the Yemeni resistance from the beginning of the war in March 2015 … The main reason for this is that the Houthis are leading a legitimate national liberation war which has broad popular support … we stress that it is the duty of democrats, anti-imperialists, and socialists in Yemen and the Arab world, as well as internationally, to support the Yemeni people’s struggle for national independence.” I'd agree with RCIT that it's good to see the Saudis humiliated in this way. There is no question that the Saudis’ barbaric air war is responsible for most of the killing going on in Yemen, as is the case with other situations where one side has air power and the other does not (Assad/Putin versus Syrian rebellion, Israel in Gaza etc). Obviously the Saudi war needs to be condemned, and the fact that the US directly aids this war means demands for that aid to end. However, these facts do not automatically lead to RCIT’s conclusions. The concrete situation needs to be looked at in each case. For example, I suggest a full accounting of the US air war against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq will find that killings by US bombing outnumber those murdered by ISIS on the ground. But that does not tell me that we should support ISIS as a “national liberation struggle” against the US. On the contrary, despite my many criticisms of the US-backed SDF, above all its abstention from the Syrian revolution, I believe they are waging a legitimate liberation struggle in the east of Syria where they fight against ISIS. The Houthis are not waging a struggle for national independence. Independence from whom? Saudi Arabia does not run Yemen, any more than the US runs eastern Syria (well, actually, the US has so many bases and troops in SDF-controlled territory that it would be closer to the truth to say the US runs eastern Syria than that Saudi Arabia runs Yemen). Saudi Arabia’s intervention – horrific as it is – is an intervention on one side of a Yemeni civil war. The Houthis have “broad popular support”? No, they don’t. They have broad popular support in their base in the far northwest of Yemen, around Sa’ada, where the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam predominates. In the many wars that the former bloody dictator Saleh waged against the Houthis, the Houthis were waging a just war to defend their autonomy in their regions. However, following the Arab Spring overthrow of Saleh’s dictatorship in 2011, and its replacement by part of his own former regime (led by his deputy Hadi, the famous Yemeni solution), the Houthis and Saleh formed an opportunistic alliance as Saleh aimed to ride the Houthis back to power. So the subsequent Saleh-Houthi offensive throughout the centre and south of Yemen would be similar to Mubarak trying to overthrow the post-Mubarak Egyptian government, or Assad trying to regain power if he had been replaced by another part of his regime. The Houthis from the north marched into the capital Saada in 2014 with little resistance, not due to “broad popular support” (otherwise the mass arrests of activists, journalists etc, tortures, disappearances etc would not have been necessary), but because Saleh still had effective control of the armed forces leadership and their heavy weaponry. Following this, the Saleh/Houthi alliance, armed to the teeth by the Saleh-controlled military, marched south, where it met mass resistance, especially in the city of Taiz, where the Arab Spring had been centred, and in Aden and the whole of the former South Yemen territory. It was as the Houthi-Saleh alliance approached Aden that Saudi Arabia and the UAE began their war against them in 2015. Not because the Saudis love popular resistance of course; and not even because the Saudis really believed their own propaganda about the Houthis being backed by Iran (the Saudi war itself has brought the Houthis closer to Iran); rather, because the entire Yemeni solution set-up, aimed at derailing revolution and stabilising the situation, was a Saudi achievement, which Saleh was now scuttling. The Saudi bombing was of course as ineffective as it was barbaric, as the Houthi-Saleh forces seized Aden *after* the Saudi attack began. Nevertheless, a vast popular resistance continued in Aden, Taiz and throughout the south and east. The popular resistance forces in the south, heavily based around former South Yemeni officers and newer forces who have been fighting for a new South Yemen independence, soon drove the Houthi-Saleh forces out of Aden. Meanwhile, an epic resistance against the Houthis/Saleh was waged for several years in Taiz. While the Saudis mass killing is primary to be sure, the Houthis killing and starving in their siege of Taiz is widely recognised as having been extremely monstrous, in fact responsible for more of the starvation than often credited with. What should we say to the popular local resistance forces in the south, in Aden, in Taiz and elsewhere who believe they are fighting a war of legitimate resistance to the Houthi conquest and occupation? It is these resistance forces who have “broad popular support” in the south. Indeed, speaking of “independence”, the struggle has recently become more complicated with the uprising in the south against the Saudi-backed (and UN-recognised) Hadi government several months ago. This uprising is led by the South Yemeni secessionist movement, who want to revive the old South Yemen. Must be a hard one for binary “anti-imperialism”, given the old South Yemen was a left-wing, officially Marxist regime. But I don’t care much about old labels, rather, there is no doubt that they have overwhelming popular support in the south. And no way do they accept being ruled by the Houthi occupiers – they have been the main forces resisting their rule all along. But while this southern uprising may be considered a light that fights both the Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed Hadi regime, this would simply be more obfuscation. In fact, the southern uprising against the Saudi-backed regime was heavily backed by the UAE, the Saudis’ alleged ally throughout this war! The UAE always had its own goals, mainly to gain a beach-head to fight Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and saw their main enemy as the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood, mainly based in Taiz, a key part of the anti-Houthi resistance. On one hand, this UAE-backing does not delegitimise the real struggle of the south Yemeni people. On the other, it cuts off the anti-Houthi resistance in other parts of Yemen (especially Taiz) outside the artificial borders of the old South Yemen state. Of course it may seem incongruous that an intervention as bloody and barbaric as the Saudi bombing could be on the same side as people with a legitimate struggle. But politics is complex like that, as with the US-SDF-ISIS war in east Syria. Seems to me the barbarity of Saudi bombing – both in the south where its ostensibly aids the southern resistance – and in the north, where the Saudis have turned the actual Houthis' base into a free fire zone – signifies the fact that Saudi Arabia aims for Yemen to inherit ruins, and thus be dependent on Saudi Arabia, no matter who “wins” – after all, it is not as if either former South Yemeni ‘Marxists’, southern secessionists, the Muslim Brotherhood or Arab Spring democrats are really forces that the Saudis see as allies. On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 4:07 PM RKOB via Marxism <[email protected]> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > Yemen: Another Humiliating Blow for the Saudi Aggressors! > > > https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/yemen-another-humiliating-blow-for-the-saudi-aggressors/ > > -- > Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG > (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) > www.rkob.net > [email protected] > Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 > > > > --- > Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mkaradjis%40gmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
