Southern Movement (al-Hirak)

Unification and the 1994 civil war: the movement's background

South Yemen (the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen) and North Yemen (the Yemen Arab Republic) unified on 22 May 1990 to form the Republic of Yemen. The 1994 civil war ran from 4 May to 7 July 1994 between pro-union northern forces and socialist separatist southern forces; it began after leaders of the former southern state ended the unity deal amid alleged power-grabbing by their northern counterparts. The weakened southern forces were swiftly defeated. The Democratic Republic of Yemen was declared on 21 May 1994, with Ali Salem al-Beidh as its only president, and ended on 7 July; most Yemeni Socialist Party leaders were driven into exile.

Southerners subsequently accused the Sana'a-based ruling party of corruption, nepotism and electoral fraud, and of mishandling the 1990 power-sharing arrangement. Southern privately owned land holding much of Yemen's oil reserves was seized and distributed among people affiliated with the Sana'a government, and several hundred thousand southern military and civil employees were forced into early retirement with sub-subsistence pensions and replaced by northern officials. Aden was socially and economically neglected while investment went to Sana'a. The Jamestown analysis holds that after the failed 1994 secession the Saleh government pursued punitive policies in the south: most of the southern officer and NCO corps were forcibly retired, many southern bureaucrats were forced out, and tribal and political allies were allowed to seize southern properties and land. GlobalSecurity.org records the full dismantling of the YSP's southern military command as northern leadership consolidated power, with southern commanders replaced by figures from Saleh's inner circle, and notes that promised amnesty and reintegration of southern officers proceeded slowly, provoking resentment and unrest.

The 2007 opening and the shift in demands

In May 2007 pensioners who had not been paid for years began organizing small demonstrations demanding better rights and an end to the south's economic and political marginalization. As protests spread through Aden and grew, demands escalated to secession and re-establishment of South Yemen as an independent state. The government responded heavy-handedly, labeling protesters 'apostates of the state' and using live ammunition to disperse crowds, and from this the Southern Movement was born as a loose coalition of groups seeking complete secession from the north.

Arabic Wikipedia records that in July 2007 retired military officers in South Yemen held sit-ins in Aden and al-Dhale and chanted anti-unity slogans; in September three Yemenis were killed and eight wounded in al-Dhale in clashes between security forces and protesters at a sit-in organized by the retired military associations; and in November one person was killed and dozens injured as security forces dispersed large gatherings heading to a retirees' festival in Aden for the 30 November anniversary of southern independence.

al-Jazeera states that the movement initially demanded equality, reinstatement of dismissed military and civilian personnel and reform of the unity path, but on 7 July 2007 its course escalated to demanding the independence of South Yemen; it dates its formation to early 2007 as a framework gathering a number of movements, forces and figures demanding the south's secession.

Organization and internal divisions

Jamestown holds that by mid-2008 a number of 'southern action' groups, under the nominal leadership of General Nasser al-Nuba, leader of the influential Association of Retired Southern Military Officers, began organizing under the banner of what became the Southern Mobility Movement (SMM). Its leadership and organizational structure were and remain nebulous, an umbrella for many groups with conflicting agendas. Nasser al-Khabji, a prominent SMM member in the Radfan area, described it as 'a popular movement under which come all civil society organizations, political parties, societies, sheikhs, dignitaries, academics, politicians, independents and others. We all believe in the peaceful struggle for restoring our legitimate rights' (cited from Yemen Post, 10 April 2010). Members initially called for 'equal rights' and 'equal citizenship' with north Yemenis; from 2008 those calls were replaced by more strident calls for secession and the recreation of an independent South Yemeni state, with a noticeable shift toward secession during the latter half of 2009 and throughout 2010, much of it driven by the Salih government's combative and militarized policy of escalation, which resulted in deaths among both protesters and state security services.

al-Jazeera states the movement did not form on an intellectual or ideological basis but arose from tribal, political, social and economic considerations. Its main faction is the Supreme Council of the Peaceful Southern Movement for the Liberation of the South, which also includes factions such as the National High Body for Southern Independence, the Supreme National Council for the Liberation and Restoration of the Southern State, the Southern Democratic Gathering, and the Union of Southern Youth and Students.

Repression, 2007-2009

Human Rights Watch (report 'In the Name of Unity', December 2009) documents that since 2007 southerners organized sit-ins, marches and demonstrations against what they describe as mistreatment by the northern-dominated central government, including dismissals of southerners from civil and security work; by 2008 many southerners demanded secession and restoration of the independent South Yemeni state. Security forces, especially Central Security, committed widespread violations including unlawful killing, arbitrary detention, beatings, suppression of assembly and expression, and arrest of journalists and others; impunity for these attacks increased separatist feeling.

HRW found security forces used lethal force against peaceful protesters in most cases without apparent cause or prior warning, violating international standards on the use of lethal force, while protesters often resorted to violence (burning cars, throwing stones), usually in response to police violence; in the six protests HRW investigated in depth Yemeni security forces violated nearly all these standards, including a 15 April 2009 al-Habilain protest where riot police fired automatic weapons directly at protesters, and a 21 May 2009 Aden protest where security forces opened fire without warning or provocation, injuring 23 protesters including Nasr Hamouzaiba, a former army officer and al-Hirak activist. 'Awad Baram died in al-Shihr on 30 May and Tawfiq al-Ja'di was shot dead in al-Dhale on 31 May, with no government investigations.

HRW documents mass arbitrary detention since the protests began in 2007: thousands of participants and bystanders including children were detained, in three main forms, short-term preventive detention, detention of peaceful participants sometimes for long periods, and long-term detention without trial of suspected protest leaders. In April 2008 security forces arrested 12 al-Hirak leaders (including Ahmed bin Fareed, Ali al-Gharib, Yahya Ghalib al-Shuaibi, Hassan Baoum and Ali Munassar), held them about six months in Political Security prison underground cells, then tried them on vague politically motivated charges of 'undermining unity' and 'incitement to secession' until President Ali Abdullah Saleh pardoned them in September; since then most al-Hirak leaders hid in the mountains to escape arbitrary detention and political charges.

HRW also documents suppression of the press and expression: on 4 May 2009 the Information Ministry suspended publication of eight independent dailies and weeklies over their coverage of southern events (al-Ayyam, al-Masdar, al-Watani, al-Diyar, al-Mustaqila, al-Nida, al-Shari' and al-Ahali); al-Ayyam, Yemen's oldest and most widely read independent newspaper, was confiscated on 1-2 May, unidentified gunmen fired on its headquarters on 4 May forcing it to stop publishing, and on 12 May security forces besieged the building in an hour-long firefight that killed a bystander and seriously wounded another. Security forces also detained bloggers (Salah al-Saqaldi, Fouad Rashid) and academics, and imposed uncodified 'red lines' understood to bar publishing interviews with exiled southern politicians or al-Hirak leaders and images of security-force violence against protesters.

Demands and armed clashes

HRW records that despite repression, southern demands, namely reinstatement of dismissed personnel to the army and civil service, higher pensions, an end to corruption, and a fairer share of Yemen's wealth (especially oil revenue), continued unabated, and that the growing sense of repression heightened tensions that could take the form of violent confrontation. The movement declared a peaceful orientation, but armed clashes did occur: armed confrontations in the al-Ahmarain mountains near al-Habilain, about 100 km northeast of Aden, in late April to early May 2009 left several soldiers dead and civilians injured, and a July 2009 clash in Zinjibar, capital of Abyan governorate, between Tariq al-Fadhli's followers and security forces killed at least 12. The authorities cited these to accuse the Southern Movement of having an armed wing, but the incidents remained exceptional against the movement's declared peaceful orientation and the conduct of the majority of the movement, while highlighting the risk of an armed conflict spreading across the south.

The movement's relationship with al-Qaeda was contested: the Yemeni authorities sought to link al-Hirak to al-Qaeda, notably accusing Tariq al-Fadhli of collusion, while al-Hirak leader and former MP Saleh al-Shanfara rejected any such link. Al-Qaeda in Yemen leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi publicly expressed support for al-Hirak in a 14 May 2009 audio statement, but a month later al-Qaeda's international-level leadership denied supporting southern secession: on 22 June 2009 Mustafa Abu al-Yazid explained that al-Qaeda struggles for a single Islamic state, in Yemen first. Some Yemeni analysts and two foreign diplomats interviewed by HRW minimized claims of direct al-Hirak-al-Qaeda links, with one European ambassador calling such claims a 'diversionary tool' used by government officials. In 2009 Tariq al-Fadhli, a prominent southern Islamist who had fought with the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, announced the end of his alliance with President Saleh and joined the Southern Movement, giving it a new boost, and that same year mass demonstrations began in most major cities. In April 2009 the authorities arrested Qasim Askar Jabran, former PDRY ambassador to Mauritania, and charged him with 'threatening unity and inciting fighting against the authorities'; he was transferred to the Political Security prison in Sana'a.

After 2011: institutional politics and the Southern Transitional Council

Jamestown records that with the outbreak of countrywide anti-government demonstrations in February 2011 the SMM intensified its efforts and played a key role in organizing protests and strikes across the south, and that key figures including General Nuba stated the organization stood in solidarity with anti-government protesters in Sana'a and elsewhere in the north. General Nuba heads the Supreme National Commission for the Independence of the South (SNC), which functions under the broader SMM and remains dedicated to secession and the re-creation of an independent south.

al-Jazeera records that with the 2011 uprising the movement announced through its secretary-general a temporary suspension of secession demands and joined the nationwide protests, though some factions rejected this and insisted on continuing to demand secession; after Saleh stepped down and the Houthis entered Sana'a, the movement expressed fear of the expansion of Ansar Allah toward the south. On 14 November 2014 thousands of the movement's supporters gathered in Aden's open sit-in square to demand anew the secession of the south from the north, and the movement threatened escalation, having earlier given the Yemeni government until the end of November 2014 to withdraw its soldiers and employees from the south.

al-Jazeera also records the 2015-2017 institutional phase: after the Houthis took power in Yemen and expanded toward the south, southern forces engaged in resisting them, and on 17 July 2015 Yemeni parties including forces loyal to the Yemeni government and those loyal to the Southern Movement liberated Aden governorate from Houthi control, after which Aden became the temporary capital of the Yemeni state and the temporary seat of several ministries and government bodies. On 27 April 2017 President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi issued a republican decree dismissing al-Zubaidi from his post and appointing him ambassador in the Foreign Ministry, appointed Abdul Aziz Abdul Hamid al-Maflahi as governor of Aden, and removed bin Breik from his post as minister of state and referred him for investigation; the movement organized demonstrations in Aden on 5 May 2017 rejecting these decisions.

On 11 May 2017 al-Zubaidi announced the formation of the 'Presidency of the Southern Transitional Council' a week after the Southern Movement tasked him with forming a political leadership to administer and represent the south; the new council consists of 26 people, headed by al-Zubaidi with Hani bin Breik as his deputy, including the governors of the southern governorates except Abyan, alongside figures and leaders from the movements and components of the Southern Movement. Its formation did not enjoy the support of all components of the Southern Movement, with some figures announcing they had no connection to the council; the Yemeni presidency declared its categorical rejection of it, and the Gulf Cooperation Council called on Yemenis to reject calls for division and secession.

Arabic Wikipedia records the 2013 National Dialogue and later repression. 85 of the 565 seats of the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference, due to begin on 18 March 2013, were allocated to the Southern Movement, with 50% of the conference seats decided for the people of the southern governorates; two factions of the movement decided to participate, while much of the movement still refused, especially the faction led by exiled former Vice-President Ali Salem al-Beidh. In early March 2013, after deadly violence in the city, President Hadi visited Aden and met leaders of the movement, including Ahmed bin Fareed al-Suraimi, who had returned to the country after about 19 years in Oman, in an attempt to persuade them to enter the national dialogue. On 30 November 2013 clashes at the entrances to Aden injured a member of the movement when security forces prevented armed movement members from entering the city to hold a demonstration for the anniversary of the departure of the last British soldier on 30 November 1967; on 21 February 2013 anniversary demonstrations in Aden were followed by the deaths of three activists shot by police (per a movement spokesperson, Fathi bin Lazraq) as a group tried to approach the square where thousands of unity supporters gathered, with dozens injured on both sides and six movement members arrested. Amnesty International said security forces fired on pro-secession protesters, resulting in four deaths and dozens of injuries, and called it a new stain on the government's poor human rights record.

The movement should be distinguished from the period of the independent southern state, from the 1994 Democratic Republic of Yemen episode, and from the Yemeni Socialist Party's record in office. It was a coalition of heterogeneous factions rather than a single unified organization, and both the documented record of state repression and the movement's internal disputes belong in any account. English Wikipedia states that the movement's presence in the south was restricted and that displaying the former flag of South Yemen was considered a crime in Aden; its citation-needed claim that the 2007-2009 protests killed 100 is treated here as unverified rather than as fact.