First of all, I would like to thank the University of Chicago's Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts for inviting me to talk about Yemen. 

I was not surprised when I was asked to talk about the reality of the conflict in Yemen, since one tragic aspect of this conflict lies in the fact that it is shown in a falsified or at best incomplete picture. Everything has been distorted, which contributes to making the conflict in Yemen seem incomprehensible to many. 

That is why I hope that, through my speech, I will succeed in covering all the dimensions of the Yemeni issue, especially the causes and consequences of the war and the way to stop the war and establish real peace.

It is important, as we talk about the war in Yemen and the ways to peace, to address the nature of the regime overthrown by the peaceful Yemeni revolution in 2011. I can summarize this by saying: it was a failed and corrupt regime that, during three decades of its frowning rule, brought Yemen to a terrible state of deterioration and failure.

Going back to the Failed States Index, one will see that Yemen ranked seventh among failed states since 2005, booby-trapped with all factors of conflict, hostility, division, internal strife and institutional corruption.

Accordingly, the peaceful revolution cannot be viewed as a luxury nor a passing whim, nor a reckless and unnecessary act and nor a foreign conspiracy. Rather, like other Arab Spring revolutions, it was an urgent need and an inevitable necessity, in response to Yemeni youth who were fed up with the state of corruption, failure, exclusion, marginalization, nepotism and bribery, not to mention that it is an expression of the youth’s dream of a state of justice, welfare, freedom and rule of law. It is not surprising, then, if one says that the revolution was a natural reaction to three decades of absurdity and organized corruption.

 

Dear friends, 

But it was not long before our peaceful revolution, along with the resulting transitional process and the national dialogue outcomes regarding the form and details of our desired new democratic Yemeni state, was subjected to regional conspiracy and international betrayal that ended with a counter-revolution, war, internal fighting and external interference seven years ago and is still destroying everything to this day, including people and lands. Not only that, they also went even further to kill our dream for which we ignited the Arab spring revolution. 

It can be said that the main reason behind all the current and expected tragedies and disasters in Yemen lies in the desire to punish peoples for their peaceful revolution against tyranny and corruption and make an example of them to the others in the region who might be tempted to think of or talk about change. Some want to teach a harsh lesson to its own people so that it never seeks change nor even dreams of it.

Here, I have to refer to the central role of the capitals of the counter-revolutions in the region, I mean Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Tehran, in harnessing all their capabilities and influence to undermine the revolutions of the Arab Spring, for fear of spread of the Arab spring infection to their countries.

As it is known, the frantic competition and conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran serves as an important background for understanding the devastating war in Yemen and the reasons for its continuation, especially since the Saudi-Iranian regimes hold the same hostile position towards the Arab Spring. The interests of Riyadh and Tehran conflict in different aspects and yet they converge in hostility to democracy and popular revolutions, as both are fighting against the Yemeni revolution, as well as against the Arabi spring in general. 

Arguably the tragic story of Yemen began seven years ago, precisely on 24 September 2014 when the Houthi militia invaded the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. In conspiracy with the ousted dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Houthi coup plotters planned to disrupt democratic transition and the referendum on the new constitution.  

The Houthi militia carried out its bloody coup with clear support from Iran. Ironically, this coup was also blessed and supported by Iranian rival, Saudi Arabia, through support to Ali Saleh and its other tools in Yemen. Driven by a fascist ideology and medieval beliefs, the Houthi militia seeks to subjugate others to its will by force

It is a racist group that does not believe in democracy nor in the modern legitimacy of the state, and only believes in the divine right of imamate and in its exclusive right to rule, and gives itself the legitimacy to use force and violence to gain power and impose its cultural legacy on the whole society.

Saudis believed that no one but the Houthis could be relied upon to abort the change that had been looming in Yemen since 2011. Therefore, they used the Houthi militia as a tool twice, once as a means to lead a coup against the state and plunge it into the collapse and then once again as a pretext for the military intervention and their war on Yemen on March 26, 2015 under the guise of supporting Yemeni legitimacy.

Saudi Arabia is a neighboring country and we do not want a hostile relationship between us, but the Saudi ruling family has shown worse than ever before their hostility and hatred towards Yemen, which indicates that it does not want Yemen to be an independent and stable country.

On the other hand, Iran has been reaping the results of its support for and alliance with the affiliated Houthi militia backed by Tehran since its inception at the beginning of the new millennium.

What makes the Yemeni tragedy worse is the fact that some individuals and local political groups have proven to be greedy and opportunistic driven by an external agenda, and that it has nothing to do with weakness, inadequate inaction or lack of competence, as many believe. Most likely, Yemen was sold cheaply.

Due to the Houthi coup, the Saudi-Emirati war on Yemen, and the failure and betrayal of Yemen's politicians, Yemen today is witnessing a disaster described as “man-made”, but more accurately, it is a disaster made by tyrants and the enemies of freedom.

Yemen, with its glorious history, ancient people, and important strategic location on the Red Sea and Arab Sea, and both are connected through none of the world’s most strategic straits, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, has been dependent on all this Saudi-Emirati-Houthi absurdity under a shameful and painful global silence.

Yemen is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe that the world has not seen like for decades. The infrastructure of the service sectors has been extensively destroyed, especially health, education, water and electricity. 

According to the United Nations, more than twenty-two million Yemenis need some form of humanitarian assistance, and approximately eight million suffer from lack of severe food security, including nearly two million children and over two million pregnant and lactating women, while warnings by the United Nations agencies indicate that the number of destitute hungry people may rise to fourteen million people (i.e. nearly half of the country’s population). 

Over a seven-year period, most areas of the country have witnessed frightening outbreaks of epidemics, ranging from dengue fever to cholera, diphtheria, corona and others. Besides those who have died due to the war, these epidemics have claimed the lives of thousands. 

From the first moment, the coup militia stole budgets of basic services, and then, over time, the humanitarian cost bill begun to increase more and more due to the raids of the Saudi-Emirati coalition on civilians and infrastructure sectors and and due to the unjust siege. As a result, Yemenis began to suffer under the burden of the war, hunger and epidemics.

For more than twenty days the Houthi militia has imposed a suffocating blockade to a small district in Marib Governorate, called Al-Abdiyyah, preventing access of everything to civilians there and dropping missiles over them in disregard for all human values.

Marib has not so far prevented the flow of gas to Houthi-controlled areas, while the Houthis, who claim to be a government but act as a gang, resell gas on the black market. The Houthis have committed different forms of crimes like murder, abduction and torture. For example, more recently, they have carried out unfair executions against ordinary citizens who were convicted in farcical trials.

The deterioration of the situation is not limited to specific areas. Even in the areas liberated from the putschists, residents are still suffering from the absence of electricity, water, education and health services. 

All the services that the government, any government, is supposed to provide to obtain popular legitimacy are non-existent and cut off. It has turned out that the coalition is behind all of this with premeditation, and not as a result of a lack of understanding, nor of underestimation or insufficient resources.

Salaries and wages are no longer paid, and even if they are paid, they are not enough to cover basic and necessary expenses for a few days, as a result of a planned terrible collapse of the local currency. The coalition has done nothing to stop the depreciation. 

Rather, it did everything to make matters worse and used starvation and siege as a tool to achieve its goals, by deporting hundreds of thousands of Yemeni expatriates in Saudi Arabia to Yemen and taking control of Yemeni oil and gas resources, thus preventing the government from their revenues, as well as occupied ports and strategic islands and closing airports and various ports that connect Yemen to the world.

The Southern Transitional Council, backed and funded by the UAE, is also carrying out many violations, including political assassinations, extrajudicial killings and racist policies, as well as preventing the government from carrying out its responsibilities. Recently, military formations affiliated with the Transitional Council have committed dozens of violations in the city of Aden, including killing civilians on their way to Aden airport.

 

Dear friends, 

Regarding opportunities for a solution or peace, the Houthis reject all efforts to stop the war and bring peace. These militias owe their full loyalty to Iran, and their extremist sectarian composition makes war and the subjugation of the other an immutable structural orientation. 

For this militia, the war will never come to an end until its desired sectarian and theocratical state comes into existence. It has changed the educational curricula and replaced it with its extremist ones (called malazem), and is working to completely control all social spaces and impose its rituals and doctrine on others, not just take over state institutions. 

Day by day it becomes more apparent that the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in serves as the other side of the Houthi militia. This militia formation signed an agreement, the "Riyadh Agreement, with the legitimate authority two years ago, whereby it obtains ministerial portfolios and enters into full partnership with the legitimate authority. Later, however, it broke the agreement and went on imposing its control over Aden, thus causing more chaos, the collapse of the currency and acts of violence.

The internationally-recognized authority, despite its clear weakness, incompetence and corruption, does not stop welcoming any solutions that could extricate Yemen from this miserable and dangerous situation. However, a positive attitude by the legitimate authority does not prevent us from saying that its government fails to fulfill its duties towards citizens, provide them with protection from militias of different names and meet the basic necessities of life, even at the lowest levels.

 

Dear friends, 

This is only a brief overview on the current situation and the various parties to the war in Yemen. Unfortunately, America and the international community are watching a war of extermination against our people. There is nothing left of the international community but envoys who fill vacant job seats with routine tasks and do little to stop the war and prevent crimes against humanity. 

But as a people, we will never surrender because our cause is just, nor accept slavery to the racist theocratical Houthi militia, nor accept that our country be torn apart or continue under the guardianship of anyone, neither Saudi Arabia, nor the UAE, nor Iran.

Just as our people will bring down the internal aggression, they will resist and get rid of the Saudi-led aggression against our people and country. Yemen is not an emergency statelet to be uprooted and its existence abolished by a fleeting conspiracy of internal and external enemies. There is no way to change the facts of history, and we will restore our country by virtue of our will, adherence to our just cause, our belonging to Yemen and our sacrifices.

Indeed, Yemen is a country of surprises. Tyrants and traitors alike have always believed that Yemen will acquiesce. However, history tells us that this land has never acquiesced or accepted humiliation, and there's always tomorrow. 

With my belief in our great people’s ability to bring down both internal and external aggression, and to bring Yemen to the modern state, a state of justice, law and democracy, it is also important to point out that:

Whoever follows up the efforts of the international community, including major powers, during the years of war will not find any difficulty in realizing that the essence of their trends tends towards leaving Yemen alone with the Saudi-Emirati coalition that keeps blackmailing Yemen and committing war crimes against it. 

It is very important to point out to about eight UN-Security Council resolutions on Yemen and its transitional process, and to the fact that the international community pledged to the Yemenis to sponsor and fully support the transition process. Hence, the international community must fulfill its commitments and play its role towards Yemen.

Yemen needs the international community to make a decision to end this war. In case this war continues or Yemen gets fragmented and divided, this not only affects Yemen, but also will put regional and global peace and security in jeopardy.

The success of international efforts to end the war and establish peace depends on stopping the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and taking all measures to ensure that weapons from Iran do not find their ways to the Houthis.

The success of international efforts to end the war also depends on the return of the state and the extension of its sovereignty over the entire national territory of Yemen as a unified, independent, secure and stable country.

In addition, any international efforts in building the peace process must lead to the state’s monopoly of arms, and to ensure that state institutions are exclusively entrusted with issuing government orders, and that elections, and not violence and armed force, are the only way to power. Such efforts must also lead to the end of all forms of domination, guardianship and occupation.

Bringing peace depends on the return of Yemen, not on its fragmentation. There will be no end to the war except by restoring the state that exercises its full authority over all Yemeni territory, not by legitimizing militia statelets and dividing Yemen.

The war will not end through deals between internal warlords and foreign guardianship countries that seek only their interests and see it is not in their interest for Yemen to recover and become one independent and unified state that possesses the elements of security and stability.

Every war is followed by peace, and no war lasts forever, so let it be peace now! Yemenis are ready for peace and yearn for it. Throughout history, Yemenis enter into conflicts and then reconcile. According to history, Yemenis never went the road of no return.

Regardless of the merchants and beneficiaries of wars, Yemenis are now ready for peace and national reconciliation, and see that they can achieve sustainable peace that leads to a state in which all Yemenis live free and equal.

If the external interference, i.e. the Saudi, Emirati and Iranian interference, is put to an end, we will not only make peace, but also establish a free democratic state, a state of justice and the rule of law, and we will be a strategic partner in maintaining the word’s security and stability. 

We will work hard to build sustainable peace in Yemen and achieve comprehensive national reconciliation, which should consist of the following steps:

- Stopping the war, lifting the blockade, and ending the Saudi-Emirati presence in the country, and putting an end to Tehran’s supply of weapons to militias.

- Picking up the political process where it left off due to the coup and war.

- Forming a military committee under the auspices of the United Nations, which should work on withdrawing weapons from all militias, so that the state has the exclusive right to use weapons, and building the army and security according to national foundations to ensure the protection of the country, its sovereignty and the integrity of its territory, and ensure security and stability in the country.

- Forming a national government of all components, or a government of technocrats under the auspices of the United Nations, that works on organizing a referendum on the draft constitution, and holding various local, regional, parliamentary and presidential elections, based on the new constitution.

- Forming a national reconciliation committee to redress the harm, compensate the victims and ensure non-recurrence of crimes. 

- Launching an agenda for reconstruction, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE committing to make up for the destruction caused by the war.

 

Dear friends, 

In the end, I would say that it is a grave mistake made by whoever may think that it is easy to swallow Yemen or to tame its people because Yemenis enjoys a long legacy of pride, dignity, resistance and disobedience, which makes them impossible to be ruled neither by force and oppression, nor by invasion, occupation or guardianship.

Grateful thanks to all of you!