An assortment of digital books about Yemen, past and present. Radical Yemeni history and politics.
STATEMENT | 16/09/2022
A week has passed since Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom passed away. She ruled for 70 years as the ceremonial head of state of the United Kingdom and its many overseas territories and colonies.
And whilst OSYS under no circumstance lament her passing, we do find great excitement in the very obvious fact that her death has lit the flame of a renewed debate surrounding British colonialism and the role she played as the figurehead of such a relentlessly brutal and violent regime. We also note an increased interest in Yemen, a country that has suffered and continues to suffer under the yoke and drawn sword of British colonial and post-colonial violence.
October 14th 1963 is a date celebrated all across Yemen. It marks the day the struggle to expel British colonial rule from South Yemen was officially proclaimed. November 30th 1967 marks the country’s official national day, a commemoration of the Yemeni people’s victory over colonial rule coinciding with the retreat of the very last British soldier from Yemeni territory. What the Yemeni people had abolished was a colony dominated by Britons in the public view as well as all administrative positions, with the native Yemeni population forced out of sight in an apartheid-Esque systematic exclusion. Queen Elizabeth, to the Yemeni people, represented this violent and oppressive apartheid rule. The Yemeni people were excluded in the name of the Queen, arrested in the name of the Queen and shot in the name of the Queen.
Even today the British Government continues to oppress the Yemeni people by supporting an ongoing war of aggression which entered its eighth consecutive year on the 26th of March 2022. Since the earliest onset of the war in 2015, the United Kingdom has not only supplied weapons to the Saudi-led Coalition, it has refuelled and maintained them fully aware that they are used to murder innocent civilians with impunity. The United Kingdom also maintains a small contingent of covert personnel operating illegally on Yemeni territory, an act tantamount to a declaration of war by the UK against Yemen. Had there been no guarantee of supplies and upkeep by the United Kingdom and the United States, the war would not have been fiscally feasible for the Saudi regime. Let alone possible.
British colonial violence continues to kill innocent Yemeni people to this very day. Remembering October 14th and November 30th is as important today as ever for the people struggling to preserve their only Yemeni homeland. Decolonization for the Yemeni people remains an objective yet to be accomplished, although its shining light can be seen across the horizon. We will remember Queen Elizabeth for what she was, right until her passing: a figurehead of a colonial and violent regime with millions of lives on her conscience.
Glory to October 14th and November 30th!
Long live the Yemeni people’s eternal struggle
against colonial terror and imperialist exploitation!
“A modern, democratic, stable and unified Yemen which rests on having strong institutions, the realization of justice, the pursuit of development and a dignified life and standard of living for Yemeni citizens, the protection of the independence of the nation and seeking world peace and appropriate equal cooperation with the other countries of the world.”
The 2019 National Vision Document is the Sanaa Government’s 2030 reform plan, and serves as Ansarallah’s de-facto political program. Released in English, French and Arabic, the document is useful to understand the group’s plans and motives for the future of Yemen.
Professor Ahmad Sharafuddin summarizes his vision in building the state’s nationhood in key 3 aspects: The Clergy, Tribalism and Militarism.
The cure to what ails Yemen is the formation of a unified secular state with a nationalistic army (what he means here is an army that is loyal to the state and not tribes or sects or religion).
The Professor then continues and sheds light on how he proposes to combat these ailments:
To reform the clergy and religion in Yemen, when we talk about reform, that doesn’t mean we are not pious. We are pious, perhaps maybe more than they are, and we care about Islam more than they do. Religion has been abused in the past and they used to back up their abuses with laws and the constitution. We want to build our nation in a different way, a secular state where religious fanaticism is absent, meaning that the state does not use religious rhetoric or propaganda. The state should not use religious propaganda against its own people, as religion belongs to the people and not the state.
Because at present time, the state revolves around a cult of personality. This controversy has been argued by intellectuals for a long time but without any tangible conclusion. We bring this controversy back to light and say that the state should not use religious propaganda in these present times. Why?
Because we have tried a religious state for hundreds of years, and we have seen how men in power corrupt religion and exploit it to adopt a certain ideology or sect, while disregarding all other sects and ideologies. many of the conflicts within the Islamic religion has happened due to these reasons in which the people in power try to force their will over their subjects or constituents in the areas they rule without reasoning, leading to bitter struggles. We know that Islam has different schools of theology and not just one, if they can’t agree to this, what do you think will happen on the political field?
These conflicts cannot be resolved by a religious based political theory. A political theory stemming from religion will never be accepted by all people involved in the political process, so we propose that we leave the people with their different schools of theology, their sects, and faiths to co-exist together, and that the state does not meddle in such affairs and be absent from it, while guaranteeing to protect all rights of people. This is after all what we are fighting for. There are many countries in the world that have implemented these principles and were successful in removing the usage of religious rhetoric from the state. Islam won’t be the state religion and Sharia law won’t be the constitution.
Because the constitution is what builds the state and acts as its fundamental cornerstone. If we allow the Sharia to become the source of its legislations, that means we are building an Islamic constitution, meaning that the state will be built on religious grounds hence not solving the issue at hand.
In dealing with Tribalism:
In building a federal state we will take away the power of the tribal powers by centralizing government and not local chiefs to sway and influence power, therefore taking from them their power and influence. The primitive state is characterized by Sana’a as the center of decision making based on the tribes around Sana’a who have considerable influence on state affairs due to their economic power, social weight, and prestige, meaning that they call the shots and dictate the policies of the state. When we build a centralized state, the local chieftains will lose their influence and won’t be able to sway the state. Why?
Because they won’t be able to control anybody, anymore.
Every state subject in the federal state will have a specific apparatus of jurisdictions, a legislative body, an executive body and a judicial body with its own constitution, its own laws, its own courts, and economic resources allocated to it, allowing to be free of the pull of any powerful clan or individual who wish to influence its affairs, thus keeping the clan influence minimal. If this is achieved, then we have created a federal centralized state.
We also demand that the capital to be moved from Sana’a to another city away from seats of power of the tribal clans so that the federal state focuses on matters of Defense, security, Financial and foreign affairs, and anything that is common with the other states. Other than that, we leave the states to run itself. When we call for a federal state in the right way, the proper way, we propose two regions like this or more. Multiple northern governorates or multiple southern governorates that all lead to the contour of federal statehood, details can be discussed later. I shed light on a very important matter that local governments should have a free reign on how they handle affairs as in world regimes there is nothing shorter than that.
There is a system, a system with its pillars and rules and if an imbalance happens it would shake the core of that system. There is nothing called having full executive powers. For instance, if we say decentralized governance, we all know what that is. It has systems and rules and pillars that it stands upon. If something changes that then it will cease to exist. The political term “full executive power” is a term used to mislead people, leading them to believe that they will have a local government who gives them so and so when it won’t offer them anything.
We are not talking about government systems; we are talking about political systems. We are not talking about decentralized governance; we are talking about centralized policies in which all the authority of the state is distributed fairly and not only on the governance side. The Federal state should have considerable sway over decentralized authorities so it can reform it. Through parliament we have seen many times how this wasn’t done correctly as it was done for political gains and not the welfare of the people. That’s why we want to take the power from the clans and tribes and give it back to the state, so that Yemen be set back in order.
In dealing with militarism:
The military has always waged wars unjustly at times and in some way or the other has led the country. We want an army that is for the people, protects the people and doesn’t wage war on them. An army whose ideology is to protect and defend its people do not wage war on them and kill them. An army with a nationalist ideology with no political deviations towards a particular group or party, usually the states use religious fervor to charge its men. Wars were waged on the south on religious grounds and declared a Jihad, a Jihad against who?! Fellow countrymen! Fellow Muslims! They have used this rhetoric many times in Saada and on numerous occasions. “Kill these infidels! kill these Khwarij!” All this time the soldiers walk into battle with such a mindset that they are fighting a holy war. How misguided they are. We want an army that is built different. An Army that is built on the ethos of Nationhood, Brotherhood and to defend the nation against all enemies. An army that doesn’t have tribalism or religion or old allegiances affecting its ranks or ideology. We want a nationalist ideology where the army fights for the good of the people. An army where people from Mahra to Saada can join in an army of the people.
We can build a state on these three pillars: Secular State, Federal State, Nationalistic army.
We will thus be able to defeat the axis of evil that has plagued our country.
The night between January 20th and January 21st brought unbeknownst horror to the people of Yemen. In Hodeidah, a telecommunications centre was deliberately bombarded by the Saudi-American aggression, close to a soccer field where a youth team was playing, killing three children and isolating the entire Yemeni country of 29 million people from any access to the global internet.
As if that wasn’t enough for these bloodthirsty vultures and their imperialist dreams, the Saudi-American Coalition went on to bombard a detention centre in Yemen’s northern province of Saadah, killing (at least) 60 innocent civilians. The center was housing migrants. On top of this, the Saudi-American Coalition went on to pound and bombard the Yemeni capital Sana’a for more than three hours nonstop, as well as bombardments in some of Yemen’s eastern provinces.
All happening within one night under complete cover, as the collective voice of 29 million Yemeni citizens was silenced. On the early morning of January 21st, the Yemeni people woke up to the news of at least 300 of their compatriots dead and an even greater number of wounded.
The fact that such egregious news coming out of the poorest Arab country in the world isn’t plastered on every major newspaper speaks volumes. We understand that the liberal individualist world does not care when it is about brown people in the Global South being speared in the heart and chest by the bayonet of Imperialism. Two decades of post-9/11 Islamophobia has blinded the entire “International Community”. The crimes committed by the Saudi-American aggression on January 21st, and for the past seven years against the impoverished Yemeni people, is being brushed aside.
Brushed aside as a “civil war”, hence not considered the business of the west. Brushed aside as a “sectarian conflict” or a ”proxy war” between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In their wretched, displaced worldview the Yemeni people are merely considered pawns in a larger geopolitical board game.
What is worse, in our eyes, is the collective absence of any historical background knowledge when it comes to Yemen. Some People happen to believe the war on Yemen began within an isolated, contemporary context. It did not. For decades, the Yemeni people have had to fight and toil to gain their independence. They kicked out the Ottomans in the early 1900s, overthrew the Saudi-backed Imam in 1965, and kicked out the British colonialists from Aden in 1967. If that wasn’t enough, they have had to endure intense blackmailing and constant Saudi interference in its affairs, and when a leader emerges that opposes Saudi interests, he’s immediately murdered. It happened to President Ibrahim Al-Hamdi of North Yemen in 1977.
Yemen is a poor country because Empire has kept it poor and done everything in its might and power to prevent the country from lifting itself up. They have done so through the installation of puppet governments and puppet rulers in the Presidential Palace, imposing the will not of the Yemeni people, but the will of American, Saudi and Emirati interests.
Yemen is facing genocide and has done so for the past seven years. more than 20 million people live on the brink of starvation. The country is suffering under a military blockade upheld by the Saudi-American Coalition. Medical equipment, foodstuffs, diesel and gasoline are barred from entry. The Yemeni oil tanker FSO Safer is corroding in the Red Sea, unable to dock at Hodeidah port. Why? Because such have the Saudis and the Americans decided. The Yemeni people refused to bow and are now being punished.
The war on Yemen is one huge act of corporal punishment. And the world does not care.
The world cries foul when Yemen even as much as dares to fight back using its arsenal of missiles and drones, targeting areas of financial importance to these reactionary gulf statelets. The aggressors return the “favour” by murdering entire families and levelling entire towns. A war of unequal power dynamics is framed as a civil war between equal actors. Yemen is going through its hardest time in years. As of the publication of this statement, it has been more than three days since Yemen’s internet access was cut off.
The Organization of Solidarity with the Yemeni Struggle, resting on a firm belief in the right of oppressed peoples to armed struggle against imperialist aggression and colonialism, condemns on its strongest terms the Saudi-American massacre of Yemeni civilians on January 21st, the global silence and neglect of the Yemeni people’s suffering, and the global inaction to show support with the Yemeni people’s demands and its legitimate armed struggle. If you care for the suffering of Yemen, it is about time you speak up. Or would it take the deliberate genocide of 29 million people for anyone to pay attention?
Released by the Organization of Solidarity with the Yemeni Struggle,
January 23rd, 2022AD
January 17th, 2022
Earlier this morning, the citizens of the United Arab Emirates woke up to an Abu Dhabi engulfed in thick black smoke and roaring flames. The city, including Dubai, had been struck by Yemen’s Armed Forces.
Immediately after it was evident what had taken place, the entire cabal of western corporate news media began running one story after the other, portraying Yemen, its forces and its people as a pack of unscrupulous aggressors who had targeted what was seemingly portrayed as a peaceful city.
But the United Arab Emirates is far from being peaceful.
The Emirati regime is engaged in a vicious and coordinated, conventional war of aggression against Yemen and her people, together with the regime’s primary partner in crime – Saudi Arabia. Backed on an unconditional basis by the United States and the United Kingdom, these two countries have been given carte blanché to wreak havoc and terror across Yemen’s vast landscapes, denying Yemeni civilians their inherent right to a life in peace. The Emirati regime has been funding and training extremist mercenary formations within Yemen known to subscribe to ideologies on par with ISIS and Al-Qaeda extremists. The only difference is that these mercenary formations have been given mine-resistant MRAP vehicles and pretty camouflage uniforms and desert boots.
Yemen’s strike against Abu Dhabi and Dubai, despite ever-growing and constant bashing from within the Imperial Core, was carried out in full accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, article 1 of the ICCPR, article 2 of UNGA resolution 45/130, and according to the Yemeni people’s inherent and incorruptible right to self-defence by any means necessary. Whoever claims otherwise, in any capacity, is acting in bad faith in the interest of Empire and its petty state dominions in the region.
The Organisation of Solidarity with the Yemeni Struggle commends the Yemeni people, its political & revolutionary leadership, and its popular armed forces for defending its people in the most appropriate manner possible.
the letter levelled some of the heaviest critiques against the IMF, accusing the IMF of working in tandem with the aggressor states to exploit the Yemeni people and their resources.
Since the 2014 Yemeni revolution, Yemenis have not only proven a great resilience in confronting US-backed Saudi aggression against their homeland, but also revealed a combat strategy like no other.
All reports released by the National Team of Foreign Outreach of Yemen for the year 2020.
All reports released by the National Team of Foreign Outreach of Yemen for the year 2021.
