Yemen: A Country’s Crisis Outlined In Five Maps

There is a new online resource that is putting the world news on the map; The World on The Map is a cartographic project aiming to put the world news on the map for a better understanding of current events, historical facts, geopolitical challenges and cultural issues in the visual realm of maps.

Their resource website contains maps that are designed to be useful to students, teachers and general enthusiasts in the study of History, Geopolitics and International Relations All the maps available on edmaps.com have been created by Dr. Cristian Ionita, a Canadian historian and cartographer from Montreal. The following is a report from The World On The Map outlining the surmounting conflict in Yemen, beginning in the early 1800’s up to the current dire humanitarian crisis faced by the besieged Yemenis.

Yemen Crisis In Five Maps

By Dr. Cristian Ionita, a Canadian historian and cartographer from Montreal.
Published March 1, 2016.

Placed under the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan since 1849, the northern region of the present-day Yemen state gained its independence on 30 October 1918, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1926, Imam Yahya, the religious leader of the Zaydi branch of the Shia Islam, declared himself king of the Yemen and the ex-Turkish realm became the ‘Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen‘.

In 1925, Yemen obtained the region of Hodeida, a piece of land along the eastern shore of the Red Sea. In 1934, after the signing of the ‘Treaty of Taif’, Saudi Arabia (established in 1932) incorporated some northern territories claimed by the Yemeni nationalists as a part of a Greater Yemen (Asir, Jizan et Najran).

The modern history of the other Yemen is very different. Following the conquest of Aden by the Great Britain in 1839, Southern Yemen has been transformed into a British polity. Aden with its hinterland was the only area under full British sovereignty and became a colony in 1937. The other territories formed the Aden Protectorate, divided in 1937 into the Eastern Aden Protectorate and the Western Aden Protectorate.

Geopolitics: The Yemeni Crisis In Five Map.: 1918-1937 . Their resource website contains maps that are designed to be useful to students, teachers and general enthusiasts in the study of History, Geopolitics and International RelationsGeopolitics: The Yemeni Crisis In Five Map.: 1918-1937 . Their resource website contains maps that are designed to be useful to students, teachers and general enthusiasts in the study of History, Geopolitics and International Relations All the maps available on edmaps.com have been created by Dr. Cristian Ionita, a Canadian historian and cartographer from Montreal. The following is a report from The World On The Map outlining the surmounting conflict in Yemen, beginning in the early 1800's up to the current dire humanitarian crisis faced by the besieged Yemenis. — CLICK TO ENLARGE MAP.

In 1958, the Kingdom of Yemen joined the United Arab Republic (a union between Egypt and Syria) in a loose confederation named the United Arab States. In 1961 the confederation has been dissolved. In 1962, a republican coup d’État established the Yemen Arab Republic and marked the beginning of a long civil war (1962-1970).

Geopolitics: The Yemeni Crisis In Five Map. (1962_1967) In 1958, the Kingdom of Yemen joined the United Arab Republic (a union between Egypt and Syria) in a loose confederation named the United Arab States. In 1961 the confederation has been dissolved. In 1962, a republican coup d’État established the Yemen Arab Republic and marked the beginning of a long civil war (1962-1970). — CLICK TO ENLARGE MAP.

In the south, under the pressure of the Arab nationalism, Britain accepted in 1959 the recomposition of the two Aden Protectorates and the creation of a Federation of Arab Emirates of the South. In 1962, these Emirates formed the Federation of South Arabia. In 1963, it was merged with the Aden Colony. The rest of the entities (mostly eastern) that had not joined the new federation became the Protectorate of South Arabia.

On 30 November 1967, the Federation of South Arabia, along with Protectorate of South Arabia, gained its independence as the People’s Republic of South Yemen.

Geopolitics: The Yemeni Crisis In Five Map.. (1967-1990). On 30 November 1967, the Federation of South Arabia, along with Protectorate of South Arabia, gained its independence as the People’s Republic of South Yemen. — CLICK TO ENLARGE MAP.

In 1969, a radical Marxist party gained the power in South Yemen and the country became in 1970 a socialist state, named ‘People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen’. In 1972, the two Yemen’s accepted the idea of a future political unification of the Yemeni nation (the Cairo Agreement). After a period of political and ideological tensions between the two states, in 1988 YAR and PDRY renewed discussions concerning the unification.

In 1989, the two governments accepted a draft unity constitution originally drawn up in 1981.

**Finally, a united Republic of Yemen was declared on 22 May 1990.**

Geopolitics: The Yemeni Crisis In Five Maps. (1990_2015). In 1969, a radical Marxist party gained the power in South Yemen and the country became in 1970 a socialist state, named 'People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen'. In 1972, the two Yemen's accepted the idea of a future political unification of the Yemeni nation (the Cairo Agreement). After a period of political and ideological tensions between the two states, in 1988 YAR and PDRY renewed discussions concerning the unification. — CLICK TO ENLARGE MAP

One nation, one state, but a lot of communities and a lot of divergent interests.

A civil war broke out in 1994 between the central government and the southern armed forces. Southern leaders proclaimed the secession and declared a short-lived Democratic Republic of Yemen in May 1994. The war resulted in the defeat of the southerners and the flight into exile of many members of the southern political elite.

In 2000, Yemen obtained some territories in the north (Treaty of Jeddah), but the national cohesion is only a dream. Since 2007, a southern separatist movement is very active in the former South Yemen and demands the secession from the Republic of Yemen.

Divided between the northerners and the southerners, Yemen is divided too between the Shia and the Sunni communities. The presence of a very active Al-Qaeda branch amplifies this religious fracture inside the society.

In June 2004, the religious leader of the Zaydis, Hussein al-Houthi, launched a revolt against the Yemeni government.

Geopolitics: The Yemeni Crisis In Five Maps. Houthi_insurgency (2015). Divided between the northerners and the southerners, Yemen is divided too between the Shia and the Sunni communities. The presence of a very active Al-Qaeda branch amplifies this religious fracture inside the society. — CLICK TO ENLARGE MAP

After a long guerrilla warfare against the central government, the Houthis announced, in the context of the Yemeni Revolution of 2011, their support for the pro-democracy protests and the change of the regime, as had happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

After the clashes between the Houthis and the government forces, and between the Houthis and Al-Qaeda, a coup d’État changed dramatically the rules of the political game on February 6, 2015: the Houthis dissolved the Parliament and created a Revolutionary Committee.

In March, the Yemen’s embattled president Hadi fled Yemen by sea and arrives in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, as Saudi Arabia and its allies launch military operations in Yemen to defend Hadi’s government.

What’s next? A civil war or an international conflict?

That was a question for the Spring-Summer 2015.

Unfortunately, the correct answer, we know it now, is a ‘civil war’ AND an ‘international conflict’, with all the negative consequences for Yemen and its people.

Today’s Yemen In One Map.

Yemeni Civil War: The Territorial Control as of March 1st, 2016

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Published with permission from EDMAPS.COM: Yemen Crisis in Five Maps

KSA: Director Discuses The Filming Of Saudi Arabia Uncovered

In January of 2015, a man named Raif Badawi was lashed in public in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. His crime? Blogging critically about the role of religion in Saudi life in 2012 — an act that Saudi courts said insulted Islam. In addition to 1,000 lashes, Badawi, a secular activist with three young children, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Director James Jones working on his film "Saudi Arabia Uncovered", for FRONTLINE on PBS. (Photo: PBS). — Director James Jones working on his film “Saudi Arabia Uncovered”, for FRONTLINE on PBS. (Photo: PBS).

The documentary — Saudi Arabia Uncovered — is a rare window into the Saudi kingdom, with stunning undercover footage as its backbone. In the run-up to the documentary’s premiere, FRONTLINE sat down with Jones to discuss his motivations for making the film, how he amassed footage from inside Saudi Arabia, and what surprised him the most along the way.

Watch the full film Saudi Arabia Uncovered in our Documentaries section.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Why did you decide to make a documentary about Saudi Arabia?

The case of Raif Badawi is what first got me interested. I saw the cell phone footage of his public lashing in January 2015. The fact that someone took the risk of secretly filming and leaking it got me thinking about making a film applying the same approach we did for Secret State of North Korea — finding people on the inside of a tightly-controlled country who were willing to take video that wasn’t state-sanctioned, to show the outside world what was happening.

How did you find people inside Saudi Arabia who were willing to secretly film?

There is a network of young activists inside Saudi Arabia who are quite engaged online and with the outside world, who question their rulers and are frustrated they can’t fully express themselves. They want to show the world what’s going on, but they’re very aware of the risks of criticizing the regime or doing anything to embarrass the regime — you know, people in Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to years in prison for a tweet. Through Saudi dissidents in London, we tapped into this network, and found a young man, Yasser, who was willing to film for us. We met him outside Saudi Arabia, showed him the camera, taught him how to use it, and set up safety protocols before he went back inside the country.

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Watch the full film Saudi Arabia Uncovered in our Documentaries section.

What were the risks for the activists who filmed for you?

It’s hard to know exactly what the consequences would have been, but there’s a Palestinian poet, Ashraf Fayadh, who was sentenced, (Learn more about Ashraf’s case in our Documentaries section), to death for apostasy, and part of the charge, reportedly, was posting a clip of Saudi Arabia’s religious police in action.

[Fayadh’s sentence was ultimately reduced to eight years in prison.] So the moment in the documentary when Yasser tangled with the religious police while secretly filming was a very frightening one when it happened. But as it turned out, he was fine — they didn’t know he was filming. They just didn’t want him playing music!

The good thing about Saudi Arabia is that people are allowed to have mobile phones, and we could stay in touch with Yasser, though I can’t say exactly how. We had an Arabic-speaking assistant producer who was crucial in managing the relationship with him.

Is the documentary primarily rooted in Yasser’s footage?

It’s a combination of footage filmed by Yasser, and clips from other activists who are filming and posting things on their own, like public executions and women being harassed. It’s clear that the information barrier with the outside world is breaking down.

There’s this strange irony — in the past, the government has held punishments in public because they want the people to know what the potential consequences of crime are. Yet they don’t want the outside world to see it — they care about how they’re perceived. So it seems like they’re increasingly carrying out these punishments behind closed doors — like this past January, when they executed 47 terror suspects in one day.

Did the Saudi government share its perspective with you directly?

We were hoping to interview government officials, but it didn’t work out. It’s a shame.

One of those cases is that of Ali Nimr, (Learn more about Ali’s case in our Documentaries section), who was arrested for his alleged role in anti-government protests as a 17-year-old, and is now twenty-one and on death row. His uncle, the prominent and controversial Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was among the 47 people executed in January of 2016.

Why did Ali’s family decide to speak out?

They’re desperate. Their son has been in prison now for four years, and I think it’s a constant worry for them that his death could happen at any moment. Ali’s mom finds it very hard to cope. His dad is more stoic. They’re very aware that talking to the media angers the government, and the dad had been arrested in the past — he thinks for speaking out about the case about Ali. But they don’t have many other tools at their disposal for trying to get their son out, and they think that international attention will have some effect.

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Watch the full film Saudi Arabia Uncovered in our Documentaries section.

What were some of the unique challenges you faced, as a filmmaker, in getting this story told?

Any project where you can’t just go and film freely yourself is always going to be inherently frustrating. In this particular case, what made it so hard were the very real risks for the people doing the filming. Some people who were filming for us would just disappear and have to go on the run for a month, for fear of being detected by the regime.

“There’s this strange irony — in the past, the government has held punishments in public because they want the people to know what the potential consequences of crime are. Yet they don’t want the outside world to see it — they care about how they’re perceived.”

What surprised you the most in making this film?

The bravery of people like Yasser who felt so strongly about bringing change to their country that they took the risk of secretly filming what the regime didn’t want the outside world to see.

Also, I hadn’t realized before starting work on the film just how many problems are piling up for the Saudi regime. It’s not just a matter of young people being unhappy, or Shia people in the East feeling oppressed and rising up, or pressure from strict religious conservatives. The oil price crash had a huge impact. Fighting these wars in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere has, too. And then there’s the Iran factor. Quite a lot of our interviewees described this confluence as the perfect storm.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out, and to see where things stand five years down the line — especially since it’s a country with so many young people: Something like 70 percent of people in Saudi Arabia right now are under 30.

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Watch the full film Saudi Arabia Uncovered in our Documentaries section.

Frontline Article: How James Jones Uncovered a Rarely Seen Side of Saudi Arabia.

Click on the SQUARE TAG TITLES below for more articles about that topic.

Yemen: Why United Nations Should Protect The Yemenis

Why people with a voice must demand that world leaders intervene in the Saudi-led coalition attack on the Yemeni people.

Inside Saudi Arabia Butchery Slavery. History of Revolt. Portrait of the first king. — Portrait of Abdulaziz al-Saud, *1920*.

This is the basic history of territory, and important differences between Yemeni and Saudi way of life and beliefs.

This attack on Yemen, a country of peaceful and simple-living people, is rooted in the royal family’s personal vendetta which dates back to 1932.

That is the year world leaders agreed to allow al-Saud to claim the territory he had besieged using paid militia, going from village to village pillaging and killing; and even back then the Yemeni fought off al-Saud’s invasion of Arabia.

Yemen was recognized as a separate nation at the time al-Saud was allowed to claim territory in Arabia as his realm, and it is made clear in this map from 1932 that outlined al-Saud’s Kingdom borders.

You see, Abdulaziz al-Saud was never crowned by the people – he crowned himself – and the world leaders backed him as king.

And today, over 2.5 million innocent Yemeni are trapped between Western politics and Saudi weapon sales.

And the undeniable consequence is Saudi Arabia’s siege and systematic demolishing of Yemen.

The self-proclaimed royal family has always inflicted inhumane suffering on their own citizens. Now they have laid siege to a bordering country and trapped its people; inflicting Yemenis with the slow, painful death by starvation; loss of limbs, livelihood and loved ones; fear from constant unlawful airstrikes that drop outlawed cluster-bombs on their homes and facilities; and then there are militant snipers indiscriminately killing civilian men, women, children, even babies – and the people have no safe place to run or hide – and the world leaders still back the king.

Below is a point by point reason why people in Western nations need to protect the Yemenis, and save their culture from complete destruction by the Saudis.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

image004Saudi woman dragged into the street by her hair, and then immediately beheaded for alleged adultery. — Saudi woman dragged into the street by her hair, then immediately beheaded for alleged adultery. (Snapshot: Video).

Islamic Kingdom
Follows the Sharia Law per the Wahhabi/Salafi Doctrine
Follows the Violent Wahhabi/Salafi Doctrine as interpreted by Abdul Wahab (Wahhabi)
Interpret Jihad contrary to the Quran as a war with non-followers
Tortures and beheads for practicing Christians and Muslims other than Sunnis
Women forced to wear black burka
Wife and daughters have no authority or say in their future
Women have no rights unless approved by guardians
Publicly beheads men, women and children
Tortures people in the most inhumane and painful way, most die in captivity from their wounds
Inside Saudi Arabia: History of Revolt – prison torture victims. (Snapshot: Video).
Kills non-violent activists and journalists
Bombs hospitals and doctors
Uses outlawed cluster bombs on civilians
Waged war on the soil of Yemen, one of the poorest countries, which had no notable form of military to resist invasion.
Blocks humanitarian and press access to villages they have besieged
Allowed to force women into marriages, have multiple wives, including child brides
Use a “Morality” police force who have powers to arrest anyone who doesn’t follow the Sharia Law

Republic of Yemen

Though many women in Yemen shroud themselves completely in black, colorful head scarves and veils (sitara) are often seen in the markets. (Photo/credit: National Geographic). — Yemeni women will wear colorful head scarves and veils (sitara) often seen in the markets. (Photo: Nat. Geo.).

Muslim
The oldest civilization in Arabia
Extremely hospitable people
Interpret Jihad according to the Quran as a war with one self’s morality and values
All religions have lived in harmony and acceptance for centuries
One of the very few countries where the Shia/Sunni divide has been non-existent
Women wear a variety of colourful Hijab, burka or Niqab
A progressive country with women in high government positions.
Women have rights and the ability to move about publicly without male escort or guardians
Yemeni woman in bright scarf and woven hat. (Photo: Thana Faroq).
Doesn’t behead or crucify law offenders
Doesn’t torture or hold people captive
Doesn’t kill humanitarians or non-violent activists
Did not wage war on Saudi soil
Does not block humanitarian aid or journalists
Allowed to have multiple wives, and child brides, however it is by tradition, not slavery, and girls retain freedom of public movement

It is time to stop the invasion by Saudi Arabia and give Yemenis back the freedom to choose their own government.

Even more importantly the ability to protect their way of life from a neighbouring tyrannical kingdom that will subject the Yemenis to a fate worse than death.

Put yourself in their shoes… walk a day… and then write your government and the United Nations Security Council – demand the UNSC intervene in the attack on Yemen.

Listings of Government Departments:

This article will be followed up with additional chapters.

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View a gallery of intimate photos of the Yemeni people in our Window To War section: The many faces of endurance and hope.

Please send inquiries and permission to re-blog this article to Alistair.Reign@Gmail.com, thank you.

Yemen: UN Says It Could Help Yemenis If A Pause Holds

The latest attempt at a humanitarian pause in Yemen “has not been respected by any party to the conflict,” the United Nations’ humanitarian chief said Tuesday, adding that a plan to reach 3 million Yemenis with aid is ready to go if only the fighting would stop.

Stephen O’Brien briefed the Security Council and repeated the call for an “unconditional freeze” in the months-long fighting between a Saudi-led coalition and Shiite Houthi rebels in the Arab world’s poorest country.

A five-day humanitarian pause announced by the Saudi-led coalition quickly fell apart early Monday. An earlier pause announced this month by the U.N. also failed.

O’Brien told the council that as of last Friday, health facilities in Yemen had reported more than 4,000 conflict-related deaths since the coalition began airstrikes in late March.

He said he will travel to Yemen in the coming weeks, and Yemen’s U.N. ambassador said he welcomes the Aug. 9 visit.

O’Brien is expected to visit the southern port city of Aden, which the U.N. says has been devastated in the four months of fighting. The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen was only able to reach Aden this week for a brief visit after a 12-hour boat ride via Djibouti.

The Saudi-led coalition has been accused repeatedly of killing civilians in its airstrikes against the Houthis, but the country’s U.N. ambassador, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, tried to play down expressions of concern about “casualties here, casualties there.”

“I can assure you that no deliberate targeting of civilian sites is being undertaken by coalition forces,” he told reporters.

AP Big Story: UN says it could help 3 million in Yemen if a pause holds.