Al Mukalla: Former president of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh has turned down calls to sever ties with the Al Houthi militia and charged those who took part in a Riyadh conference to explore a political solution to the crisis facing the country — including some of his former allies — of treason.
Saleh said in an interview to the Beirut-based television station Al Mayadeen on Friday that the Saudi-led campaign against the Al Houthi takeover has prompted him to ally with the Al Houthis. “All people who attended Riyadh conference and backed the aggression have judged on themselves that they will not come back to Yemen.”
The three-day conference that brought together hundreds of Yemeni figures, including senior members of Saleh’s party, concluded on May 19. The conference mainly explored ways of forging a coalition to confront the Al Houthis and defeat Saleh’s agenda of military expansion across the country. The meeting also came up with many recommendations to address the situation created by the Al Houthi takeover in September.
In one of the recommendations, participants at the conference approved “using all military and political means to end [Al Houthis] coup” and rallying armed resistance against the Al Houthis and Saleh’s forces.
The alliance between Saleh and the Al Houthis has become more visible in recent months since Saudi Arabia and allied nations launched an offensive to dislodge the militia in Yemen. The operation’s primary aim is to reinstate president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and halt the Al Houthis’ expansionist designs.
“Essentially this was a summit of anti-Al Houthi forces willing to declare loyalty to Hadi; there were few surprises among the attendees,” Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and Yemen-based correspondent for the Economist, Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy between 2011-2014, told Gulf News.
The Saleh-Al Houthi alliance has continued making gains on the ground despite air strikes, and Saleh on Friday appeared more determined to challenge the Saudis.
The conference demanded that the Al Houthis relinquish power, hand over weapons and retreat to their heartland in north Yemen. “Given the chaos taking place in Yemen, the Al Houthi group is unlikely to give this power up,” Sama’a Al Hamdani, an independent Yemen analyst based in Washington DC, told Gulf News.
Recent appointments of new governors by the Al Houthi-backed ‘Revolutionary Committee’ shows that the Al Houthis are turning a deaf ear to “what goes on in Saudi Arabia”, Al Hamdani said.
Shortly after Hadi appointed a new minister of interior on May 24, the Al Houthis responded by appointing six new governors.
The two analysts held the view that the Riyadh conference’s mission to restore peace in Yemen would be impacted due to factors like lack of representation and failure to bring together forces that oppose the Al Houthis. “Obviously, the lack of representation of all parties involved in the conflict and Riyadh’s insistence in proceeding with a failed UN-constructed transitional plan is standing in the way of achieving tangible peace,” Al Hamdani said, referring to the peace deal that was brokered by the UN and Gulf states to solve a political standoff in 2011.
“The conference did not achieve unification of anti-Al Houthi ranks; the anti-Al Houthi coalition remains a diverse melange of groups largely united in name only,” Baron said, adding: “The fact remains that the groups with most of the power on the ground are Al Houthis and Saleh, while even pro-Saudi groups remain divided and anything but united in support of Hadi and the Riyadh government.”
But supporters of the Riyadh conference insist that the gathering did come up with a united and coherent decision on how to deal with the expansionist push of the Al Houthi-Saleh combine across Yemen.
Najeeb Ghallab, a Yemeni political analyst who strongly backs Hadi, told Gulf News that the conference had been successful in forging a “new” consensus between different factions.
“The recommendations will be a springboard for a unified action to liberate Yemen from fascism and sectarianism,” he said.
