Will there be unity or separation?

Aden: On May 22, Yemenis will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the unity between South and North.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh said he will deliver a speech on this occasion to open a new chapter in Yemen's history and let bygones be bygones.

However, calls for separation by disgruntled groups in the south have been rising.

Hardline separatists say the north is occupying the south and they will continue to struggle for independence while the moderates and politicians want only to return to peaceful unity, which they say ended the civil war of 1994, four years after the union was proclaimed.

The real problem started after the war when the north was portrayed as winner and the south the loser.

Tens of thousands of military and security people from the southern army were retired or marginalised after that bloody war.

The government formed committees to fix the problems of the retirees. The committee said all the retired would return to their jobs and their rights protected.

The lands, which were nationalised by the Socialist Party, which ruled the south before unity, were redistributed unfairly after the war, according to the activists of the southern movement.

Most of these lands went to corrupt officials, mostly from the north.

An official report issued by a fact-finding committee said 15 officials were behind the problem.

The corruption involved in the land distribution and the marginalisation of the members of the southern army were the main factors behind the southern movement, according the observers and activists.

Furthermore, observers say the land issue was even more complicated because of two things — the nationalisation after the Socialist Party took over in the south in early 1970s and the redistribution of the same lands after the war of 1986 between two Socialist factions. The faction that lost the war of 1986 went to the north of Yemen.

Marginalised

The losing faction led by Ali Nasser Mohammad, president of the south before the 1986 war , who is now in exile in Syria, was marginalised when unity was proclaimed in 1990 by the northern President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the southern leader of the winning faction Ali Salem Al Beidh.

Four years later, another war erupted between the two partners of the unity which ended with the defeat of the secessionists led by Ali Salem Al Beidh who was exiled to Oman where he spent about 15 years away from politics before he returned to lead the secessionists from Germany in April 2009.

After the war of 1994, the faction of Ali Nasser Mohammad was given the upper hand to deal with the land issue in the south.

This correspondent visited the southern provinces of Yemen where he met representatives of separatists, opposition leaders, government officials and independent and ordinary people to get first hand information on the situation there.

"They [the Sana'a regime] declared the war on the south in April 1994, that war ended the peaceful unity," said Qasim Dawoud, Aden secretary of the Socialist Party, which ruled the south before unity.

Dawoud accused Saleh's regime of using Al Qaida against them in the 70-day war of 1994.

"The regime brought Al Qaida from Afghanistan to fight us, and they are allies until now," he said in an interview.

Asked why the southern movement only started in 2007, Dawoud said they were waiting for reforms, "correction of the path of unity, and removing the impacts of the war."

"Unity is the dignity of Yemenis, but we need now a new format for it," he said.

"The solution now is the return to the genuine partnership agreement on which the peaceful unity was proclaimed in 1990," said Dawoud who refuses separation but also refuses the current unity.

The separatist groups, which receive support from a separatist group outside the opposition, do not have a unified leadership. They call themselves a peaceful movement despite repeated clashes between them and security forces.

Many northerners were killed by such groups only because they were northerners, and many shops and properties of people of northern origins have been plundered and burnt since the movement started in April 2007.

Zahra Saleh, 32, is an activist and leading woman within the disgruntled groups that call for separation.

Armed with a bachelor's degree and unemployed since her graduation five years ago, Zahra said the separatist groups would take up weapons to restore their former southern state if peaceful struggle does not work.

"What we want is our former state of the south. We will use weapons if injustice continues; we can purchase the weapons from the army," said Zahra who was completely covered in her black "sharshaf" veil.

She only agreed to be interviewed in a secret place because she was being closely monitored, she said.

However, the people in the streets of Aden have different views from those of the politicians who talk about the correction of the unity path and removing the impact of the war and those groups who call for separation even by force.

Yasser, a 30-year-old cab driver, said: "We do not believe the separatists, we know them well, if they achieve their mission they will return to killing each other, they have a bloody history."

A war between two factions of a separatist group in January 13, 1986 killed more than 10,000 people including most of the top socialist leaders.

Mohammad, an 18-year-old high school student, said: "We are with unity, but there are problems that must be fixed."

Jamail Al Laithi, a government employee who earns only $150 (Dh550) monthly salary, said: "We do not want separation, but we do want a new government, and a new president."

Government officials, meanwhile, said the separatist groups do not represent the majority of the south which is about five million out of the 24 million population of the whole country.

Some independent organisations and individuals also play down the impact of these groups as individuals who lost personal interest.

Rashad Sultan, secretary-general of the Yemen First Organisation, a recently established local NGO that supports unity, said: "The separatists do not represent the south, they are only small groups of those who lost their interest."

"We do not have exact statistics, but you could estimate it yourself if I told you that the south is about 60 districts in its all six provinces and those groups are only in four districts in Al Dhale'e, Lahj, and Abyan provinces," said the secretary of the pro-government organisation.

Sultan said in an interview in his office in Aden, the protests in the south would disappear if the economic situation improved.

"The reason behind the movement is economic, if this issue is fixed, you will not see anyone protesting," he said.

Do you think the unity of Yemen is under threat? What is the best solution for all the concerned parties?