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21. Negotiation and Deescalation – The Yemen Review, November 2019

Author:
Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The Yemen Review Launched in June 2016, The Yemen Review – formerly known as Yemen at the UN – is a monthly publication produced by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies. It aims to identify and assess current diplomatic, economic, political, military, security, humanitarian and human rights developments related to Yemen. In producing The Yemen Review, Sana’a Center staff throughout Yemen and around the world gather information, conduct research, hold private meetings with local, regional, and international stakeholders, and analyze the domestic and international context surrounding developments in and regarding Yemen. This monthly series is designed to provide readers with a contextualized insight into the country’s most important ongoing issues.
Topic:
Security, Human Rights, United Nations, Conflict, Negotiation, Transportation, Military, and Deescalation
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

22. Yemen at the UN – June 2018 Review

Author:
Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In June, the Saudi-led military coalition and associated ground forces began their long-anticipated offensive against Houthi-held Hudaydah city. The ports of Hudaydah and nearby Saleef, along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, are the entry point for the majority of the country’s commercial and humanitarian imports. This creates the potential for catastrophic humanitarian fallout from the offensive given that 8.4 million Yemenis are already on the verge of famine. United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, spent most of June engaged in shuttle diplomacy with the belligerent parties to the conflict, and in consultations with the UN Security Council (UNSC), pushing a plan to preempt the attack by having Houthi forces turn control of Hudaydah port over to UN monitors (see ‘The UN Special Envoy’s Plan for Hudaydah Port’). Griffiths also revealed his new proposed framework for wider peace negotiations to the UNSC. While including some elements that differentiate it from previous UN-led peace initiatives, contentious items that led earlier efforts to fail were carried over into Griffiths’ latest proposed framework (see ‘The Special Envoy’s New Peace Framework’). The UNSC itself held three closed-door sessions regarding Yemen in June. The Swedish mission led calls for the UNSC to demand a halt to the Hudaydah attack, while the United Kingdom and Kuwait were at the forefront of pushing back against this effort, with the latter parties largely being successful. Council products regarding Yemen last month thus amounted to generic statements regarding respect for international humanitarian law and the need to protect civilians (see ‘UNSC Discussions on the Hudaydah Offensive’). In the United States, the White House appeared to give tentative approval to the Hudaydah offensive (see ‘White House Position on the Hudaydah Offensive’), while bipartisan opposition to the campaign was notable in Congress (see ‘Congressional Opposition to the Offensive’ and ‘Senate Passes Bill Making US Refueling of Coalition Aircraft Conditional’). In Yemen, the Hudaydah offensive, dubbed ‘Operation Golden Victory’, was launched on June 13, with the United Arab Emirates in primary command of the campaign, supporting and coordinating between various anti-Houthi ground forces (see ‘The Hudaydah Offensive’). These forces managed to take Hudaydah airport from Houthi fighters before Abu Dhabi announced that it would temporarily suspend the attack to allow the UN Special Envoy an opportunity to pursue negotiations (see ‘UAE Announces Pause in Offensive’). The Hudaydah offensive raised widespread humanitarian concerns and concerns regarding the safety of civilians in the city, while also prompting widespread price spikes for basic commodities. In economic developments last month, the Central Bank of Yemen finalized a framework to support the importation of basic commodities, the Austrian firm OMV restarted tests on wellheads in Shabwa governorate, and the Yemeni government launched a new Internet network in an attempt to supplant the Houthi authorities’ control over the national telecommunications. Also in June, Yemeni President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi visited the UAE and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Shortly after, Hadi flew to Aden, the Yemeni government’s current capital in the country, for his first visit in more than a year and a half.
Topic:
Security, Development, Diplomacy, United Nations, Conflict, and Military
Political Geography:
Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

23. The Yemen Review – September 2018

Author:
Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In September, the Yemeni rial’s recent decline accelerated precipitously, with the currency’s value dropping to record lows by month’s end. While the rial has been under multiple, intensifying pressures stemming from the war for several years, a large increase in the money supply – through a 30 percent increase in civil servant salaries – and the collapse of peace talks last month appear to have spurred a rial sell-off in the market (see ‘Domestic Currency Hits Record Low’). A nation-wide fuel shortage ensued. Retail fuel stations closed en masse and prices for available petrol on the black market jumped an average of 130 percent relative to August, and as much as 230 percent in some areas (see ‘Fuel Shortages and Prices Surges Across Yemen’). The UN-brokered consultations between the main warring parties – the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the armed Houthi movement – collapsed before they even began due to logistics issues in transporting the Houthi delegation to Geneva for the talks (see ‘Failure of the Geneva Consultations’). The Saudi-led military coalition-backed assault on the Houthi-held port city of Hudaydah – which the coalition had “paused” in July – reignited in earnest. The coalition claimed that a victory in Hudaydah was necessary to force the armed Houthi movement back to the negotiating table (see ‘Offensive on Hudaydah City Resumes’). In southern Yemen, public protests that began in Aden in August grew and spread to other governorates, with protesters calling for measures to stem the rial’s plunge and tame rocketing prices (see ‘Protests Spread in Southern Governorates’). In northern Yemen, pro-government forces began an assault on Maran, Sa’ada governorate, which holds symbolic and strategic importance as the ancestral town of the al-Houthi family (see ‘Yemeni Government Forces Advance in Sa’ada’). Meanwhile, in the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified that the Saudi-led military coalition was taking measures to reduce harm to civilians in Yemen, as was mandated by Congress in August for continued US support for the coalition. A former State Department adviser subsequently told the Sana’a Center that “objectively, [Pompeo’s] conclusion is false”, (see ‘State Department Certifies Coalition Efforts to Reduce Civilian Casualties’). In Europe, Spain annulled an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, then backtracked, Germany approved new arms exports to coalition members, and the UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate of an experts group investigating human rights violations in Yemen. Also in September, the Sana’a Center organized the largest foreign press delegation visit to Mukalla, Hadramawt governorate, since al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was expelled from the city in 2016.
Topic:
Security, Economy, Conflict, Negotiation, Currency, and Military
Political Geography:
Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

24. The Yemen Review – November 2018

Author:
Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Representatives from Yemen’s warring parties sat at a negotiating table for the first time in more than two years at the beginning of December. The peace consultations – which took place in Sweden and were mediated by the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths – followed international pressure for a ceasefire that began in October and intensified through November. Rifts between Saudi Arabia and its most important ally, the United States, over the former’s intervention in the Yemen conflict appeared to deepen last month with the announced end of US in-flight refueling for Saudi-led military coalition aircraft operating over Yemen, and a vote in the US Senate to debate a bill to suspend military assistance to the coalition. Various governments in Europe also took steps toward banning arms sales to members of the coalition. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) member states began negotiating a new draft resolution related to the Yemen conflict in November, calling for measures to de-escalate the war and address the humanitarian crisis. This was the first proposed UNSC resolution related to Yemen since April 2015. Lobbying from Saudi Arabia and the United States, however, appeared to postpone any vote on the text at least until after the negotiations in Sweden. In Yemen, the domestic currency rebounded sharply in value against the US dollar in November after a steep collapse in the months previous. While this had the potential to help mitigate the humanitarian crisis, most of the benefits of the Yemeni rial’s recovery were absorbed before they reached consumers. Acting as a cartel to manipulate the currency market, money exchangers profited significantly from the Yemeni rial’s appreciation and most commercial retailers refused to lower prices to match the rial’s recovery. Meanwhile, international humanitarian organization Save the Children released an estimate that some 85,000 children had died of hunger in Yemen since the conflict began. In military developments, a spike in violence around Hudaydah City at the beginning of November sparked a surge in suspected violations of humanitarian and international human rights law by the warring parties involved. Elsewhere, anti-Houthi forces made battlefield gains on multiple frontlines in both the north and south of the country. Also in November, one of the main fissures in the anti-Houthi coalition appeared to mend somewhat. Following a visit by representatives of Yemen’s Islah party to Abu Dhabi, it appeared that the party had reconciled long-standing differences with the United Arab Emirates. Despite this, however, tensions between UAE-backed forces and Islah partisans once again erupted in Taiz governorate, including a spree of tit-for-tat assassinations.
Topic:
United Nations, Economy, Conflict, Negotiation, UN Security Council, and Military
Political Geography:
Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America