The Southern Movement

Sometimes people decide that they cannot secure their rights within the framework of an existing situation and they want to separate from that institution. Some of these people live in a country where the government is not willing to respect their rights as citizens. The legislative power in some countries has no intention to extend the full rights of citizenship to their people. When people cannot tolerate these situations, they start forming unions to fight for their rights and independence. They have to move from their hometowns and build their own civilizations, which is extremely difficult. If we look back through history, there have been many groups who have moved from their homelands to build their own kingdoms in support of special values that couldn't have been attained before. Among these nations are the people of South Yemen.

Secession requires fundamental change and takes many years to balance deep rooted governmental and economic imbalances. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Yemen was formed when South Yemen and North Yemen over 20 years ago. Under the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the past 30 years, Yemenis in the south have seceded due in part to widespread corruption and electoral fraud.

As Jason Ditz stated, South Yemen and North Yemen united on May 22, 1990. A civil war broke out in 1994 which resulted in defeat of the southern armed forces and the expulsion of most of the southern leaders. After the civil war in 1994 in Yemen, many southerners complained of injustices against them. Thirteen years later, the people in South Yemen started a movement against the Yemen government, relentlessly fighting for their independence. The southerners believed that the government was not fair to them and severely took advantage of their rights. The movement of South Yemen demanded secession from the Republic of Yemen. (1)

When South and North Yemen became united, people expected fair government practices from that point forward, respecting both the north and south to the same extent. The reality of the situation ended up being much different. After a while, Southerners started noticing and exposing government corruption, rigged elections among other concerns. According to Khaled Oweis, people claim that the power sharing arrangement agreed upon by both parties in 1990 has been mishandled in favor of the ruling party, led by Saleh. He also states that this was the same accusation given by former southern leaders, which eventually led to the 1994 civil war. (2)

Not only were people dissatisfied with government rules, but they also felt that their land, home to the majority of the country's oil reserves and wealth, was illegally appropriated as part of a conspiracy by the rulers of north Yemen. Qadish, a former diplomat, said "The unity agreement was based on sharing power and sources." He also stated "The experiment has utterly failed. We were