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grow. By the end of the civil war and thereintegration of the highlands elites intothe national consensus, Stephen Daywrites, an informal balance of poweremerged between highlands elites andthe lowlands merchant class. “In effect,”Day notes, “informal power-sharingallowed highland elites to maintainpolitical hegemony, while businesselites from the western midland andcoastal regions ran the economy.”5This extended to the government aswell, with an informal power-sharingarrangement that the president of therepublic would represent the highlandselites while the prime minister would bea midlands figure.6When Ali Abdullah Saleh becamepresident in 1978 following theassassination of Ahmad al-Ghashmi, therough balance between highlands andlowlands interests began to unravel.Saleh reintroduced the exploitativetaxation system not seen since therule of the Imamate. Citizens in themidlands region were once againtaxed at a rate approximately doublethat paid by the highlands population.7At the same time, Saleh’s policiesfavored the rise of highland tribalsheikhs, challenging the formerlydominant sayyids and their allies. Thesheikhs, especially Abdullah al-Ahmar,the paramount sheikh of the Hashidtribal confederation, assumed leadingroles in the republic’s political circles.Building on their political dominance,the sheikhs, especially those of theHashid and Bakil tribal confederations,5 next entered into competition with thetraditional midlands merchant classfor economic control. Under Saleh,therefore, northwestern highlands tribalsheikhs were the principal beneficiariesof the extractive political and economicsystem that has plagued Yemen’sdevelopment ever since. The discoveryof oil in Marib Governorate in 1984provided new opportunities for corruptexploitation by the highlands elites andbecame a new source of grievance forthe marginalized populations of theNorth and the midlands.A UNITY ACCORDIN 1990 QUICKLYFOUNDERSNorth and South Yemen enjoyed a rollercoaster relationship from independenceuntil their unity agreement in 1990.At various times, both Sana’a andAden promoted unification as interestwaxed and waned depending on thepersonalities of the leaders in the twostates. The charter of the Yemeni SocialistParty (YSP), the ruling party in SouthYemen after its formation in 1978, forinstance, employs Marxist terminology,declaring that the revolutionary strugglein Yemen is “dialectically correlated in itsunity”8 to argue that unity between Northand South is an essential component ofYemen’s evolution. But the leaders of thePeople’s Democratic Republic of Yemen(PDRY) were responsible for the June1978 assassination of YAR President alGhashmi, and the two states fought a

brief border war between January and March1979. Despite the persistent tensions, thetwo sides managed to develop a dialogue.PDRY President Ali Nasser Mohammedvisited Sana’a in November 1981 and, afterthe two presidents met in Kuwait, Salehtraveled to Aden.The discovery of oil in the border regionsbetween the two states provided both sideswith a financial incentive to strengthentheir relations. In April 1990, Saleh and AliSalem al-Beidh, secretary-general of theYSP, signed a unity agreement to mergethe PDRY and YAR into a new, single entity,the Republic of Yemen (RoY). Aside fromorganizing the basic elements of a newgoverning structure, the two-page dealwas remarkably short on detail. Underthe terms of the agreement, over thecourse of a 30-month interim period a fivemember Presidential Council would draft aconstitution. Until then, the council wouldrule by decree.the much more populous North based onthe unity agreement, had envisioned thatthey would dominate the political structureof the newly-unified state. In particular,they expected to do well in parliamentaryelections scheduled for 1992 (eventuallyconducted in 1993), and perhaps win amajority of seats based on their anticipatedsupport among northern voters. But theywere disappointed when they finished apoor third after Saleh’s General People’sCongress (GPC) and the newly formernorthern Islamist party, Islah. Rather thandominating the new political arrangement,the southerners saw their political influencerapidly dissipating.Economically, conditions in the PDRY werefar poorer than in the North at the timeof unification, a product not only of statecontrol of the economy but also becauseof the declining revenue stream fromthe Aden port. The PDRY leadership hadcounted on the port as the main economicengine that would finance southernIn addition to the financial motivation fromdevelopment programs, but the closurethe discovery of oil, two other factors droveof the Suez Canal from 1967-1975 forcedthe South’s agreement to the “shotguninternational shipping to develop newmarriage” with the North in 1990. First,trade routes and left Aden uncompetitive.the collapse of the former Soviet UnionNevertheless, PDRY citizens did enjoydeprived the PDRY of its most significantbenefits unmatched in the South, includingpolitical and economic partner. Second, thesubsidized basic commodities as wellbrutal 1986 intra-YSP conflict significantlyas guaranteed employment in stateweakened the PDRY government.9enterprises. The South also compared wellPopulations on both sides of the border to the North on provision of basic services,greeted the announcement of unity with particularly in health care and education.10enthusiasm. But southern satisfaction Those advantages began to erode aswith the new RoY quickly waned. Southern the North introduced its crony capitalistpolitical leaders, who initially enjoyed a50:50 power sharing arrangement with 6

economic system and the highland Aziz Abdul Ghani, an experienced,tribal elites began to extend their midlands GPC technocrat, as primeeconomic domination to the South.minister.Thus, by the end of 1993, frustratedsoutherners were openly rejectingunity and advocating a return toan independent state. After a lastattempt at a political resolutiontothegrowingNorth-Southconfrontation failed (see below fora discussion of the negotiations thatproduced the “Document of Pledgeand Accord”), southern leadersdeclared independence and theNorth launched military operationsto retake the South.Those same core issues continueto plague North-South relationsuntil the present time and form thebasis of southern challenges notonly to the Hadi government butmore broadly to the idea of Yemeniunity. The social and economicconsequences of the civil conflictwere harsh for southern citizens.The Saleh government acceleratedthe expansion of the North’s rentierpolitical and economic system in theSouth. Aden itself was ransacked byvictorious highland tribes, southernThe brief civil war in 1994 thatcivil servants and military personnelfollowed the collapse of politicalwere dismissed, and southernersnegotiations failed to resolve thecharged that northerners plunderedbasic issues that led to the conflict.the South’s energy, mineral, andAlthough Saleh maintained powerfish resources. In sum, notes Aprilsharing arrangements with theLongley Alley, “two profoundlySouth, appointing Abed Rabbodifferent narratives took shape” aboutMansour Hadi as vice president inthe outcome of the conflict. “Underplace of the exiled Ali Salim al-Beidh,one version, the war laid to rest theStephen Day observes that Saleh wasnotion of separation and solidified“mainly interested in the appearancenational unity. According to the other,of power sharing, not genuinethe war laid to rest the notion of unityrepresentation of southern interestsand ushered in a period of northernin government.”11 The number ofoccupation of the South.”12southerners in the Yemen cabinetdropped significantly as Saleh By the middle of the following decade,formed a coalition government with southern anger over their treatmentthe Islah party and appointed Abdul at northern hands began to boil over.7

The outcome of the civil war, in particularthe forced retirement of southern civilianand military officials, contributed to the riseof an organized opposition movement in theSouth.13 Beginning in a series of peacefulprotests in 2006, the movement, initially castas a “local association for military retirees,”evolved into a large-scale, generallypeaceful but occasionally violent protestmovement, al-Hirak. Pursuing his well-wornstrategy of divide and conquer (“dancingon the heads of snakes”), Saleh struggledto dilute the southern movement, offeringsome concessions to military retirees andadvocating resolution of land disputeswhile continuing efforts to marginalize oreliminate political opposition.Town taken by North Yemen forces in Daleh, Yemen on May13, 1994. Distribution of weapons to men of Murkula. (LaurentThe government’s inability to defeat theHouthis, an armed Zaydi insurgency, inthe northwest (see below) encouragedthe al-Hirak movement to intensify its owncampaign, and it clashed more aggressivelywith government forces. The demands ofthe al-Hirak movement focused on accessto government jobs and benefits and moreequitable resource sharing, especially in theenergy sector, according to April LongleyAlley. She cites the late mayor of Sana’aand advocate of decentralization, AbdulQadir al-Hilal, stating “even within a singlegovernorate, one district will complain ofmarginalization or discrimination whencompared to another. However, in theSouth, this feeling of marginalization hastaken on a political dimension becauseVAN DER STOCKT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) 8

of the absence of political opportunitiesand because it used to be an independentstate.” By the time of the Arab Spring in 2011,southern support for al-Hirak and new callsfor separation from the North were again onthe rise.15POPULISM IN THENORTH REFLECTED INSIX SA’DAH WARSMany of the unresolved issues from therepublican revolt of the 1960s and itsaftermath, particularly in the years ofSaleh’s rule, helped to trigger the Houthirebellion in six Sa’dah wars between June2004 and February 2010. Like the post-unitySouth, northern Zaydi populations grewincreasingly militant over the growth ofextractive political and economic systemsduring the Saleh era and the failure ofrepublican Yemen to provide equitablesharing of resources. Zaydi revivalism beganto grow as a counter to this marginalizationin the 1980s, predating the rise of theHouthi movement. Marieke Brandt notedin her comprehensive history of the Houthimovement that “the economic and politicalmarginalization of the Sa’dah region, theuneven distribution of economic resourcesand political participation, and the religiousdiscrimination against its Zaydi populationprovided fertile soil in which the Houthimovement could take root and blossom.”16A displaced Yemeni child from the Sa’adah region carries jerrycans at the Mazraq IDP camp in northern Yemen on December10, 2009. (KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images)9

Indeed, the scion of the Houthi clan,Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and his sonHusayn, enjoyed strong reputationsin Sa’dah as much for their deepcommitment to community serviceas for their position as sayyids. Itwas that role in the community thatmade them natural leaders of the“Believing Youth” movement in the1990s. By the early 2000s, Husaynhad developed a broad platformarticulated in a series of Zaydirevivalism,and intense criticism of the Salehregime for its economic neglect andunderdevelopment of the North.Brandt notes that, despite Husaynal-Houthi’s complaint that thegovernment was supporting Sunniand Salafist communities at theexpense of the Zaydis, his appealwas not restricted to the Zaydicommunity, but was pan-Islamic incontent.17 Thus, the image of the alHouthi family as the face of ZaydiShi’ism confronting the threat of“Sunnization” in the Zaydi heartland,therebyembodyingsectarianconflict, is at best an incompletenarrative of the Houthi movementeven if it is not an entirely inaccurateone. “In the local context,” Brandtwrites, “the Zaydi revival was far morethan a sectarian movement: underHusayn’s direction, it also embracedpowerful social-revolutionary andpolitical components.”18Nevertheless, the Saleh regimefocused its attack on the Houthirebellion by exploiting the Houthis’support for the reintroduction ofseveral predominantly Shi’a religiousobservances,includingAshura,maintaining that the Houthis werenot only advocates of Zaydi Shi’ismbut in fact represented the questfor a return of the Imamate and theintroduction of Iranian-style TwelverShi’ism.Sana’a’s angle of attack on theHouthis re-opened a second,unresolved wound from the antiImamate rebellion of the 1960s. Asnoted previously, pro-republicanforces in the 1960s created anarrative of Yemen’s earliest historythat distinguished between socalled “real Yemenis” – the Qahtani ororiginal South Yemen tribes – versuslater arrivals – the Adnani tribes fromnorthern Arabia and especially thenon-tribal sayyids, the “strangersin the house”19 who establishedthemselves in the northwesternhighlands as religious scholars andtribal mediators. The distinctionmarginalized the sayyids, traditionalrulers of Yemen’s Imamate theocracy. 10

A Yemeni anti-government protester shows her hands, painted with the colors of the flag and the slogan ‘Welcomerevolutionaries,’ during a demonstration in Sana’a on December 23, 2011 to reject an amnesty given to President AliAbdullah Saleh in a deal that eases him out of office. (MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images)Within the Zaydi population, where theHouthis did not enjoy universal support,criticism of their movement often reflectedthis anti-sayyid, Qahtani viewpoint thatinterpreted the Houthi movement as antidemocratic and backward looking.The principal beneficiaries of thismarginalization of the sayyids werethe tribal sheikhs of the northwesternhighlands and especially the newlyminted “revolution sheikhs”20 who hadfought on behalf of republican forces in theeight-year civil conflict and profited fromthe rise of Yemen’s rentier political andeconomic system. “The sheikhs benefiteddisproportionately from the republicansystem,” Brandt notes, “at [the] local level,in many respects they were the republic.”21But the elevation of the sheikhs was notsynonymous with the rise of the tribes.11 Once again, Brandt notes that “the politicsof patronage was a double-edged sword:rather than ‘nurturing’ the tribal systemgovernmental patronage has driven awedge between some influential sheikhsand their tribal home constituencies andhas generated discontent and alienationamong many ordinary tribal members.”22 Inthe conflict between sheikhs and sayyids,many of the tribes were pulled towardthe Houthi movement by the failure of thesheikhs to use their new-found power andinfluence in the republican government tosupport the tribes.Despite its enormous military advantage,Sana’a was unable to defeat the Houthirebellion, and the fighting divided thenorthern population. “Instead of puttingdown the rebellion,” Brandt writes, “thegovernment’s military campaigns triggered

destructive cycles of violence and counterviolence in Sa’dah’s tribal environment,which, step-by-step, engulfed Yemen’sNorth. During these battles, Sa’dah’scitizenry became increasingly polarizedalong government-Houthi lines. Fromthe second war, it became evident that asignificant number of people joining theHouthis’ ranks were no longer religiouslyor ideologically motivated but were drawninto the conflict for other reasons.” By theoutbreak of the Arab Spring in February 2011,the Houthis had built the most effectivemilitary force in the country and had takencontrol of all of Sa’dah Governorate as wellas large portions of neighboring Amranand al-Jawf. Although the so-called “Northof the North” was momentarily at peace,the popular anger and frustration directedtowards the Saleh government had by nomeans decreased.guaranteeing that he and his son AhmedAli would keep their grip on power for theforeseeable future. He ignored earliercommitments to the political oppositionthat he would negotiate new rules forplanned parliamentary elections deferredfrom 2009 and re-scheduled for mid-2011.But Saleh’s sense of confidence provedmisplaced. When the streets erupted inFebruary 2011, the government was caughtby surprise. Inspired by youth revolutionsin Tunisia and Egypt, young, urbanizedYemenis took to the streets to demand thatSaleh step down. The protesters focusednot only on the corruption and cronyismof the Saleh government but also on thepolitical, economic, and social stagnationthat beset the country and threatened todeprive young people, including educatedyouth, of any prospect for a secure s, the Houthis, tribal youth,and the Shafi’i population in the midlandsjoined in the protest demonstrationsand demanded, beyond Saleh’s ouster,that the transition seek to address theBy the end of 2010 and the beginning of underlying conditions that had prevented2011, President Saleh was basking in a Yemen’s development as a modern state.vision of overwhelming political mastery. An International Crisis Group analysisHe portrayed his successful hosting of suggested that the popular proteststhe GCC Cup soccer tournament in Aden promoted cooperation between northernin December 2010 as evidence that his and southern protesters and “broke throughcontrol of the South was uncontested. In the barriers of fear.” 23the far North, Saleh had convinced himselfMeanwhile, Saleh’s too clever by halfthat he had mastered the Houthi threat andpolitical maneuvering had deeply angeredthat the lull in fighting would be sustained.the opposition. General Ali Mohsen, Saleh’sHis domination of the National Assemblyheir apparent for decades until he promotedallowed him to push through legislationhis son, Ahmed Ali, as his successor, noTHE ARAB SPRINGAND A NEW PUSH FORNATIONAL UNITY 12

longer stood firmly behind his old comradein-arms. Thus, Saleh was left without friendsor negotiating partners as he scrambled toparry the street demonstrations and quellthe uprising. Running out of options, hetabled a proposal to step down, triggeringa negotiating process that would stretchout over many months, punctuated bysporadic street battles in Sana’a and othermajor cities as well as an assassinationattempt that spared Saleh (albeit seriouslywounding him) but killed and injured anumber of his senior advisors, includingPrime Minister Abdul Aziz Abdul Ghani.with his constant twisting (as well as hispersonal attacks on GCC Secretary-GeneralAbdul Latif al-Zayani, who the Saudis haddesignated to help negotiate the transitionagreement). When King Abdullah calledSaleh and told him that his time was up,Saleh was left with little choice but tocomply. The signing ceremony took placein Riyadh in November.Yemenis saw the protest movement andthe end of the Saleh regime as a newopportunity to resolve the deeper politicaland economic crisis confronting thecountry. Not only the political oppositionbut also Saleh’s own GPC supported thedemand for a broad-based initiative toaddress Yemen’s deep-seated problems.Thus, among its other elements, thetransition document, the GCC Initiativeand Implementing Mechanism, includeda requirement to conduct within its twoyear timeframe a National DialogueConference (NDC) to address the full rangeof political, economic, and social problems,including specifically southern and Houthigrievances. Launched in 2013, the NDCquickly organized itself into working groupsand began addressing a broad agenda ofissues. (See below for a discussion of theNDC recommendations.)In desperation, Saleh turned to theinternational community to help him retainhis grip on power. Having frozen cooperationwith the U.S

writes, an informal balance of power emerged between highlands elites and the lowlands merchant class. "In effect," Day notes, "informal power-sharing allowed highland elites to maintain political hegemony, while business elites from the western midland and coastal regions ran the economy."5 This extended to the government as